SDG#1 (NO POVERTY)

Social Action Project

MARATHON: SDG-1 (END POVERTY IN ALL ITS FORMS EVERYWHERE)

Group members: Zarmeen Abid & Manahil Shahzada

Department: G&PP 

Semester: BS-4 (PA&G) MORNING 

As a part of our subject social action project, degree Governance, and public administration and in order to gain practical knowledge about some social issues, we are expected to write a report on our social action project, titled “Help stop poverty” based on SDG’s goals (Goal #1) assigned to us by Dr. Athar Rashid. The basic objective behind this project is to aware people of the Sustainable development goals, their causes, and impacts along with the role Pakistan has played in implementing them. Also, part of National University and modern languages has been mentioned in manifesting SDG goals.

WHAT ARE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS? 

Sustainable development goals or global goals are a set of 17 different interlinked global goals that are designed to be the “blueprint to achieve more of a sustainable future for all of us”. The SDGs were set up in 2015 by United Nations (UN) general assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030. In September 2015, various countries adopted SDGs to end poverty, protect the planet, promote beneficial health services and ensure prosperity for all. Immunization helps in providing good nutrition which helps in decreasing the child mortality rate.

SDG-1 (NO POVERTY) 

 No poverty: Healthy children + families = increased prosperity Eradicating poverty in all of its forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. While half of the number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 1990 till 2015, too many people are still struggling for basic human needs.

 

SDGs AND PAKISTAN:

Year joint project to institutionalize 2030 agenda. UNDP MAPS have been applied in order to focus on the four project outputs: 1. Mainstreaming SDGs in plans, policies and resources allocation aligned to 2030 agenda. 2. Financing flow increasingly aligned with 2030 agenda. 3. Innovative approach applied to accelerate progress on priority SDGs. 4. SDGs monitoring, reporting and evaluation capacities strengthened. According to the Pakistan with an overall index score in 2021 is 57.7 that means the country is on the average on 57.7 percent on the way to best possible outcomes across 17 SDGs with a rank of 129 out of 193 despite the covid-19 pushback. Pakistan has shown Commitment to SDGs since it was one of the first countries to accept the 2030 agenda. On 16th February 2016 Parliament also announced to approve sustainable development goals as national development agenda. It also formed parliamentary SDGs secretariat based at national assembly - one of the few countries to do it. This process of legislation was the first and crucial step in localizing the SDGs goals. Help stop poverty 7 The government of Pakistan held various discussions in implementing the sustainable development goals with all stakeholders for coordinating and strengthening efforts at provincial and federal level to achieve Pakistan’s sustainable development and poverty reduction targets. With the support of UNDP, Pakistan’s planning ministry has launched a five international sustainable development report 2020, Pakistan has achieved SDG goal#13 on climate action which is a great achievement but it still needs to be worked upon without government’s vulnerability. 

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND SDG-1

 The achievement of SDG goals require different stakeholders and NUML has contributed in achieving the goals in different disciplines which is as follows;

Anti-poverty policy: NUML has anti-poverty policy to help underprivileged and poor students achieve their goals along with some of the scholarships given on merit bases to help students achieve excellence in studies. It also supports funds for needy people.

PROJECT’S PROPOSAL & STATS:

Title of the project:  Help stop poverty!

 Objectives:

 ● Around two million people have fallen below the poverty line in Pakistan which needs to be addressed.

 ● In order to eradicate poverty from Pakistan, awareness is a must to people, about the impacts, causes and way forward. 

● Educating people about the important steps public can take to overcome the harmful effects of poverty.

 

Location: National University of modern languages (NUML) main campus, Islamabad.

 Methodology/ Approach

 ● Conducting interviews with the students and faculty. 

● Awareness walk within the premises of university.

 ● Distribution of pamphlets

30 people were interviewed, out of which; a) 25 said, government is responsible for poverty. b) 15 said, elimination or reduction of taxes shall be done. c) 10 said, government shall provide jobs. d) 5 said, educating others and awareness shall be done.

 

Our Experience:

From this social action’s project we learned many skills, as it helped in developing many skills thorough different social activities involving; communicating in a professional way since we conducted number of interviews, it not only helped us in boasting our confidence but also modifying our ways of communicating. Most importantly we learned new skills to work as a team and develop coordination along with welcoming other member’s ideas and opinions. And how to convince the other member with your thoughts and ideas was also developed during this project. This project also made us acquire knowledge about Sustainable development goals along with some of the major goals, Pakistan lacks and needs to focus on. We also got to know a lot about SDGs, their importance, implementation and the prosperity we could witness if we all fulfill them with honesty. Sense of social responsibility was built during this project since many of us Help stop poverty 11 played an important role in educating people about the do’s and don’ts and also some of the major step, we as a part of this society can take in order to save our community from any harm in future. This project also played an important role in helping us learn reporting writing, appropriate way of conducting interviews, improving our methodology of doing research, cooperation between the team members, and speaking to other in a well-mannered way. 

CONCLUSION:

 As you can see poverty is badly impacting Pakistan, if not stopped right away it can badly influence the community. It ranks one of the most serious social problems affecting our world today. The most expressed concerns surrounding poverty focus on economic and social issues. Therefore awareness needs to done in order to educate people about certain steps to eradicate poverty, so in the name of good citizen we must work collectively to save our community from poverty in best possible ways. “If poverty were a real man, I would’ve killed him.” Hazrat Ali (R.A), the fourth Caliph after the death of holy Prophet (P.B.U.H) stated. From Hazrat Anas, the prophet SAW said, “Poverty can lead to infidelity.”

 RECOMMENDATIONS:

 As we saw in this report that poverty is growing very fast so it is high time to control this thing by following certain steps. So for the betterment of our society and environment, we have some recommendations to control or mitigate this problem:

Increase employment.   

1.Rise in the pay 

2. Paid family sick leaves

3. End mass incarceration 

4. Invest in high quality child care.

5.Tackle segregation and concentrated poverty

6. Discouraging child labor