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UNICEF/HQ98-0891/Pirozzi
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Goal: Eradicate extreme poverty

and hunger

Reduce

suffer
with

by

Targets
by
2015:
half
the
proportion
of
people living on less than
a dollar a day.
Reduce by half the
proportion of people who
from hunger.
Reducing
poverty
starts
children.

More than 30 per cent of children in developing countries about

600 million live on less than US $1 a day.
Every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a
child under the age of 5.
Poverty hits children hardest. While a severe lack of goods and
services hurts every human, it is most threatening to childrens
rights: survival, health and nutrition, education, participation, and
protection from harm and exploitation. It creates an environment that
is damaging to childrens development in every way mental, physical,
emotional and spiritual.
One than 1 billion children are severely deprived of at least one
of the essential goods and services they require to survive, grow and
develop. Some regions of the world have more dire situations than
others, but even within one country there can be broad disparities
between city and rural children, for example, or between boys and
girls. An influx or tourism in one area may improve a countrys
poverty statistics overall, while the majority remains poor and
disenfranchised.
Each deprivation heightens the effect of the others. So when two
or more coincide, the effects on children can be catastrophic. For
example, women who must walk long distances to fetch household water
may not be able to fully attend to their children, which may affect
their health and development. And children who themselves must walk
long distances to fetch water have less time to attend school a
problem that particularly affects girls. Children who are not
immunized or who are malnourished are much more susceptible to the

diseases that are spread through poor sanitation. Poverty exacerbates

the effects of HIV/AIDS and armed conflict. It entrenches social,
economic and gender disparities and undermines protective family
environments.
Poverty contributes to malnutrition, which in turn is a
contributing factor in over half of the under-five deaths in
developing countries.
Some 300 million children go to bed hungry
every day. Of these only eight per cent are victims of famine or other
emergency situations. More than 90 per cent are suffering long-term
malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency.
The best start in life is critical in a childs first few years,
not only to survival but to her or his physical, intellectual and
emotional development. So these deprivations greatly hamper childrens
ability to achieve their full potential, contributing to a societys
cycle of endless poverty and hunger.
Fulfilling childrens rights breaks that cycle. Providing them
with basic education, health care, nutrition and protection produces
results of many times greater magnitude than these cost-effective
interventions. Their chances of survival and of a productive future
are greatly increased as are the chances of a truly fair and
peaceful global society.
UNICEF responds by:
Building national capacities for primary health care. Around 270
million children, just over 14 per cent of all children in developing
countries, have no access to health care services. Yet improving the
health of children is one responsibility among many in the fight
against poverty. Healthy children become healthy adults: people who
create better lives for themselves, their communities and their
countries. Working in this area also helps to further Goal 4 to
improve child survival rates.
Helping the world's children survive and flourish is a core
UNICEF activity, and immunization is central to that. A global leader
in vaccine supply, UNICEF purchases and helps distribute vaccines to
over 40 per cent of children in developing countries. Immunization
programs usually include other cost-effective health initiatives, like
micronutrient supplementation to fight disabling malnutrition and
insecticide-treated bed nets to fight malaria.
Along with governments and non-governmental organizations at
national and community levels, UNICEF works to strengthen local health

systems and improve at-home care for children, including oral rehydration to save the lives of infants with severe diarrhea and
promoting and protecting breastfeeding.
Getting girls to school. Some 13 per cent of children ages 7 to
18 years in developing countries have never attended school. This rate
is 32 per cent among girls in sub-Saharan Africa (27 per cent of boys)
and 33 per cent of rural children in the Middle East and North Africa.
Yet an education is perhaps a childs strongest barrier against
poverty, especially for girls. Educated girls are likely to marry
later and have healthier children. They are more productive at home
and better paid in the workplace, better able to protect themselves
against HIV/AIDS and more able to participate in decision-making at
all levels. Additionally, this UNICEF activity furthers Goals 2 and 3:
universal primary education and gender equality.
To that end, UNICEF works in 158 countries, calling on
development agencies, governments, donors and communities to step up
efforts on behalf of education for all children, and then coordinating
those efforts. Programmes differ from country to country according to
needs and cultures, but may include help with funding, logistics,
information technology, school water and sanitation, and a child- and
gender-friendly curriculum.
Supporting good nutrition. UNICEF seeks to help stem the worst
effects of malnutrition by funding and helping countries supply
micronutrients like iron and vitamin A, which is essential for a
healthy immune system, during vaccination campaigns or through
fortified food. UNICEF, governments, salt producers and private sector
organizations are also working to eliminate iodine deficiency, the
biggest primary cause of preventable mental retardation and brain
damage, through the Universal Salt Iodization (USI) education
campaign. UNICEF also works through communities to talk with child
caregivers about how to provide sound nutrition for children,
particularly via breastfeeding.
In emergency situations, UNICEF assesses the nutritional and
health needs of affected people, protects and supports breastfeeding
by providing safe havens for pregnant and lactating women, provides
essential micronutrients, supports therapeutic feeding centres for
severely malnourished children, and provides food for orphans.
Assisting in water and sanitation improvement. One in three
children in the developing world more than 500 million children
has no access at all to sanitation facilities. And some 400 million

children, one in five, have no access to safe water. Meanwhile, unsafe

water and sanitation cause about 4,000 child deaths per day. Through
advocacy, funding and technical assistance, UNICEF works in more than
90 countries around the world to improve water supplies and sanitation
facilities in schools and communities and to improve and promote safe
hygiene practices.
In emergencies UNCIEF provides safe water, and
communities replace or find new water resources and
Increasingly, UNICEF emphasizes preventive programs
the capacity of governments and partners to prepare
case situations.

helps displaced
build latrines.
that strengthen
for these worst

Creating a protective child environment. Conflicts are most

frequent in poor countries, especially in those that are ill governed
and where there are sharp inequalities between ethnic or religious
groups. An environment of unrest heightens the risk of abduction,
sexual violence and exploitation of children, as well as the struggle
for shelter, education and survival.
Toward fulfilling a central goal of the Millennium Declaration,
protection of the vulnerable, UNICEF advocates for awareness and
monitoring of these issues, and for tougher laws for child exploiters.
Working with individuals, civic groups, governments and the private
sector in the field, UNICEF helps establish and strengthen local
safety nets for children, like community child-care centers, schools,
and basic social services.
Advocating, raising awareness and helping effect
childrens well-being. Lastly, UNICEF complements these
activities with policy advocacy at every level of
Spreading awareness and offering technical assistance,
countries in forming and effecting programs that
childrens rights to survive and thrive.

policies for
on-the-field
government.
UNICEF aids
help ensure

These include working with governments on developing broad

national planning frameworks like Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
(PRSPs) and Sector-wide Approaches to Programming(SWAPs), which help
countries and donors identify needs and form a results-based plan for
change.
These policies and programmes dont take shape in a void. Along
with national committees, other UN agencies and international private
groups, UNICEF helps countries carry out assessment research to define
and measure child poverty, and then helps put a system in place

to monitor results.
Progress
Some countries have made progress meeting this Goal, but success
is mixed. India and China are on track to meet the income target at
least, but in a classic example of national disparities, some 221
million people in India and 142 million in China are still chronically
or acutely malnourished.
More than half of undernourished people, 60 per cent, are found
in Asia and the Pacific. Thirty per cent of infants born in South Asia
in 2003 were underweight, the highest percentage in the world.
Most sub-Saharan African countries will likely miss both targets.
The region has 204 million hungry and is the only region of the world
where hunger is increasing. More than 40 per cent of Africans can not
even get sufficient food on a day-to-day basis.

UN: 15-year push ends extreme poverty

for a billion people
Ban Ki-moon hails achievements of millennium development goals but
warns world still riven by inequality
Data: what the MDGs achieved

A
UN
soldier
in
Haiti
distributes food to children in
Port-au-Prince. Photograph: UN
Sam Jones
Monday 6 July 201515.48 BST

The millennium development goals (MDGs) have driven the most

successful anti-poverty movement in history and brought more than a

billion people out of extreme penury, but their achievements have been
mixed and the world remains deeply riven by inequality, the UNs final
report (pdf) on the goals has concluded.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said that while the 15year push to meet the eight goals
- on poverty, education, gender
equality,
child
mortality,
maternal
health,
disease,
the environment and global partnership had yielded some astonishing
results, it had left too many people behind.

MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

The MDGs helped to lift more than one billion people out of
extreme poverty, to make inroads against hunger, to enable more girls
to attend school than ever before and to protect our planet, he said.
Yet for all the remarkable gains, I am keenly
inequalities persist and that progress has been uneven.

aware

that

While the world has reduced the number of people living on less
than $1.25 a day from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015, the
target of halving the proportion of people suffering from hunger was
narrowly missed.

Between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of undernourished people

fell from 23.3% to 12.9%. Current estimates suggest around 795 million
people are undernourished the overwhelming majority of them in
developing regions. Progress has been hindered by higher food and
energy
prices,
extreme
weather,
natural
disasters,
political
instability, humanitarian crises and the economic recession of the
late 1990s and in 2008-2009.

Ban noted
people lived in
the Democratic
inequities were

that in 2011, nearly 60% of the worlds extremely poor

five countries India, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh and
Republic of Congo and that familiar divisions and
as stark as ever.

Too many women continue to die during pregnancy or from

childbirth-related complications, he said. Progress tends to bypass
women and those who are lowest on the economic ladder or are
disadvantaged
because
of
their
age,
disability
or
ethnicity.
Disparities between rural and urban areas remain pronounced.

MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education

Progress on education has been mixed: the goal of achieving
universal primary education has also just been missed, with the net
enrolment rate rising from 83% in 2000 to 91% this year. The literacy
rate for those aged 15 to 24 showed an identical rise, while the
number of out-of-school children fell from 100 million 15 years ago to
57 million today.

Despite having to contend with a rising population, high levels

of poverty and armed conflicts, sub-Saharan Africa made the greatest
progress in primary school enrolment of all the developing regions,
with its rate growing from 52% in 1990 to 78% in 2012.

The push for gender equality and to empower women has led to
about two-thirds of developing countries achieving gender parity in
primary education underlining the fact that the aspiration of
eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education has
not been met.

When it comes to employment outside the agricultural sector,

women now constitute 41% of paid workers, up from 35% in 1990.
Although the proportion of women in parliament has nearly doubled over
the past 20 years, only one in every five seats is held by a woman.
Efforts to narrow the gender divide continue to be stymied by
discrimination in law and practice, violence against women and girls,
unequal employment opportunities and unequal division of unpaid care
and domestic work.

While the child mortality rate has declined by more than half
over the past 25 years falling from 90 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live
births it has not declined by the MDG aim of two-thirds. Vaccination
helped to prevent nearly 15.6m deaths from measles between 2000 and
2013, but that progress has slowed since 2010, with an estimated 21.6
million infants not receiving the vaccine in 2013. The biggest
preventable causes of death for children under five are pneumonia,
diarrhoea and malaria, which between them claim 16,000 lives a day.
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
The aspiration of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by threequarters has not been realised, with the ratio falling by nearly half
(from 380 deaths per 100,000 live births to 210). Today, only half of
pregnant women in developing regions receive the recommended minimum
of four antenatal visits, and a quarter of babies worldwide are
delivered without skilled care. Postpartum haemorrhage accounted for
27% of maternal deaths in developing regions between 2003 and 2009;
other major complications were high blood pressure during pregnancy,
complications from delivery and unsafe abortion.

Progress on combating HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases has

also varied. The target of halting and beginning to reverse the spread
of HIV/Aids by 2015 has not been met, although the number of new HIV
infections fell by around 40% between 2000 and 2013, from 3.5 million
cases to 2.1 million. The fight is being hindered by risky sexual
behaviour and a lack of basic knowledge about HIV among young people
in many countries.

The target of halting and reversing the incidence of malaria has

been achieved thanks to a tenfold increase in international financing
since 2000 and sustained malaria prevention and treatment initiatives.
Insecticide-treated mosquito nets, indoor spraying, diagnostic testing
and the use of effective drugs have helped prevent more than 6.2m
deaths from the disease between 2000 and 2015. The global malaria
incidence rate has fallen by more than a third and the mortality rate
by more than half. Significant progress has been made in the fight
against tuberculosis: improved prevention, diagnosis and treatment
saved an estimated 37m lives between 2000 and 2013.

The push for environmental sustainability has brought some 2.6

billion people access to improved drinking water since 1990, meaning
that the target of halving the proportion of people without access to
improved sources of water was achieved in 2010 five years ahead of
schedule. However, 663 million are still without improved drinking
water.

MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Efforts on sanitation have fared far less well: 2.1 billion
people have gained access to improved sanitation (a toilet that
hygienically separates faeces from human contact) since 1990, leaving
the target of halving the number of people without access to basic
sanitation short by nearly 700 million people.

Some 2.4 billion people in developing countries a third of

humanity still lack access to improved sanitation facilities, while
946 million people still practise open defecation.

The differences between rural and urban areas are often

considerable. While four out of five people in urban areas have access
to piped drinking water, the figure for those in rural areas is just
one in three. Nearly half of those in rural areas lack access to
improved sanitation facilities compared with less than a fifth of
those in urban areas.

Moves to improve the way the world works together on development

have been aided by an increase in the amount of official development
assistance (ODA) that rich countries give to developing nations.
Between 2000 and 2014, ODA increased by 66% in real terms and hit a
record high of $134.8bn (80.3bn) in 2013.
Ban said that lessons had to be learned from the MDGs as the
world prepares to agree their successors, the sustainable development
goals, which will set the agenda for the next 15 years.

We need to tackle root causes and do more to integrate the

economic,
social
and
environmental
dimensions
of
sustainable
development, he said.

Reflecting on the MDGs and looking ahead to the next 15 years,

there is no question that we can deliver on our shared responsibility
to end poverty, leave no one behind and create a world of dignity for
all.