No Poverty

This Policy Brief aims to inform policymakers of the potential impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus) on poverty. It will explore the implications of COVID-19 through various macroeconomic scenarios, ranging from the very optimistic to the pessimistic. The findings suggest that complete eradication of extreme poverty by 2030 looks highly unlikely even in the most optimistic scenario and that the global number of people living in extreme poverty could in fact continue to go up in the more pessimistic scenario. The final section will summarize the findings and discuss policy implications. Policies to reduce inequality and promote a country’s social and macroeconomic resilience, such as the strengthening of labour standards, and the expansion of the social protection systems and universal health coverage, are needed now more than ever. As developing countries currently face the prospect of costly debt crises with far-reaching consequences, global action is urgently needed. The window to mitigate the disastrous long-term consequences of COVID-19 on poverty is closing rapidly.

The findings of the study, summarized in this paper, show that a life-cycle approach can help to reveal meaningful differences in the way women, men, girls, and boys experience poverty. A life-cycle approach examines the different stages individuals go through as they transition to adulthood and form their own households. It tracks the changes that take place from childhood to childbearing years and beyond. This is the first study to look at these dimensions systematically at the global level.

Global progress towards SDG 1 had already slowed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the world was not on track to achieve this goal by 2030. The prospect of achieving SDG 1 by 2030 has been further dimmed by the impact of COVID-19. The global extreme poverty rate (SDG target 1.1) is projected in a baseline scenario to decline to only 9.2 per cent by 2030. This would mean that as many as 785 million people could find themselves in extreme poverty by 2030, far from reaching SDG 1. Given this context, achieving SDG 1 by 2030, will require extraordinary efforts by countries, both individually and collectively. The scenario analysis presented in this policy brief shows that a decline in income inequality can be a potent driver of poverty reduction and if combined with robust economic growth, can produce highly positive, if not miraculous, results for the eradication of extreme poverty, by 2030.

This paper examines how social benefits contributed to reducing the scarring effects of monetary poverty among children in European countries in the years following the Great Recession. Based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions database, our findings highlight that social benefit functions differ in their ability to reduce the risk of monetary poverty for children with previous experience in poverty. While family/children’s benefits are crucial in reducing child poverty in general, they are not significant in terms of reducing the scarring effects of child poverty. Old age/ survivors’ benefits meanwhile appear to be a significant support for children with prior experience in poverty. Empirical evidence thus suggests the effectiveness of social transfers to combat occasional child poverty does not always coincide with their effectiveness in preventing children from remaining in poverty year after year.

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, undermining decades of development efforts. The crisis has pushed hundreds millions of people back into poverty and hunger, caused decades of learning loss, worsened inequalities, and much more. The availability of timely, open and disaggregated data will be essential to inform policy making and steer recovery efforts. New investments in data and information infrastructure, as well as human capacity are needed now more than ever. The world finds itself at a critical juncture, where achieving the SDGs will depend on whether or not the COVID-19 crisis serves as a much-needed wake-up call that spurs a decade of truly transformative action to deliver for people and planet.

The challenges that we face can be addressed only through stronger international cooperation. The Summit of the Future in 2024 is an opportunity to agree on multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow, strengthening global governance for both present and future generations. The present policy brief contains suggestions for practical steps to fulfil our long-standing commitment to meet the demands of the present in a way that safeguards the interests of future generations and preserves their ability to effectively enjoy all human rights. These include: an envoy to serve as a voice for future generations at the global level; better use of foresight, science and data; a declaration to define and make concrete our duties to future generations; and a dedicated intergovernmental forum to advance implementation of the declaration and share best practices. These suggestions build on Our Common Agenda and subsequent intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder consultations, reflected in the “Elements paper for the declaration for future generations”, prepared by the Permanent Missions of Fiji and the Netherlands to the United Nations. The brief responds to the questions raised by Member States during the consultations, including how to define future generations, how to balance our commitment to them with our duties to present generations, how the proposals advance our existing goals for sustainable development, gender, and human rights, and what outcomes are recommended for the Summit of the Future on this issue. This is the first of the Summit of the Future Policy Briefs.

Waste-pickers are one of the most crucial yet often ignored segments of the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming. These workers often labour in hazardous conditions under the uncertainty of informal employment but are the key to keeping the environment clean and our cities (particularly urban spaces) safe. Challenges these workers face - such as limited earning capacity, increased risk of falling into poverty and insecurities of food, income, work and livelihood - have been further accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges have been noted to be worse for women - who are more vulnerable to significant impacts on their health - with potential intergenerational impacts. This brief, drawing from broad themes of socio-economic insecurity among informal workers across developing nations, presents on-ground evidence on demographic, employment, identification, housing and social security characteristics of waste pickers from across ten states in India. It also discusses some policy directions to ensure structural transformation towards resilient and equitable development for this cohort.

Public debt can be a powerful tool for development, enabling governments to finance critical expenditures and invest in a better future for their people. However, when public debt grows excessively or rapidly, it becomes a heavy burden, particularly for developing countries. This report highlights the alarming surge in global public debt, driven by cascading crises in recent years. The growing debt burden disproportionately impacts developing countries, as servicing it diverts essential resources away from their development aspirations. Recent events have worsened this challenge. The rise in global interest rates since 2022 further strained public budgets in developing countries. High interest payments are outpacing the growth in essential public expenditures such as health, education, and climate action. In the developing world, home to 3.3 billion people, one out of every three countries spends more on interest payments than on these critical areas for human development.

How long do impacts of the graduation-based social protection approach last after support ends? What factors affect the impacts’ longevity? What do these factors mean for those seeking to exit poverty sustainably? This brief explores such questions by revisiting women who participated in a UNDP social protection initiative in one of Bangladesh’s most climate-vulnerable districts between 2017 and 2019. Four years on, the brief unpacks how the women are faring in a context where they are exposed to climate-induced shocks. The insights contribute towards sparking discussion on the sustainability of impacts and on influencing factors while carrying key lessons for social protection to achieve sustainable outcomes.

This brief examines the social policy responses aimed at protecting income and job losses implemented amidst the pandemic. A rich dataset has been exploited to characterize the breadth of countries’ policy responses by building an index that reflects the diversity of policies implemented, amongst all those available, in terms of social assistance, social insurance, and the labour market. This analysis offers a qualitative approach on whether governments’ actions were comprehensive or narrow, conditional on the fiscal efforts and the stringency of the containment measures. There are three key insights from this analysis. First, even when social protection systems are highly conditioned by the income level of each country, all countries resorted to the social assistance dimension of social protection. Second, even in the presence of new social assistance measures, most developed countries also relied on social insurance and labour market policies. Finally, social protection systems should be continuously strengthened, especially in case more stringent measures are required due to the current and future threats to public health.