What’s in the way of achieving the SDGs?
14/11/2024: Having passed the halfway point of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, serious doubts linger regarding the attainability of these targets. Prominent figures in the global development community share thoughts on the biggest challenge to meeting the SDGs.
Source: Devex
Political narratives on poverty in India that mislead
1/6/2024: Demonstrating poverty reduction is a mainstay of political success in India and also relevant to global progress. A government agency reports that multidimensional poverty fell from 24.85 per cent to 14.96 per cent over the period 2015-2021. But the challenges of data collection, reliability and manipulation, mean that India's statistics on poverty must be treated with scrutiny.
Source: East Asia Forum
Ethiopia’s social safety net programme faces a funding gap
28/3/2024: Ethiopia’s flagship social protection programme has cut food and cash transfers to the country’s poorest households, due to rising prices and cutbacks from some international donors. The Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) was launched in 2005 as a resilience-building social safety net, now recognised as one of the most ambitious social protection programmes in Africa.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Human Development Report finds gridlock on global challenges
12/3/2024: The UN's 2023/24 Human Development Index reveals how uneven development progress is leaving the poorest behind, stoking political polarization on a global scale. The accompanying report warns that protectionist approaches cannot address the complex, interconnected challenges we face.
Source: UN Development Programme
How Africa data gaps fuel poor governance
2/2/2024: Lack of data in critical sectors in Africa is undermining public policy, according to a new study by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. In 14 African countries, the last population census was conducted before 2010, impeding plans to deliver the UN's Sustainable Development Goals such as the eradication of extreme poverty.
Source: The East African
India: Is poverty really decreasing?
23/1/2024: India claims that almost 250 million people have been lifted out of multidimensional poverty in the past nine years, according to a report by a government think tank.. However, experts have raised doubts about a lack of relevant data.
Source: DW
Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020
15/1/2024: The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020, while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. Oxfam urges a new era of public services, corporate regulation, breaking up monopolies and enacting taxes on permanent wealth and excess profit.
Source: Oxfam International
Bjørn Lomborg: The climate contrarian who puts poverty first
16/10/2023: Under political pressure, the World Bank has unequivocally added climate change to its anti-poverty mandate. Bjørn Lomborg speaks out for those who believe that limited resources should be prioritised to tackle poverty and hunger.
Source: Devex
Inflation, COVID plunges 68 million into poverty in Asia
24/8/2023: An estimated 155.2 million people in developing Asia, which is 3.9% of the region's population, lived in extreme poverty as of last year. This figure was 67.8 million higher than it would have been without the pandemic and cost-of-living crises, according to a report published by the Asian Development Bank.
Source: DW
Fragility & poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: two sides of the same coin
17/8/2023: In the three decades since 1990, extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa has declined only slightly; whereas in South Asia and in East Asia and the Pacific regions the reduction has been very significant. Fragility, conflict, and violence, or more generally, the lack of peace and security, is a key explanation for the difference.
Source: Inter Press Service