Not all can enjoy the benefits of the consumer society

The size of the “global middle class” is expected to grow from 3.5 billion people in 2017 to 5.6 billion by 2030. By 2030, the total world population is expected to reach 8.55 meaning that almost 3 billion people will still not be part of the consumer class by 2030.

Living in extreme poverty

For many, middle class living is very far away. According to the World Bank, in 2015 702 million people were living in conditions of extreme poverty defined as people living on less than $1.90 per day. Extreme poverty has been defined as people living on less than $1.25 per day and severe poverty when someone has less than $0.70 per day. In 2015 the Word Bank revised their official poverty line to $1.90 a day from $1.25 previously.

Chronic poverty

Chronic poverty is extreme or severe poverty that persists over many years or an entire lifetime. Chronic poverty is often “transferred” between generations. Up to half a billion people are chronically poor, most of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Around one-third the extremely poor are poor over many years or even for their entire lives. They may well pass their poverty on to their children.

UN Millennium Goal of zero extreme poverty in 2015

The first of the UN Millennium Development Goals from 2000 was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. This was not achieved with over 700 million people still living in conditions of extreme poverty in 2015 and 8 million people still dying from hunger every year. 

UN Sustainability Goal of no poverty in 2030

In 2015 the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were replaced by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first of these goals is to end poverty in 2030 - in all forms, everywhere. A sympathetic goal for sure. But the goal itself will not do it. Up to a billion people could still be extremely poor in 2030. 

Moving in the right direction?

According to the World Bank, the percentage of the world's population living in extreme poverty fell from 37.1% in 1990 to 9.6% in 2015. However, the numbers of course depend on the definition of the poverty line. Another estimate using a definition of less than $5 a day puts the scale of poverty at 4.3 billion people meaning that 59 percent of the world's population are considered unable to meet basic needs adequately. 

What will it take to end poverty by 2030?

The current “plan” to end poverty relies heavily on growth. An analysis based on past economic patterns estimates that global GDP will need to increase 15 times compared to 2010 to reach the goal. To put this in context, in the last 30 years the global economy grew “merely” 6 times. And of course, a global economy 15 times bigger will put enormous pressure on global ecosystems that are already close to collapsing. This is not viable with the current way the economic system works. We can only support Martin Kirk on this:

“you don’t need a degree in math, or even to do the math, to get a clear sense of what a 15-fold growth would deliver.  In other words, it would mean destroying our planetary climate and making human civilization incompatible with ecological reality” (...) The reason for pointing all this out is not to pour scorn over good intentions, but to call for integrity and honesty as a first principle in any process of change."