GOAL 1 No Poverty
End poverty in all its forms everywhere

SDG 1 calls for an end to poverty in all its manifestations, including extreme poverty, over the next 15 years. It envisions shared prosperity, basic standard of living and social protection benefits for people everywhere, including the poorest and most vulnerable.

In order to empower people to raise themselves out of poverty, SDG 1 seeks to ensure equal rights and access to economic and natural resources as well as technology, property and basic and financial services. It also calls for supporting communities affected by conflict and climate-related disasters and emphasises policy commitment and mobilisation of resources as essential levers for accelerating poverty eradication.

Monitoring SDG 1 in an EU context focuses on progress made in alleviating multidimensional poverty and in ensuring that the basic needs of EU citizens are met.

Education for Sustainable Development Goals

Suggestions for the development of specific sustainability competencies from the action-oriented, transformative educational and learning outcome-oriented guide Education for Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO (2017)

Suggested learning objectives

Cognitive learning objectives

1. The learner understands the concepts of extreme and relative poverty and is able to critically reflect on their underlying cultural and normative assumptions and practices.
2. The learner knows about the local, national and global distribution of extreme poverty and extreme wealth.
3. The learner knows about causes and impacts of poverty such as unequal distribution of resources and power, colonization, conflicts, disasters caused by natural hazards and other climate change-induced impacts, environmental degradation and technological disasters, and the lack of social protection systems and measures.
4. The learner understands how extremes of poverty and extremes of wealth affect basic human rights and needs.
5. The learner knows about poverty reduction strategies and measures and is able to distinguish between deficit-based and strength-based approaches to addressing poverty.

Socio-emotional learning objectives

1. The learner is able to collaborate with others to empower individuals and communities to affect change in the distribution of power and resources in the community and beyond.
2. The learner is able to raise awareness about extremes of poverty and wealth and encourage dialogue about solutions.
3. The learner is able to show sensitivity to the issues of poverty as well as empathy and solidarity with poor people and those in vulnerable situations.
4. The learner is able to identify their personal experiences and biases with respect to poverty.
5. The learner is able to reflect critically on their own role in maintaining global structures of inequality.

Behavioral learning objectives

1. The learner is able to plan, implement, evaluate and replicate activities that contribute to poverty reduction.
2. The learner is able to publicly demand and support the development and integration of policies that promote social and economic justice, risk reduction strategies and poverty eradication actions.
3. The learner is able to evaluate, participate in and influence decision-making related to management strategies of local, national and international enterprises concerning poverty generation and eradication.
4. The learner is able to include poverty reduction, social justice and anti-corruption considerations in their consumption activities.
5. The learner is able to propose solutions to address systemic problems related to poverty.

Suggested topics

Definitions of poverty Global, national and local distribution of extreme poverty and extreme wealth and their reasons

The importance of social welfare protection systems and measures

The importance of equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance

The interrelation of poverty, natural hazards, climate change and other economic, social and environmental shocks and stresses

Work conditions related to poverty such as sweatshops, child labour and modern slavery

Resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations

Consequences of poverty such as malnutrition, child and maternal mortality, crime and violence

Development cooperation

Policy frameworks at the local, national and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies

Examples of learning approaches

Develop partnerships between schools and universities in different regions of the world (South and North; South and South)

Plan and run an awareness campaign about poverty locally and globally

Plan and run a student company selling fair trade products

Plan and implement local service-learning and/or engagement opportunities for empowering poor people, reducing their vulnerability to different hazards and increasing their resilience – in collaboration with NGOs, the private sector and/or community groups, etc.

Conduct a case study on poverty and wealth in selected countries (through desktop research) or at the local level (through excursions, doing interviews, etc.)

Provide internships within organizations addressing poverty

Develop an enquiry-based project around: “Is poverty increasing or decreasing?”

External Links

Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations 

Targets and Indicators of Goal 1