FAO.org

While there has been an unprecedented achievement in poverty reduction in the last three decades, eradicating extreme poverty and halving poverty by 2030 are still two of our greatest challenges. Today, about 767 million people continue to live in extreme poverty. Roughly, two thirds of the extreme poor live in rural areas, and the majority are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In the past 30 years, private and public investments in agriculture and rural areas have remained stagnant or have declined in most developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where poverty and hunger are most prevalent. With the adoption of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, countries have renewed their commitment to fight poverty, hunger and malnutrition, recognising that equitable and sustainable growth and inclusive structural transformation are key to achieving sustainable development and moving lifting people out of poverty. The 2030 Agenda is thus an opportunity to focus public and private investments in reaching the poorest of the poor, particularly in rural areas of the developing world. This task will not be simple and will require changing the way we think and act in relation to rural development. Investments today need to take into account natural resource conservation and sustainable agricultural production, including investing in climate smart technologies. To achieve SDG 1 and SDG 2, each country and region will have to evaluate its own pathways out of poverty; however, country experiences suggest that both social and economic interventions are equally important in reducing poverty . Economic growth (e.g. in agriculture) is not enough. To promote rural development and inclusion, countries must take specific policy and programmatic actions that reach the poor directly. This should include a combination of social and economic policies that address today’s challenges and enable and empower rural people to earn a living and shape their livelihoods.