Last Wednesday, British prime minister David Cameron announced a few recommendations for ending global poverty by 2030. Improving life for the more than one billion people that live on less than $1.25 a day would include provision of drinking water, electricity, health care, and schools.

Cameron reported that ending global poverty “can and should be one of the great achievements of our time. It is doable”. As a co-chair of the high-level panel that will recommend the best ways to combat global poverty, the British prime minister hopes to improve the U. N. Millennium Development Goals that expire in 2015. These goals included ensuring accessibility to elementary school education, stopping HIV/AIDS, increasing access to clean water and sanitation, as well as reduction of maternal and child mortality through healthcare.

These goals, however, Cameron says, didn’t place enough emphasis on the effects of conflict and violence. Building strong institutions and enforcing the law were overlooked in the Millennium Development Goals, and the panel hopes to remedy this by promoting “good governance and private enterprise, investment, and entrepreneurship.” The main focus of ending global poverty is economic growth in the private sector.

Cameron also highlights corruption and how tackling it as well as holding governments accountable is “the golden thread of development.” These reforms in conjunction with those such as food and water provisions, healthcare, and education accessibility could allow a swift eradication of global poverty by the year 2030.

– Sarah Rybak

Photo: Guardian