Getting to Zero: How we can be the generation that ends poverty

Save the Children’s new report, “Getting to Zero: How we can be the generation that ends poverty”.

 The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of concrete goals and targets to be achieved by 2015 – have helped to spur unprecedented rates of poverty reduction over the past decade. Now, the post-2015 successor framework must do the same – and more. It must finish the job that the MDGs started, with ‘zero goals’ to eradicate key dimensions of poverty – including preventable child mortality, children missing out on good-quality education, and inadequate access to water and sanitation. New projections presented here show that, if we allow current trends in income inequality to continue, we are highly unlikely to see the achievement of zero goals by 2030, even with strong economic growth. But our analysis suggests that rates of poverty reduction will accelerate significantly if income inequality is reduced and the accountability and effectiveness of governance are improved. By combining these steps with efforts to scale up poverty reduction programmes to reach the poorest and most marginalised people, we could get all the way to zero by 2030. 

Save the Children calls on the international community not to miss the window of opportunity that the post-2015 process presents – to inspire and unite a generation behind the mission of ending extreme poverty once and for all.