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Sustainable Development Solutions that Address Poverty & Gender Inequity Seven years ago, 189 nations, including the United States, came together at the United Nations Millennium Summit to create a sustainable development and poverty alleviation action plan. Eight goals known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) were agreed upon by all nations. These goals set out to reduce poverty and hunger, and to tackle ill-health, gender inequity, lack of education, and environmental degradation by 2015. 2007 marks the midway point in meeting the MDG's. The ability to meet our nation's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals is contingent on a well-defined poverty alleviation strategy. Today, more than one billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty, on less than one dollar per day (1). They lack access to basic resources such as adequate nutrition, health care, education, and clean water. Often, their poverty is linked to environmental degradation. Sustainable Development and Women Advancing sustainable development policies, alleviating the worst of poverty, and supporting the trend toward slower population growth cannot happen without interventions directed at those most affected by – and most able to affect – environmental degradation and poverty at the local level: women. Women make up two thirds of the world's poorest people, are more likely than men to be poor, malnourished and illiterate, usually have less access to medical care, property ownership, and employment, and are far less likely than men to be politically active (2). In developing nations, women are the first to encounter the effects of ecological stress, because they must walk farther to get wood for cooking and heating, to search for clean water and to find new sources of food. Because mothers tend to be responsible for rearing children and ensuring sufficient resources to meet their needs for nutrition, health care and schooling, women's lives are often inextricably linked to natural resource use. Therefore, advancing women and girls' access to quality health care, education and economic opportunity is crucial to alleviating poverty and advancing sustainable development. When women are healthy, they are better able to care for the needs of their families and local environments. And when girls have access to education, they are more likely to delay marriage and childbearing, and instead acquire skills to improve economic prospects for themselves and their families. This reduces poverty, maternal and infant mortality, and child malnutrition rates. Find out what you can do to ensure that all people have access to clean water Support the Global Poverty Act, which would ensure that U.S. foreign policy includes implementation of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce global poverty. Find out more about Sierra Club's GREEN-PINK PROJECT and our efforts to unite the voices of environmentalists and women's rights advocates. Find our more about the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Up to Top