Reaching the furthest behind first. A key challenge for sustainable development.
In my new blogs, I will be discussing my thesis, a review paper which was written in collaboration with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). The title of my thesis was “Enabling socially inclusive action to build resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change and natural hazards of the most marginalised”. Often the most marginalised groups are described as (in sustainable development language) being “left behind” or those “furthest behind”. I wanted to address some of the possible causes of social exclusion and potential solutions to creating an inclusive society for the most vulnerable groups to thrive and have the ability to enhance their adaptive capacity to shocks which may come from climate change, pandemics, wars or economic crises.
The IIRR work primarily in rural areas helping to lift those in vulnerable situations out of poverty and toward more resilient and sustainable livelihoods. This paper was written under the guidelines of the Climate Adaption and Resilience (CLARE) program run in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada, which aims to enable “socially inclusive and sustainable resilience to climate change” across the most vulnerable countries. As I am a Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) student, addressing issues of sustainability and social inclusion in the agriculture sector is of particular interest for me and hence for my thesis, I wanted to highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by some of the most vulnerable groups in the world: rural smallholder farmers.
“Reaching the furthest behind first”, the progressive universalism at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Action and can only be achieved if we include those all of those who have been left behind in previous attempts at development which could be described as unstainable. Progressive universalism means that there needs to be accelerated action to ensure that the worst – off populations, including marginalised groups and individuals are making progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, to accelerate progress to those furthest behind and to ensure a socially inclusive world where everyone can reach their full potential, we need to understand who are the furthest behind and why they are in this position.
In many countries people are still facing discrimination leading to their inability to fully take part in society. Despite globalisation and world development, social exclusion is still prevalent and holding back progress on achieving many of the SDGs. Social exclusion is not a new concept, and it is referred to by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) as “a process by which certain groups are systematically placed in disadvantaged position” due to discriminating factors such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, caste, ethnicity, and age.
Social exclusion is associated with manifestations of poverty, food insecurity, alienation from society and a general lack of entitlements. The language of the SDGs makes it clear that where social exclusion persists, sustainable development will not be achieved, and this is evident throughout all the SDGs. For example, SDG 1 (no poverty), target 1 “By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere” and SDG 2 (Zero hunger), target 1: “By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round” (UN, 2015). The strong focus on reaching all segments of society presents us with the importance of social inclusion for achieving the SDGs.
Real progress in achieving goals of the 2030 Agenda and ensuring social inclusion requires a focus on including everyone is all aspects of society rather than a narrow focus on just inclusion in economic activities. It will require inclusive employment, addressing issues of gender inequalities and ensuring that everyone has access to social services and appropriate social protection. To aid understanding and track progress on achieving social inclusion, Hassan et al. (2022) presents a conceptual frameworks for understanding the components of social inclusion and is presented in figure 1. Being involved in, or having access to each of the dimensions in Figure 1 below is essential to achieving socially inclusive societies for all to develop.
It has been well documented that the poorest segments of society will be amongst the most vulnerable to climate change due their inability to adapt their livelihoods to sudden shocks and stresses. Lifting vulnerable populations out of poverty and achieving the targets of SDG 1 (no poverty) remain the most important and the most challenging goals of sustainable development. The explicit mention of eliminating all forms of poverty underscores the multi-dimensionality of poverty and achieving this goal will require a more holistic approach than solely focusing on surpassing the World Bank’s poverty line of $1.90 a day. The Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index by the United Nations Development Program provides a measure of poverty in all its forms and gives an insight into the dimensions of poverty that need to be accounted form in order to alleviate all forms of poverty (see figure 2)
Although there has been significant achievements worldwide in lifting people out of poverty, progress towards alleviating all forms of poverty and indeed many other of the SDGs is hindered by the impacts of climate change and other economic shocks. The World Bank estimates that without climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, an estimated 130 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty in the next 10 years.2 On top of this, the goals of no poverty are put under pressure in recent times due to the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic which together have led to food shortages and increases in the cost of living. The cost of living this year alone has pushed an extra estimated 71 million people in 159 developing economies into poverty1 . However, these figures just refer to those falling below the World Bank’s poverty line. If we consider the impacts of sudden shocks on multi-dimensional poverty, the results are shocking and pose a huge threat to sustainable development.
The impacts of shocks on the poorest populations highlights the need to accelerate poverty alleviation, unless SDG 1 is achieved, sustainable development will be beyond reach. Governments need to step up their efforts on alleviating all forms of poverty worldwide. Tackling deeply rooted causes of social exclusion will be a key step towards alleviating the multi-dimensional poverty that is holding back the poorest from achieving prosperous livelihoods. To this end, in the next blog I will be discussing some of the findings from my review paper relating to the deprivations faced by rural smallholder farmers.
References
Hassan, Z., Khreich, W., & Osman, I. H. (2022). An international social inclusion index with application in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries. Decision Analytics Journal, 3, 100047.
UN. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
World Bank. (2021). When poverty meets climate change: A critical challenge that demands cross-cutting solutions. https://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/when-poverty-meets-climate-change-critical-challenge-demands-cross-cutting-solutions#:~:text=%22The%20climate%20crisis%20is%20a,climate%20action%20in%20developing%20countries.