The Hill: Focusing the U.N.’s new poverty goals
Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps

“…While commendable in their ambition and scope, [the Sustainable Development Goals] overlook a crucial reality: Far too many people around the world live in conditions so fragile and dangerous that these targets are premature and unrealistic. … To eradicate extreme poverty and suffering in the world, as the SDGs aim to do, the international community must address ineffective governance in the most fragile places; otherwise, economic success and resilient communities will remain a distant dream. Specifically, these goals must focus our development interventions to address the sense of injustice and anger that drives young people toward extremism and war. … Why spread our resources so thinly across so many countries, as the new SDGs would have us do? Better to put the money where it’s needed most…” (9/30).