Who Is Working on Poverty Alleviation?

Poverty has been declared public enemy number one, so there are many people working on poverty alleviation around the world. In its 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015, the United Nations listed “no poverty by 2030” as the first goal.[1] This would mean just three percent of the world’s population is living under the extreme poverty line.[2]Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has spoken on his optimism of meeting this goal, and indeed, the world poverty level has dropped significantly in the last three decades.[3]

With such big names involved and such progress, it could be easy to assume that poverty is solved; however, events of recent years have set this progress back significantly. Though the downward trend is now re-established, between 75 million and 95 million more people could be living in extreme poverty in 2022 compared to 2019.[4] Lingering effects of global shutdowns, conflict and inflation are expected to be felt in many countries through 2030, so the goal of bringing the global poverty rate to three percent is now beyond reach without major, significant, and swift action being taken by many of these struggling countries.[5]