SDG 1 - Fighting Poverty

Authors:
1) Debmalya Banik Choudhury - B19074
2) Eshan Tyagi - B19077
3) Jadhav Chetan Bharat - B19080
4) Sayan Chatterjee - B19105
5) Shubham Kapoor - B19110
6) Vineet Singh Rawat - B19117

The Sustainable Development Goal of No Poverty looks at not only the absolute numbers but also the socio-economic fallout of global poverty. With more than 80% of the people located in South Asian regions and certain parts of Africa living on less than $1.90 and 50% of all people living in poverty being under 18 years of age, poverty has serious fallouts on the demographic dividend as well. Poverty also threatens basic living human rights – food, clean drinking water and sanitation. Poverty also deepens the gender divide, since women are more likely to be poor than men due to lower accessibility to land and other property.

Current Developments around the world

According to the non-profit public policy organisation Brookings, September 2018 was a watershed moment for the world in terms of global poverty. For the first time since proper human civilization started its first steps from the vast swathes of agriculture, the majority of humankind is no longer under imminent threat of falling into poverty. Discretionary expenditure - cost that a business or household can get by without, if necessary – drives the dividing line between describing demographics as “middle class” or “rich”. In that September, more than 50% of the global population was deemed to have enough discretionary expenditure to be considered out of the poverty cycle. (ClassDivide, n.d.)

This is important because the middle class has long been considered to be the driving factor in the economy – this rapidly burgeoning class sets the demand and supply natures of the market. What is interesting however, is to notice how the top 10% of the richest are no longer West-centric. It has spread and Asia has a higher percentage of millionaires in the world. But what has also happened is the growing gulf in retained earnings for a family. The bottom 10% have an even lesser share of the global wealth, as pointed out by Walter Scheidel in his book, The Great Leveller. (Poverty Narrative, 2018)

The UNDP reports that progress has been rather limited in South Asia and sub Saharan Africa and their efforts need to be stepped up to achieve goals by 2030.

ROLE OF DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS

Role of UN (especially UNDP)

The UN and its bodies have worked actively in various areas for poverty alleviation.

Through the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PSPR) approach to poverty reduction in low-income countries, ILO has attempted to reduce poverty in highly indebted poor countries. It has also tried to introduce alleviation measures to help the disabled, that can make up to 10% of the country’s population. (ILOpolicies, n.d.)

The UNDP has also taken up projects in Moldova and Cambodia to help people in poverty.

Role of NGOs

Care India, an NGO working in India for close to 70 years, is one of the most well-known names in the landscape of poverty and social injustice alleviation. Their focus is mostly on women and girls and equip them with proper resources. (CareIndia, n.d.)

Women for long have been proven to help whole families and entire communities overcome poverty, social injustice and marginalisation.

Role of Society at large

Chronic poverty – the phenomenon of being poor for many years - affects populations in Africa and south Asia, as well as pockets of South America. This results from natural resource dense areas, on which their dependency is high. The inability to absorb unforeseen natural calamities severely inhibits the movement out of the poverty cycle. But with the help of society, more equitable distribution would not require to be enforced, but would rather be a spontaneous outcome. (PovertyReduction, n.d.)

Role of Governments

One of the focal points of today’s poverty hot zones is Africa. However, political instability and economic uncertainty has largely hampered equitable distribution of wealth. Nigeria, for instance, has 87 million people living in abject poverty, growing at a rate of 6 people every minute. Schemes introduced by governments include: (poverty, n.d.)

1.     Minimum wages – The concept of Universal Basic Income has been floated in many areas

2.     Direct provision of goods/services – provision for free education, housing and healthcare.

3.     Welfare benefits – unemployment benefits, food stamps, income support.

Role of Organizations

Many global companies are involved in achieving the No Poverty SDG by 2030.

1.     CropLife International is an agrochemical company that was founded in 2001. Through its “Progress through Partnership” project since 2005, it helps deliver training to farmers across the world in good agricultural practices helping them produce healthy crops. This has helped in increasing the crop yields for over 4 million farmers while reducing the incidence of poverty. (Businees for 2030, n.d.)

2.     MasterCard, a global payments & technology company is helping people get out of poverty by making financial systems more accessible to more than 300 million people around the world. It is also working with various governments to help them distribute economic benefits to needy people using electronic payments. (Businees for 2030, n.d.)

3.     Qualcomm manufactures semiconductor and telecommunication equipment while at the same time helping in social and economic development of fishermen in Colombia through advanced wireless tech. The project has helped increase the average income of fishermen by 15% by using the smartphones resulting in better business practices. (Businees for 2030, n.d.)

4.     DonationMatch is a cause-based platform startup that acts as an intermediary between non-profit organizations and businesses that donate money, raffles and other giveaways. Till date it has helped in exchanging donations worth $64,750,164, helping donated item to reach its targeted audience seamlessly. (Donation Match, n.d.)

5.     Mondelez through its Cocoa Life program is trying to help smallholder farmers come out of poverty while at the same time ensuring that cocoa is obtained sustainably. By using enhanced supply chain practices, it has pledged to improve the lives of more than 2 lakh cocoa farmers in cocoa growing regions and communities. (Mondelez , n.d.)

6.     Royal Bank of Scotland is trying to help children in Scotland who are affected by poverty by raising money for STV Charitable Trust. It has been able to raise £700,000 with the help of its employees and customers since 2011. (Royal Bank of Scotland, n.d.)

SDG OF NO POVERTY IN INDIA

Over the previous decade, India has been the fastest growing economy in the world. The growth of the GDP, stable inflation and prices means greater employment and wages and subsequent increase in the Purchasing Power Parity of an individual. This is how there is a decrease in the percentage of population living under the poverty line in the country.

Further, several Government schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has provided employment to about 50 crore households since 2008 and Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has provided clean fuels to the households thereby helping India to achieve the sustainable development Goal.

Despite the great improvement in the poverty levels of the country, a large chunk of people still lives under $3 a day making India a low-medium income country. In order to achieve the sustainable development goal of no poverty by 2030, India needs to put in more effort compared to the other Asia-Pacific countries. “India needs to spend around 10 per cent of its GDP, while rest of Asia-Pacific countries need to spend 5 per cent of their GDP to achieve SDGs,” according to Nagesh Kumar, director of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). (India-Using-GDP)

Organizations working for the SDG in India

There are several Indian companies that have been fighting the poverty in India since their inception. We have discussed the effort of two organization in particular that have specific programs to address the SDG of ‘No Poverty’.

1.     Narayana Health Limited (NHL)- NHL has been responsible for providing affordable health surgeries, cataract removals, and free check-ups to the low-income individuals. Today as a part of its CSR activity, NHL the social initiative – Sambandh. Through this initiative they provide employment opportunities to the women living below the poverty line. Another such company is Ujjvan, which started as an NBFC in 2005. It later received an approval to work as a small finance bank. Women living under poverty are provided a small amount of loan which is interest free. (Private Firms in India contributing to SDG's)

2.     Parinaam- Parinaam is a foundation by Ujjvan and one of the programs it runs is Urban Ultra Poor Program. The program aims at supporting the critical areas of familial development like Livelihood, Healthcare, Education and Financial Literacy. The ultimate goal that the program serves is to make the households self-reliant and earn a sufficient income to live a poverty free life. Since December 2018, 5335 families have been lifted above poverty and made sustainable. (Ujjivan n.d.)

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS SUPPORTING ‘NO POVERTY’

1.     New Technologies like 5G, Internet of Things are reducing the transaction cost of making information and products available to the nooks and corner of planet readily thereby with greater transparency there is a healthy competition and leading to affordable price of products to ensure poor people can get it. It minimizes corruption and brings transparency. Charities are available to spend their fund on the genuinely deserving people because of the presence of technology which brings credibility and trust to the system.

2.     Also, more and more jobs are getting created as we explore the blue ocean markets if new technologies leading to exponential growth in economies of nations particularly emerging countries like India, China and thus it creates job opportunities for more people. This demand propels poor people towards education and vocational skills. (Ludlow, 22 Jan. 2015)

3.     Furthermore, it is essential that people get access to healthy environment such that they don’t suffer from diseases which people under poverty easily gets caught with owing to poor hygiene. Here new technologies play an important role to bring affordable healthcare benefits to these categories and uplift them out of their miseries.

4.     Technology has helped to predict natural catastrophe accurately and hence minimizes human and property loss something we saw in the cyclone Fani that greatly affected Odisha. Government of India with help of technology thus timely shifted the population majority of whom were poor people. (Kline, 27 Nov. 2014,)

RECOMMENDATIONS

1.               Strong social protection schemes and Increase in government spending 

Globally there has been a decline in extreme poverty level, but the rate of decline has slowed down in recent years. This deceleration is a threat to achieving the goal of lowering the poverty level to less than 3% by the year 2030  (SDG 1 Goals, n.d.).  A strong response to this deceleration could be achieved by having strong social protection schemes, increase in government spending on key essential goods and services and hence help those left behind in their efforts to escape poverty.  (SDG 1, n.d.).

2.               Shifting power and control of resources to the developing countries

The predecessor to this goal, MDG 1 (Millenial Development Goal 1) was able to achieve its goal 5 years early. But this achievement came along with stark regional differences in terms of its effect. To end this regional disparity, and achieve the SDG we need to do a few things differently from what we did to achieve the MDG1. We need to become political while dealing with different countries and shift the power and control of resources to the developing countries who have the largest burden of responsibilities for this SDGs (MDG1 vs SDG1, n.d.).

3.               Redistribution of goods and services

Along with these measures, a national implementation scheme made to adhere to the goals declared in the meetings should also be taken. Redistribution of goods and services should not be a taboo, and the government policies should be framed in a way which encourages reuse over shopping new things. Apart from the government, the NGOs can play a big part in the redistribution movement and can leverage their reach and networking to accelerate the process of achieving poverty-free India (MDG1 vs SDG1, n.d.).

4.               Programs aimed at increasing Citizen Awareness

In the end the local citizens are those whose change of behaviour can bring about the necessary change in the poverty scenario of India. Awareness and Motivation to eliminate poverty out of the country can accelerate the process of achieving the SDG’s than planned  (MDG1 vs SDG1, n.d.).

5.               Companies moving beyond mandatory CSRs

Businesses which are already active in this field in its CSR campaigns add further contribution to goal of eliminating poverty. Companies must think beyond their mandatory CSR funding and focus towards issues such as poverty, quality education (which will ultimately improve the income level of people)  (MDG1 vs SDG1, n.d.).

References

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CareIndia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.careindia.org/our-work/livelihood/

ClassDivide. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/09/27/a-global-tipping-point-half-the-world-is-now-middle-class-or-wealthier/

Donation Match. (n.d.). Retrieved from Donation Match: https://www.donationmatch.com/#

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