Sustainable Development Goal #1 is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Within SDG #1 are 7 targets, of which this episode will focus on Target 1.b, which is:
Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions.
To measure target 1.b, there is only one indicator, 1.b.1:
Pro-poor public social spending
Pro-poor is a term from the jargon of development studies meaning policies targeting the poor and poverty reduction.
Gender-sensitivity is a term surrounding efforts to create awareness around how the notion of gender, and gender roles affect our behaviours, and modifying them, if necessary, to engender a better sense of equality.
Similar to an indicator reference in the previous target, Indicator 1.b.1 is defined as the share of government expenditure on health, education and cash transfers for the direct benefit of those living below each respective country’s poverty line, which we explored in Target 1.2.
These measures of health, education and transfer payments are used to measure the Target 1.b as these three areas are key to poverty alleviation, and evaluates whether governments are focusing spending on the poor.
To best measure Target 1.b’s wording of ‘policy at the national, regional and international level’, Indicator 1.b.2 can be disaggregated at each of these levels where the data exists.
In 2019, the 30 developed country donors of the Development Assistance Committee spent only 0.2 percent of their collective gross national income in aid toward basic social services and food aid for the intention for poverty reduction, far below the 0.7% of gross national income continually committed by these countries across decades, though ongoingly reneged upon.
Dismayingly, in 2020, the only exceptions among the DAC members to meet or exceed the 0.7% commitment were the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, as well as the small country of Luxembourg, and the UK. Further disappointingly, the UK has announced they will no longer meet the 0.7% measure from 2021, flouting a UK law enshrining this commitment.