Is Ending Global Poverty a Distant Dream?

The United Nations, every year, releases the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) report based on 17 goals, which are to be achieved by 2030 by member nations. These goals are based on steps that every country is to take so that a collective effort can be made to ensure that the world witnesses prosperity, peace, and better living conditions for all.

 Illustration by The Geostrata

One of the goals under the SDGs is the eradication of global poverty by 2030. However, the latest United Nations SDG Report of 2025 mentioned that 808 million people still live below the poverty line. As per this data, it implies that 1 in every 10 people on the planet is living in poverty currently, and states that 8.9% of the global population might still remain poor till 2030 unless major steps are taken to improve the situation through actions with accountability that involve all nations globally.

ROOTS OF POVERTY

As per the U.N. and other global organisations working in social development, there are various factors contributing to the increase in poverty. In many underdeveloped nations such as South Sudan, Burundi, Malawi, Madagascar, Haiti, Yemen, and Afghanistan, there is an extreme lack of industrialisation, little to no existing infrastructure, and even a lack of natural resources, due to which they remain dependent on other developed nations to support them. People in these nations cannot afford even the basic amenities like food and water to live, and cannot even think of making a living for themselves due to a lack of work opportunities. 

Notably, in some cases, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Papua New Guinea, abundant natural resources exist but are unable to benefit local populations due to governance failures, corruption, and conflict, a phenomenon known as the 'resource curse’. In fact, even if some underdeveloped nations are agriculturally reliant, there is still a lack of amenities like agricultural equipment to carry out agricultural tasks that generate sustainable income and surplus. 

Another root of poverty is in nations such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger due to a lack of educational institutions.

Children are unable to afford to complete their basic primary education due to pressure to support family income, which results in uneducated adults, leading to unemployment and further driving poverty to another extreme end. Nations such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa still remain prone to various environmental challenges, which are causing widespread destruction through droughts, storms, floods, or heatwaves, affecting agricultural crops and infrastructure. Thus, the lack of support and inadequate funding by other developed nations leaves these underdeveloped nations helpless without resources to overcome the persistent state of poverty. 

Moreover, with the current geopolitical uncertainty, as the world is witnessing major armed conflict, it creates a huge negative impact for all nations, but the most impacted are the weak nations and the poor ones. Conflicts tend to cause a trickle-down effect as they increase global inflation rates, increase debt amongst the poor, inflate prices of goods around the world, cause supply shocks, and decrease funding to vulnerable nations globally, as seen through recent US-Iran tensions. For underprivileged people, these issues make it difficult to afford the increasing expenses in day-to-day life. In fact, intersectional vulnerabilities such as inequality amongst gender, religions, ethnicities, and caste in many nations worsen the state of poverty due to people not being given work opportunities or equal access and acceptance within the society.

STATE OF POVERTY TODAY 

At present, rather than taking the latest UN SDG report seriously and working towards removing poverty based on the assessments made by it,

The current war in the Middle East and the overall Gulf crisis have plunged another 30 million people below the poverty line.

This is as per the latest statements made by UNDP chief Alexander De Croo. This means that even if the war were to end, the damage would already have been done. This very damage has severely impacted attaining the SDG goal of 2030 and eradicating poverty the least.

More importantly, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which records one-third of global shipments, has led to restrictions on the movements of essential food, medicines, oil and gas, among other goods. This inability to import essential goods, especially for vulnerable nations, has led to its already fragile situation worsening as both developed and developing nations are still bearing the brunt of this crisis in a big way. 

For people who were already below the poverty line, this is a major setback, and the crisis has pushed those at risk to fall further below the poverty line with the disrupted supply of fuel and fertilisers. Even certain nations like Sudan and Somalia have had their agricultural sector severely impacted, which has caused food shortages. The lack of fuel and energy further leads to a widespread shortage of electricity in nations, directly impacting the lives of many citizens and making household activities tough to undertake. Moreover, with widespread economic crises for nations globally, there is fear of a decline in the ability of developed nations to support the underdeveloped in the near future as the crisis continues, leading to a decline of 0.2% of the global GDP.

Strategies for nations to counter the crisis presently and in the future must operate at multiple levels: individual, national, and global. In the immediate term, governments should provide targeted support to farmers, subsidies for essential goods till the crisis is resolved and provide coordinated global support to nations getting severely impacted. Beyond that, structural investments are essential. Nations must accelerate the transition to renewable energy and reduce dependence on single-source energy corridors like the Strait of Hormuz. Equally important is scaling up local fertiliser production, investing in agricultural technologies, and building diversified, regionalised supply chains that are resilient to geopolitical shocks.

Poverty reduction demands that nations simultaneously invest in education, healthcare, and social protection floors since energy and food crises disproportionately devastate populations that already lack these safety nets.

STARK REMINDER

The latest SDG report holds up an uncomfortable mirror to the world's collective failure, not merely of unmet targets, but of diminishing political will. At a moment when 808 million people already live in extreme poverty, and a fresh geopolitical crisis threatens to push tens of millions more below the line, the gap between global commitments and ground realities has never been wider.

The 2030 zero poverty deadline is no longer a distant ambition; it is an imminent reckoning.

History will not judge the world by the goals it set, but by the choices it made when the clock was running out. Thus, global leaders need to look at the bigger picture, leaving behind their own narrow interests for a better future. 

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BY BHAVSAHIB SINGH SAHNI

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