Ending poverty and hunger by United Nations

How do we Measure the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s): No Poverty Case Study?

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Is the UN successfully reducing global poverty?

Your Challenge:

Your challenge is to decide whether you think the UN Sustainable Development Goals for ‘End Poverty’ are SMART or not. 

You and your class may also decide to do some evaluation to decide whether the UN is meeting this goal or not.

Follow this Process:

  1. Preview the video Ending Poverty and the websites No Poverty and SMART Goals as a teacher to set up a class project on measuring SDG goals. You should also familiarise yourself with SMART goals:

    1. Specific (clear )

    2. Measurable (easy to measure)

    3. Achievable (realistic goal with people and money available to tackle it)

    4. Relevant (is this goal relevant to no poverty)

    5. Time specific (date set for achievement?)

  2. Evaluate and break into 7 groups with each group to decide if each of the 7 No Poverty goals meet the five SMART goal criteria. Is each goal being measured in the overview process?

  3. Report back to the class with your findings.

  4. Share the results of your SMART analysis with the UN Statistics Division which is responsible for measuring the SDG’s at statistics@un.org and post it on this website for students in other schools.

Educator Notes

This webquest may be more appropriate for older age groups.

To make this more accessible:

  • Provide an example of a SMART goal eg. to eliminate global poverty in 2030 (living on US$1.90 per day) by devoting all the resources of UNDP in the 5 key poorest regions to this task with annual reviews of progress as per chart 1 above and amendments to the goal made if required. 
  • Discuss at the end of the group analysis whether they could live on US$1.90 per day as 160,000 New Zealanders are according to the UN overview graph 1 above


To make this more challenging:

Discuss as a class at the conclusion of the group analysis whether the decline in world poverty is a result of UN actions or is happening naturally through expanding global economic growth? Is it clear from these websites what specific impact the UN is having on poverty?