World Engineering Day
PTrans Target
Hero

SDG 1: No Poverty

End poverty in all its forms everywhere
SDG Goal

SDG 1 aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Despite significant progress, millions of people still live in extreme poverty, struggling to fulfil the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation.

How engineering can make it happen

Engineering drives economic growth and alleviates poverty through basic infrastructure such as roads, railways, and telecommunications. However, much engineering work remains to be done to develop technologies that improve access to basic services such as clean water and sanitation, reliable energy, and clean cooking fuels. Large populations in low-income countries are demanding access to the latest technologies for communication, education, and health. Frugal innovation enables the development of affordable and reliable technologies that are accessible to all.

Video Thumbnail
Film courtesy of the Royal Academy of Engineers

Global progress

  • Extreme poverty persists, affecting one in ten people worldwide. Recent crises have stalled progress, with the burden falling heavily on sub-Saharan Africa and conflict-affected regions. Without a significant acceleration in efforts, 8.9% of the global population will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030 under the revised international poverty line. Similarly, at the current trajectory, only one in five countries is projected to have halved its national poverty rate by 2030.
  • For the first time on record, over half of the world’s population now receives at least one form of social protection benefit. Despite this milestone, 3.8 billion people remain uncovered.
  • Governments are spending more on education, health and social protection, but emerging market and developing economies continue to lag behind advanced economies in allocating resources to these essential services.
  • A world without poverty will require urgent actions to raise social protection coverage in developing nations, close spending gaps on essential services and target resources to the most vulnerable populations.

Source: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2025/

Key Stats

Related Stories

Barrick
Barrick