Progress toward SDG 1. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back in the Poorest Countries’ Catching Up?

Abstract

The UN Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015, and their implementation was envisioned by 2030. However, at the midway point of 2023, the successes look modest, and the unresolved challenges require enormous efforts on the part of the global community in terms of consolidation and financing. The complexity of the SDG implementation is largely due to the changes in macroeconomic conditions: the world today is far from the expectations of the global community 8 years ago. At the same time, it was during the intercrisis period (2010-2019) that the global development agenda took shape and the framework conditions for its realization were formed. This paper is devoted to a comparative study of two major crises of recent years and their consequences in the context of solving global problems using the example of SDG 1 (poverty eradication). The fight against poverty is complicated by regional specifics and new external conditions: the crisis of global governance, the growth of sovereign debt, the tightening of monetary policy in developed countries, insufficient investment, growing inequality, as well as the prioritization of other goals with the limited financial resources of the world community. All this puts the realization of SDG 1 and the 2030 Agenda at risk and at the same time creates conditions for revision of the current global development agenda.