Advancing global goals amidst inward crisis

 

As the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit UK news headlines, it seems closing the global poverty gap and reaching net-zero goals are fast slipping off the radar as economic concerns turn closer to home.

 

The United National General Assembly (UNGA) is currently meeting in New York to take stock and accelerate action to help achieve the ambitious sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations to improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth.

 

Sadly, evidence indicates the global poverty increased due to the COVID pandemic. A big part of the problem is there are still no ways of measuring poverty which can be used universally by all countries. Without the ability to accurately assess and monitor the problem and any progress, the lofty goal of eradicating poverty will remain but a pipe dream.

 

Tackling this thorny issue, leading researchers from the University of Bristol Poverty Institute, together with the University of Gothenburg and UNICEF, hosted a UNGA Science Summit to drive forward the development of tools to better analyse and understand poverty and deprivation. Standardised survey data holds the key to harnessing robust, multi-dimensional statistics on adult and child deprivation (such as the ability to afford adequate food, clothing and meet your social obligations) to inform meaningful policy advice and change.

 

Data is also crucial to help combat another pressing global challenge: climate change. Rapid advances in modelling techniques are transforming the potential to predict flooding, which has a disproportionately devastating impact on low-income countries.

There was much fruitful discussion and productive knowledge exchange, but many obstacles remain including the need to match social survey data with weather events and satellite images to monitor the effects of extreme weather and deforestation on societies at the global scale. Only with better harmonised and geocoded deprivation data can we start to fully exploit the improved data models, including deploying AI, to reduce social division and achieve a more equitable world.