Global Poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), adopted in 2015 by the United Nations, are the most comprehensive and ambitious poverty reduction plan the world has embarked upon.
They expand the scope of the world community’s previous efforts to eradicate the burden poverty places on the world population.
This burden, the burden of poverty, is literally carried on the heads and on the backs of the poor.
But the burden poverty places on society and individuals isn’t just economic or physical. Poverty causes the poor to suffer emotionally and spiritually as well.
That's why the Sustainable Development Goals aren't just about ending poverty around the world. They're about protecting the planet and ensuring all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
Building a sustainable future means finding ways to meet the needs of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It requires a unified, collaborative and global approach that isn't bound by cultures, conditions or continents.
Because a life of poverty means the poor carry a shade of poverty in their hearts and wear it etched on their faces. They become shells of unfulfilled potential and possibility.
Efforts to eliminate extreme poverty in the world have gradually lowered poverty rates in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. But not everyone has been helped.
In working with kids in poverty all around the world, we see poverty trying to steal joy, destroy dignity and put hope to death. We see poverty trying to enslave children and sustain helplessness for generations. And we see the shells of people it conquers.
But poverty doesn’t always win.
Not even close.
Our pictures of poverty show that joy, hope and dignity still bloom in the hearts of the poor.