According to a 2017 UN high level political forum review of SDG One, poverty eradication demands crosscutting, coherent initiatives that make people less vulnerable, reduce the risk of setbacks, break patterns of discrimination and enable all women and men to participate and benefit from economic growth. There are a number of organizations and coalitions focused on mobilizing political leadership and new solutions to end extreme poverty. For example, one, is a campaigning and advocacy organization of more than nine million people around the world taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. They do so by lobbying political leaders, running grassroots campaigns, and pressuring governments to do more to fight AIDS and other preventable diseases in the poorest places on the planet, to empower smallholder farmers, to expand access to energy and to combat corruption so governments are accountable to all of their citizens. Another example is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their efforts to combat poverty through access to financial services. Their 2017 goalkeeper's report highlights the potential of financial inclusion for the poor. Nearly two billion people worldwide live completely outside the formal financial system, without access to bank accounts and services like credit and insurance. Since 2005, data from the IMF shows that a 75 percent increase in adults with an account at a bank, or another financial institution, or with a mobile money service provider is a huge benefit to fighting extreme poverty. We need to see action by a full range of stakeholders to end extreme poverty and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Individuals can support a number of campaigns and partnerships, but also most importantly, speak out and hold leaders and government, the private sector, and elsewhere accountable for commitments they have made to the SDGs. For policymakers, the SDGs must be embedded in national plans that are resourced and the overall enabling environment must be conducive to the innovation and partnership needed to advance the 2030 Agenda. In the private sector, we're seeing a number of examples that are really exciting of companies embracing the SDGs, whether to help publicize them to their employees, or consumers, or to come together across sectors to harness collective assets and expertise to be able to do more together. However, as we advance key deadlines and the five year mark of the SDGs in 2020, much more must be done if we are to accelerate progress and to achieve the world we want by 2030. In order to divine and quantify poverty in America, the Census Bureau uses poverty thresholds or official poverty measures updated each year. In September 2017, more than one in every eight Americans were living in poverty, a total of 40 million or equal to 12.7 percent of the total population. And almost half of those, or 18.5 million, were living in deep poverty with reported family income below one half of the poverty threshold. The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, social safety net, wealth inequality and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries and 18th amongst the top 21. Additionally, the center characterizes the US as a clear and constant outlier and the child poverty league. US child poverty rates are the highest among the six richest countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway. In December of 2017, Professor Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, visited the US and addressed the widespread issues of poverty and inequality in the country. According to Alston, there are indispensable ingredients for a set of policies designed to eliminate poverty. These include democratic decision making, full employment policies, social protection for the vulnerable, a fair and effective justice system, gender and racial equality, and respect for human dignity, responsible fiscal policies and environmental justice. Clearly, this agenda provides a number of areas where the US needs to strengthen its policies and the Sustainable Development Goals are still very applicable to Americans as much as they are to the rest of the world. Leave no one behind comes in part from the international community's experience with the MDGs where tremendous progress was made but those most in need were often left behind because of the way the goals were crafted and measured, making it easier to help those who were easier to reach in an attempt to make targets like cutting poverty in half or reducing maternal mortality by two thirds. This experience inspired the ambition we have with the SDGs to completely eliminate extreme poverty. Yet, leave no one behind us actually still quite undefined as a term despite the rally cry for the SDGs it represents. There is a movement of civil society and advocacy organizations to use it, to use leave no one behind, to drive progress on key parts of the SDG agenda that do the most to help the most vulnerable. So expect to see much more activity and definition behind this term in months to come.
