: Sustainable Development (SD) : Measures to eradicate extreme poverty in developing nations : Lara Gieringer :

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1 Committee Topic Chair Sustainable Development (SD) : Measures to eradicate extreme poverty in developing nations : Lara Gieringer : lara.gieringer@std.itugvo.k12.tr Introduction about the committee: The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit. From its inception, the CSD was highly participatory in structure and outlook, by engaging in its formal proceedings a wide range of official stakeholders and partners through innovative formulae. At its eleventh session in 2003, the Commission decided on a multi-year work programme consisting of review and policy years. Since its establishment in 1992, the Commission has greatly advanced the sustainable development agenda within the international community. At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), Member States agreed to establish a high level political forum that will subsequently replace the Commission on Sustainable Development. Introduction: Abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury was originally defined by the United Nations in 1995 as a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. The World Bank is the main source for international data on extreme poverty today and it sets the International Poverty Line. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on $1.25 or less a day. A key difficulty in measuring global

2 poverty is that price levels are very different in several countries. For this reason, it is not sufficient to simply convert the consumption levels of people in several countries by the market exchange rate; it is additionally necessary to adjust for cross-country differences in purchasing power. The percentage of individuals living in extreme poverty globally fell to a new low of ten percent in 2015 the latest number out there down from 11 percent in 2013, reflecting steady but slowing progress, World Bank data show. The number of people living on less than $1.90 a day fell throughout this period by 68 million to 736 million. While global poverty rates have been cut by more than half since 2000, one in 10 individuals in developing regions still lives on less than US $1.90 a day - the internationally agreed poverty line, and millions of others live on slightly more than this daily amount. Significant progress has been made in many countries within Eastern and Southeastern Asia, but up to 42% of the population in Sub- Saharan Africa continues to live below the poverty line. KEY WORDS DEFINITION Extreme poverty: The World Bank estimates that less than 10% of the world s population live under its new threshold of $1.90 a day (based on the US dollar exchange rate of 2011). Penury: dire poverty Severe deprivation: a situation in which you do not have things or conditions that are usually considered necessary for a pleasant life Destitution: lack of the means of subsistence; utter poverty Industrialized: to introduce industry into (an area) on a large scale. Welfare: having good fortune / financial or other assistance to an individual or family Deprived: lacking the necessities of life (food, shelter) Monetized: to change something into money, or to express something in terms of money or a currency

3 GENERAL OVERVIEW Third World countries are usually described as developing whereas the first World, industrialized nations are usually developed. What does it mean to explain a nation as developing? An absence of fabric wealth doesn't essentially mean that one is deprived. A powerful economy in a developed nation doesn t mean a lot of are a significant percentage (even a majority) of the population is having struggle to survive. Poverty is an idea intrinsically linked to welfare and there are many ways during which one will attempt to measure welfare. Poverty as measured by 'monetized' consumption and financial gain, following the approach utilized by the World Bank. The proof, the subsequent introductory sub-section provides a short overview of the relevance of this approach. The available long evidence shows that within the past, only a small elite enjoyed living conditions that may not be represented as 'extreme poverty' these days. However, with the onset of industrialization and rising productivity, the share of individuals living in extreme poverty began to decrease. Consequently, the share of individuals in extreme poverty has decreased continuously over the course of the last 2 centuries. This is often for sure the most remarkable achievements of humans. Closely linked to the current improvement in material living conditions is the improvement of the global health and therefore the growth of world education that we have seen over these last 2 centuries. We tend to also discuss the link between education, health, and poverty in this entry. During the first half of the last century, the growth of the world population caused the absolute number of poor people in the world to increase, even though the share of people in poverty was going down. After around 1970, the decrease in

4 poverty rates became so steep that the absolute number of people living in extreme poverty started falling as well. This trend of decreasing poverty both in absolute numbers and as a share of the world population has been a constant during the last three decades. There are many ways in which researchers and policymakers try to measure welfare. In this entry we focus mainly on welfare as measured by 'monetized' consumption and income, following the approach used by the World Bank. However, as we emphasize extreme poverty, this is one of the aspects that we need to consider when we discuss about poverty. Ending poverty in all its forms is the first of the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs main reference to combatting poverty is made in target Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions. The SDGs also aim to create sound policy frameworks at national and regional levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies to ensure that by 2030 all men and women 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. Despite population growth between 1990 and 2015, more than 1 billion people escaped extreme poverty and 2.6 billion gained access to an improved source of drinking water. Around 800 million people struggle to survive on less than USD $1.90 a day and one in every three women experiences physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.

5 In 1990, 35% of the world (1.8 billion people) was living in extreme poverty so we ve made some huge strides. While many argue that we will never be able to truly get rid of poverty, extreme poverty can be eradicated. a) Causes of extreme poverty: Inadequate access to clean water and food Currently more than 2 billion people don t have access to clean water and over 800 million suffer from hunger. No access to jobs Without job or way to make money people will face poverty. Inequality Unequal or no access to the resources needed to keep or lift a family out of poverty. Poor Education Not everyone without an education is living in extreme poverty UNESCO estimates that 171 million people could be saved from extreme poverty if they left school with basic educational skills Climate Change The World Bank estimates that climate change can push more than 100 million people into poverty. Climate change can leave millions of people without food and this leads to poverty. Limited capacity of the government Not every government can provide food, money safety to its citizens and this leads even more in to poverty.

6 b) The Statistics The top poorest countries in the World 1. Democratic Republic of Congo 2. Mozambique 3. Uganda 4. Tajikistan 5. Yemen 6. Haiti 7. Ethiopia 8. Tanzania 9. Kyrgyzstan 10. Uzbekistan 11. Zambia 12. Pakistan World Poverty Statistics: Global Poverty Report Globally, 10.9% of the world is living on less than $2 a day. 2. For every 1,000 children born, 41 will die before they turn five years old. 3. Globally in 2016, over 63 million children were not attending school. That s tens of millions of school-aged children in the world who miss out on their education because of the poverty. 4 Children are disproportionately affected by poverty. Of all the children living in extreme poverty, 75% live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. 5. Today, approximately 12% of the world s total population is still practicing open defecation 6. Rural populations around the world are four times as likely as urban populations to be drinking contaminated water.. 7.About 22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty.

7 In the early 20th century the world looked like this Today the world is vastly richer than ever before - and countries in all parts of the world started to grow.

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9 Timeline Of Events Millennium Summit (September 2000) 2005 World Summit Post-2015 Development Agenda 8 clauses were decided 1- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2- Achieve Universal Primary Education 3- Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women 4- Reduce Child Mortality 5- Improve Maternal Health 6- Combat Diseases 7- Ensure Environmental sustainability 8- Global Partnership for Development The conference brought more than 170 States together to encourage by reduction of poverty in some countries. There were a concern about the uneven decline of poverty within and among different regions of the globe. There has been significant progress towards reducing extreme poverty, with the MDG 1 target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half being met five years early, representing 700 million people being lifted out of extreme poverty from 1990 to 2010.

10 UN LDC conferences There were 4 conferences 1st September nd September rd May th May 2011 With the aforementioned in mind, the UN convened a High Level Panel (HLP) of Eminent Persons, to advise on a Post-2015 Development Agenda. The HLP report, entitled A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies Through Sustainable Development, was published in May In the report, the HLP wrote that: Ending extreme poverty is just the beginning, not the end. It is vital, but our vision must be broader: to start countries on the path of sustainable development building on the foundations established by the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro12, and meeting a challenge that no country, developed or developing, has met so far. We recommend to the Secretary-General that deliberations on a new development agenda must be guided by the vision of eradicating extreme poverty once and for all, in the context of sustainable development. Thus, the report determined that a central goal of the Post-Millennium Development agenda is to eradicate extreme poverty by The European Commission's communication, published in A decent Life for all: from vision to collective action, affirmed the UN's commitment to "eradicate extreme poverty in our lifetime and put the world on a sustainable path to ensure a decent life for all by 2030". UN over the past few decades, that wanted to push the substantial and even development of alleged third-world countries. Major countries and organizations that are involved United States: In the United States, the USAID is the leading agency that works to end extreme global poverty. Their philosophy suggests an interconnected world in which

11 instability anywhere around the world can impact us domestically. Essentially, the main objective is to utilize the transition period between conflict and long-term development by investing in agriculture, health systems and democratic institutions. Brazil: The Bolsa Familia Program The program directly transfers cash to pre-designated households deemed impoverished. The decisions about allocation are based on assessments of the depth of poverty rather than household composition. Over 45 million people are currently enrolled in the program. As a direct result of Bolsa Familia, the number of those living in extreme poverty in Brazil has dropped from 20.4 million to 11.9 million. World Bank: The World Bank Group is a crucial piece of our international development; it funds development projects around the world through traditional loans, interest-free credits and grants. United Nations UNDP: UNDP helps countries develop policies. These lead to sustainable development, democratic governance, peace building and climate and disaster resilience. The UNDP is a giant agency that delegates country-specific activities and programs through its Resident Coordinator System with offices in 130 countries. The organization s highest goal is to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries of operation. UNICEF: Welfare by strengthening legislation and social services. OXFAM: Oxfam is currently fighting poverty in developing countries by taking on issues of inequality, discrimination and unequal access to resources. The organization provides assistance during humanitarian crises. Oxfam is also very

12 involved in educating the world s poor about human rights and civic engagement in order to change the root causes of poverty at the political level. UNOCHA The Earth Institute Possible solutions For possible solutions countries may look for eradicating the causes of extreme poverty. In order to end global extreme poverty, we must invest in common solutions as countries together. If all countries come together to end 0.7 percent of poverty, we can end extreme poverty by Find/create jobs 2. Raise the minimum salary 3. Support pay equity 4. Develop and implement rapid and sustained economic growth 5. Increase the management of water and food 6. Encourage countries to engage in trade as a path of poverty 7. Create organizations and communities 8. Support equality 9. Education 10. Access to healthcare 11. Agriculture Points to consider What should be done nationally and internationally as SD? What can your country do to eradicate extreme poverty? Search about what your country has done for poverty so far. Has your country recovered from poverty?

13 What laws and organizations should be stable? Search more about the laws and timeline. Special note from the chair If you have any questions about the committee and the topic please do not hesitate to contact me. Bibliography/References: L3dpa2kvRXh0cmVtZV9wb3ZlcnR