According to the United Nations, more than 700 million people, or 10 per cent of the world population, still live in extreme poverty today, struggling to fulfil the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation, to name a few. Worldwide, the poverty rate in rural areas is 17.2 per cent—more than three times higher than in urban areas.
The goal of this SDG 1 is to
- By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day
- By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
Credit Source: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/poverty/
For today, will cover Grameen Foundation, which works to combat the SDG No Poverty.
Grameen Foundation builds tools and resources to help people in poverty and connect them to information to help sustain themselves. They provide resources and apps such as managing digital money and apps to grow income from corps. Based on qualitative and quantitative research, they have developed a scalable and sustainable solution to help poor women and farmers. They have different solutions to address financial management, helping them grow crops more efficiently, and connecting them with community agents.
Their first solution is making digital money accessible to women. In this solution women can become financially independent as in most households in poor communities, the men control the money. With this financial freedom, women can start their own business, go through and survive through any crisis, and invest money for her and her family’s betterment. They have people on sight who help mitigate these steps to better finance management. This way people in poverty are able to save money better and invest more into their businesses.
The second solution is Digital Farming. This digital platform provides farmers with key information such as data such as weather, pesticide information that will maximize their profit in farming. There will be call-in radio shows that farmers can listen and voice and text messages with information. Such information will keep all farmers on track to maximize all profit from farming.
They also have community agents that help people learn how to use these tools for their benefit.
The Grameen Foundation has really understood the root causes of poverty. At a local level, they have analyzed the barriers that poor people face, especially in the formal markets, which is their main source of income. Additionally, they are focusing mainly on poor women as The Grameen Foundation said “digital and financial inclusion is only possible when women are at the center of product and service creation.” With this, the services are centered around helping women and farmers in poverty.
I am going to add the link to the Grameen Foundation for you to check out and support their business. I hope this series provides motivation for you to think outside the box on how you can support the UN SDGs. Don’t forget to #Code4Cause!