Will the poverty-related UN Sustainable Development Goals be met? New projections

In this paper, we discuss the literature and consider the historical relationship between growth and a set of poverty-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically extreme monetary poverty, undernutrition, stunting, child mortality, maternal mortality and access to clean water. We then make projections for 2030. We find that it is very likely that global poverty-related SDGs will not be met and by a considerable distance. The implication of this, we argue, is that more emphasis is needed on both policies to raise growth rates (i.e., build productive capacities) and distributive policy measures such as the introduction or expansion of income transfers, and ensuring investments in public goods are sufficient.