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	Leave No One Behind in progress to the Sustainable Development Goals by Chronic Poverty Network, ATD Fourth World   Mar. 2018   Sustaining Pathways out of Extreme Poverty - A reflection on the discussions   How can civil society and governments support households who are beginning to leave poverty behind so that they never again fall below the poverty line? This question was the focus of a conference hosted by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) at the Overseas Development Institute.   Chronic Poverty Network's research on 'Understanding and supporting sustained pathways out of extreme poverty' addresses the disturbing trend in countries like Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania where a significant proportion of rural households that escaped poverty fell back into it during the following 8 to 10 years.   Its country case studies in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Nepal, Bangladesh and Uganda, aim to show the conditions that have allowed, or failed to allow, a sustained escape from poverty.   We invited reflections on the policy implications of this research from the UK's Department for International Development, BRAC UK, the ONE campaign, and ATD Fourth World. Speaking for ATD, Diana Skelton appreciated recommendations made about empowerment, rather than dependency, and about mentoring. However, she also had several concerns:   'In Kenya, it is proposed that beneficiaries of social protection be required to engage in public works or training programmes. This kind of conditionality has long been required in countries like the UK with negative results.   In The New Poverty, Stephen Armstrong shows how impossible it has become for a jobseeker in Britain to qualify for benefits when, for example, they must apply for a minimum of 24 jobs a week via a website but can't afford transportation to a public library often enough to wait their turn for internet access.   The top-down design of conditionality can shut out the very people who are the most in need of protection. It is important to be careful that social protection not become a tool for monitoring, judging, and controlling people.   The process of qualifying for benefits has been shown in some countries to create a sense of powerlessness that humiliates people as well as undermining their own strength.   Studies show awareness of how delicate it is to challenge social norms such as gender discrimination. In some countries, the opportunity to change a social norm was connected to social protection as an opportunity for messaging (as in Kenya on the issue of family planning or in Nepal on other health and education issues).   Work on social norms needs to be rooted in the power differential faced by people in extreme poverty. This is perpetuated by societal attitudes of shaming and stereotyping.   Robert Walker of Oxford University has shown that poverty continues to be considered shameful in countries as diverse as Uganda, Britain, India, Pakistan, Norway, South Korea, and China.   This shaming and prejudice undermines people's strength and resilience, preventing them from overcoming poverty.   People in poverty stress the emotional and relational components of poverty as major factors. They speak not only of 'social mistreatment' by better-off neighbours, but also of 'systemic bullying', where some institutions really beat down people living in poverty.   Regularly experiencing anxiety, fear, humiliation, exclusion, and feelings of inferiority eats away at people's sense of self-worth.   This is worsened by the fact that they are almost never able to collaborate in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the anti-poverty programmes meant to benefit them.   The CPAN studies have also used the term 'escape from poverty'. While the goal of supporting sustained escapes is of course a positive one, I have not heard people in poverty use the word escape, which suggests fleeing a disaster as quickly as possible. This image can even create an obstacle to overcoming poverty.   For instance, children who manage to succeed in school where their parents failed, or a teenage girl whose training allows her to earn more money than her father can sometimes feel that they need to hold themselves back in order not to betray their families by escaping on their own.   Because relationships are crucial factors in people's efforts to overcome poverty, it is important that people who do manage to improve their living situations try to help others. A series of escapes sounds individual; but the shaming and stereotyping of people in poverty have to be addressed collectively by society as a whole.   The words that members of ATD Fourth World more often choose are borrowed from the collective struggle of the civil rights movement: 'We shall overcome someday'.   ATD is committed to evaluating development with the input of people that programs target. Challenge 2015 is an ATD report on the Millennium Development Goals. The participatory research for the report involved more than 2,000 people from 22 countries, a majority of whom were people living in poverty or in extreme poverty.   * This event was video recorded, you can see the videos below: http://www.chronicpovertynetwork.org/blog/2018/3/8/sustaining-pathways-out-of-extreme-poverty-a-reflection-on-the-discussions http://bit.ly/2f4nZ2h http://bit.ly/2qHrgaD http://bit.ly/2fsdqW2 http://bit.ly/1K74Y6C http://storiesofchange.atd-fourthworld.org/ http://www.atd-fourthworld.org/call-achieve-17-sustainable-development-goals-worldwide/ http://storiesofchange.atd-fourthworld.org/leaving-no-one-behind-2903a6c80093   Jan. 2019   Leave No One Behind in progress to the Sustainable Development Goals: Priority actions for governments by 2020   The 2014-15 Chronic Poverty Report: the road to zero extreme poverty argued that three objectives had to be achieved to get to zero poverty: chronic poverty had to be tackled; impoverishment had to be stopped; and escapes from poverty needed to be sustained.   The report identified 14 policy areas that could be critical for the eradication of extreme poverty and leaving no one behind in the process. These can also be clustered into four pillars: human development, pro-poorest growth, transformative social change and resilience.   This paper provides a reasonably comprehensive basis for identifying policies that will contribute to leaving no one behind, since the chronically poor are, by definition, those who are getting left behind in the process of development.   Of course, among the chronically poor are those who are able to make progress and sustain escapes from poverty; there are also those who are stuck on the consumption floor, which has barely moved in several decades, some of whom may be experiencing - intersecting inequalities (those pertaining to different attributes like age, religion, gender, embodied in the same person) or, in simpler terms, those who experience multiple disadvantages.   This paper explores context through a re-categorisation of countries using income levels, institutional fragility and progress on poverty, and an analysis of countries policy frameworks in 2015. It then explores the above priorities in context, and in each policy area outlines key measures that will underpin progress and enhance access for the poorest and most marginalised.   The aim of this analysis is to stimulate debate as to what policy mix is appropriate, necessary and desirable in different country circumstances.   Once policies have been selected, policy consistency over time, as well as their sequencing; cross-government coordination to ensure delivery of the right combinations; and multi-stakeholder partnerships for implementation are indispensable tools to reach the objective of Leave No One Behind (LNOB) and achieve the SDGs for all.   Governments vary in the extent to which they have such mechanisms in place and allow them to influence policy and implementation.   http://www.chronicpovertynetwork.org/resources/2019/2/5/leave-no-one-behind-in-progress-to-the-sustainable-development-goals-priority-actions-for-governments-by-2020 http://www.odi.org/publications/10957-10-things-know-about-leave-no-behind Visit the related web page
	Human rights and the 2030 Agenda - Leave no one behind by Michelle Bachelet UN High Commissioner for Human Rights   It has been exactly 1,111 (one thousand one hundred and eleven) days since January 1 2016, when the Sustainable Development Goals officially came into force. It was a moment of shared hope, as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to achieve durable and truly inclusive development for all.   The world came together with a realisation that it was time to fully address inequality; the inequality which results from the persistence of biting and systemic discrimination, and leads to development that is unequal, unsustainable, and generates instability.   Time to face the economic and social turmoil, which helped to generate today's threats to our planet, as well as pose great risks to political and social harmony within and among States.   The 2030 Agenda sets an ambitious objective: a model of more equitable and sustainable development that puts people at its centre and is explicitly grounded in all human rights, including the right to development.   The overarching commitment of Member States to "leave no-one behind" demands that we address inequalities and that we clearly identify, and eliminate, all forms of discrimination. This includes structural inequalities between social groups, which frequently flare into conflict and force people to flee their homes.   The 2030 Agenda is a commitment to achieve greater international cooperation, for a more equitable international order. But above all, it is a promise extended to people previously locked out of development: the marginalized, disempowered and excluded communities; the millions of women; racial, religious and caste minorities; indigenous peoples; migrants; persons with disabilities; Roma; and the poor.   The Agenda set out concrete goals, targets and indicators to ensure the realization of the human rights vision of freedom from fear and want. It is a detailed plan to end poverty and secure justice and the rule of law, enabling the broadest possible public participation in decision-making, and securing access to essential economic and social rights - to food, health, education, water, housing, sanitation and others.   One thousand, one hundred and eleven days into the 2030 Agenda, are we succeeding in realizing this vision? Is the world meeting this great goal of leaving no-one behind?   On the one hand, there has been progress in some countries, and on some metrics. According to the 2018 SDG Progress Report, maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen by 37% since the year 2000, and mortality in children under five years old has been halved. According to UNICEF, South Asia has seen the largest decline in child marriage worldwide in the last decade, as a girl's risk of marrying before her 18th birthday has dropped by more than a third, from nearly 50 per cent to 30 per cent, and yet overall, we are not on track for 2030.   Many countries are still very far from achieving gender equality, which is both a goal and a driver of sustainable development - since almost always, it is women and girls who are farthest behind. Three years into the 2030 Agenda, women's inequality remains powerfully entrenched in terms of political empowerment, economic opportunities, physical safety, equal pay and individual freedom of choice.   Conflicts are destroying people's lives, hopes and ability to earn a decent livelihood in the places they were born. 44,400 (forty-four thousand four hundred) people are forced to flee their homes every day because of conflict or persecution. Climate change is generating overwhelming environmental disasters, which devastate basic infrastructure and exacerbate tensions and conflicts.   After many years in which undernourishment and food insecurity has declined, the painful, ominous and almost entirely preventable number of people counted as "undernourished" rose from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016 mainly due to conflicts, as well as drought and other climate-linked disasters.   815 million is 11% of humanity: in other words, one out of every nine women, men and children around the world is still going without sufficient food.   Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Although more children are in school, less than half of all children and adolescents worldwide meet minimum standards in reading and maths. Around the world, 93% of children live in environments where air pollution exceeds maximum guidelines. Close to 1 billion people lack access to electricity.   And economic inequalities continue to grow. More wealth is being produced than ever before in human history; globally, labour productivity grew by over 2% in 2017, the fastest growth registered since 2010. But this wealth is not being equitably shared. As the ILO has pointed out, the labour share of GDP has been falling for 25 years, and this trend has continued.   Everyone has surely heard of the analysis by Oxfam, which asserted that 82% of all the wealth generated in 2016 went to the richest 1% of the global population, while the poorest half of humanity saw no change in their income, leaving them even further behind.   With just 12 years left to 2030, we need a greater sense of urgency about achieving the Agenda's promise to the world's people. All the SDGs are attainable: the Agenda is a detailed, practical roadmap.   A "business as usual" approach will not take us in the promised direction. This journey requires immediate and accelerated action, including stronger partnerships between stakeholders at all levels to drive implementation of the SDGs.   Sometimes it takes great courage to be a political leader. It takes courage to embark on broad economic, social and political reforms - on policies that will mean tremendous change, yet can also produce greater and more sustainable economic growth, increased social harmony, and more accountable, more effective governance.   Such policies may involve risking political capital, overturning entrenched interests by narrow elites, and upsetting dominant groups. But they pay dividends.   The human rights approach leads to development that is more powerful, more sustainable and more effective, because it promotes empowerment, inclusiveness and equal opportunities for all.   This frees the forces of innovation to devise the best and most appropriate approaches to technological change, a globalised economy and new environmental conditions.   It lifts the obstacles that so heavily and disproportionately burden our poorest and most marginalised communities.   Let me be clear: inequality is a human rights issue. And food, water, healthcare, education, housing and access to justice are not just commodities, for sale to the few, they are rights, to which all human beings are entitled. Visit the related web page
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