{"id":107883,"date":"2023-01-31T14:58:23","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T19:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?page_id=107883"},"modified":"2023-01-31T14:58:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T19:58:23","slug":"goal-of-the-month-editorial-january-2023","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/goal-of-the-month-editorial-january-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Goal of the Month Editorial | January 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201c<\/span>The cost-of-living crisis is hitting <\/span>hard,<\/span> and inequalities are growing<\/span>..<\/span>.<\/span>I am more determined than ever to make 2023 a year for peace, a year for action. We can\u2019t accept things as they are. We owe it to people to find solutions, to fight back and to act.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

91茄子 Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u00a0<\/strong>at<\/span>\u00a0his end-of-year press conference<\/span>,<\/span> 19 December 2022<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2023 is upon us \u2013 a pivotal year marking the mid-point in the implementation of <\/span>the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development<\/a><\/span> and the 17 <\/span><\/span>Sustainable Development Goals<\/a><\/span> (SDGs).\u00a0 The year\u2019s first edition takes a close look at <\/span>Goal 1<\/span><\/a> (no poverty) while highlighting some key moments in the lead-up to <\/span>the SDG Summit<\/a><\/span> in September.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Historic Declines in Poverty\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The past several decades has seen a major progress in reducing extreme poverty \u2013 defined as living on less than $1.25 a day.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2000, 91茄子 Member States adopted a set of eight time-bound goals for combating poverty, hunger, diseases, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), covering the period from 1990 to 2015. One of the main goals was to halve the proportion of people whose income was less than\u00a0$1.25 a day. More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990, when nearly half of the population in the developing regions lived under that threshold. This rate dropped to 14 per cent in 2015. The target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half was indeed met five years ahead of the 2015 deadline.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, Member States adopted <\/span>the 2030 Agenda<\/a><\/span> and the SDGs \u2013 the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all \u2013 covering the 15-year period from 2016 to 2030. The 2030 Agenda seeks to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030. The global poverty rate kept falling from 10.1 per cent in 2015 to 8.3 per cent in 2019, giving much hope for the arrival of a world free from poverty.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

COVID-19, Conflict and Cost-of-living Crises\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts punctuated this historic run of declines in the global poverty rate, pushing it up to 9.2 per cent in 2020 \u2013 the first increase since 1998 and the largest one since 1990.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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This unprecedented reversal is being further exacerbated by rising inflation and the impacts of the war in Ukraine. It is estimated that these combined crises will lead to an additional 75\u201395 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022, compared with pre-pandemic projections.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>At his <\/span>end-of-year press conference<\/a><\/span>, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said: \u201cThe cost-of-living crisis is hitting hard, and inequalities are growing \u2013 affecting the world\u2019s women and girls the most.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He went on to note that most of the world\u2019s poorest countries find themselves on \u2018debt row\u2019 \u2013 staring down the abyss of insolvency and default. In 2022 alone, their debt service payments skyrocketed 35 per cent \u2013 the largest increase in decades. \u201cThe poor are getting poorer,\u201d he warned.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Key UN Reports\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two important UN reports will be released in January.\u00a0 See how SDGs, including Goal 1, fared in them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n