jp7 app Want to End Poverty? Focus on One Thing.

Updated:2024-10-09 09:35    Views:66

In 2015jp7 app, world leaders made an ambitious, unanimous commitment to help developing nations improve their prospects in health, employment, nutrition and access to affordable and clean energy by 2030. Every September, the United Nations and others assess how much progress has been made.

This year, the goals look increasingly out of reach. The data shows that trying to make modest improvements on all issues is not working. It is only diffusing already thin resources.

As world leaders gather this week for the United Nations General Assembly they should reimagine their approach. In today’s digital world, nothing matters more to individual well-being than energy: Access to electricity determines fundamental aspects of individuals’ lives, like whether they are healthy or have a job.

Instead of treating electrification as one of many goals, it’s time to see it is essential to all of them. And that means the world needs to focus investment and effort on getting reliable, clean electricity to the nearly 700 million people who don’t have any — and the 3.1 billion more who don’t have enough.

Ten years ago, when I was the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, there was an overwhelming feeling of optimism in the global community about ending poverty and addressing climate change, and for good reason. Reductions in poverty in the previous two decades and geopolitical cooperation inspired the United Nations to rally countries around a set of sustainable development goals on human and planetary well-being.

The sense of possibility in 2015 was based in part on money. At the time, developing economies were relatively flush. Free trade and globalization had led to record increases in foreign direct investment. Overseas development assistance, or foreign aid, had reached more than $96 billion in 2015. And debt relief efforts had canceled $130 billion in liabilities since 1999. In total, by 2014, the flow of financial resources into developing countries had risen to $225 billion, more than ever before. This high tide suggested it was possible to lift all boats.

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