“Eradicating poverty in all its forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. While the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped by more than half between 1990 and 2015, too many are still struggling for the most basic human needs.” -UNDP The first UN SDG, no poverty is a commitment to eradicate poverty from the world by 2030, which is just 9 short years away. Its no secret that poverty is a hindrance to development. Not only does it result in a lack of basic needs such as food and shelter, but it also suppresses the voice of those less privileged. It manifests itself in diminished opportunities for education, social discrimination and the inability to participate in decision-making processes. According to a survey by the Borgen project, there are more than 124 million primary or secondary school-aged children who are not in school around the world. The reasons children do not attend school vary. Some children belong to families who cannot afford it, while others are too sick or too hungry to attend. All of these reasons trace back to poverty. Children International says, “education is one of the most powerful ways to reduce poverty and improve health, gender equality, peace and stability.” Therefore, providing quality education is crucial to the eradication of poverty. How does this rule affect India? This initiative to reduce extreme poverty is mainly driven by Asia- majorly India and China. Did you know that in India 1 in every 4 persons is poor? Between 2005-06 and 2015-16, the incidence of multidimensional poverty in India was almost halved, climbing down to 27.5 per cent from 54.7 per cent as per the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index report. So slowly things are changing but on the other hand, some sad truths need to be addressed. Traditionally disadvantaged subgroups such as rural dwellers, scheduled castes and tribes, Muslims, and young children are still the poorest in 2015-16. The government of India has surely done its part and launched schemes that have resulted in the drop of these numbers. Effective schemes such as the world’s largest employment guarantee scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi rural employment guarantee scheme and the National Social Assistance Programme. Even though this goal has yielded results, we still have a long way too. The further targets include reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions. Implementing nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable. Ensuring that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance and so on. Now all these goals might sound daunting. You might feel like what role can I play? Just imagine if you had to live on a minimum wage or worse, lower than that. Sounds tough right? Sadly it’s the truth for a lot of people in the world. The goal of the united nations is to use these SDGs to make the world a better place. While they do it at a huge level, I feel we can all contribute small amounts here and there to make the world a better place for us and someone else too. Submitted by Ahaana Raghuvanshi Sources: https://in.one.un.org/page/sustainable-development-goals/sdg-1/ https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals#no-poverty https://borgenproject.org/poverty-education-statistics/