Report on Sustainable Development Goal 16 and Poverty
In 2024, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), in collaboration with a number of other civil society organisations which make up the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 Data Initiative, launched a report on the role of SDG 16 in reducing poverty, SDG 16 Data Initiative 2024 Report: SDG 16 as a Key Vector for Eliminating Poverty. Addressing the scourge of poverty is a central premise of the SDGs, as reflected in the aim of SDG 1, which seeks to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere”, and the core mantra of the SDGs, namely to “leave no one behind. The report demonstrates the causal link between progress on a number of SDG 16 targets and poverty reduction.
The report contains five chapters looking at different SDG 16 targets, including Chapter 5: States Cannot Address Poverty in Secret, authored by Toby Mendel. The first part of Chapter 5 looks at the weak progress made so far in terms of SDG Indicator 16.10.2, which measures the adoption and implementation of right to information (RTI) laws, concluding that far more needs to be done both to reduce the number of 56 UN Member States which have still not adopted RTI laws and to improve the quality of those laws which have been adopted.
The second part of the chapter highlights the strong causal relationship between increasing transparency and improving poverty alleviation outcomes. This includes bolstering government accountability, including to expose ineffective development efforts, enhancing public participation in development efforts, including so as to ensure that they are properly tethered to the needs of the poor, and strengthening efforts to combat corruption, which has been shown to have a disproportionate impact on the poor.
The Report is available here.
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