Building on the Millennium Development Goals, the UN Sustainable Development Goals are the cornerstone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, billed by the UN as “An Agenda of unprecedented scope and significance.” The seventeen ambitious goals, which are intended to be reached by 2030, are conceived as integrated, indivisible, and as balancing the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. They are organized around five core pillars:

● People: ending poverty and hunger and ensuring that all human beings can lead fulfilling lives in a healthy and dignified environment.

● Planet: protecting the environment while ensuring sustainable use and management of natural resources.

● Prosperity: ensuring environmentally sustainable economic growth, mutual prosperity, and decent work for all.

● Peace: building societies that are peaceful, just, and inclusive, and in which human rights and gender equality are respected.

● Partnership: strengthening global solidarity to address inequalities within and between countries, by focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable.
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This Research Topic addresses the first Sustainable Development Goal, which is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” Progress toward this goal is measured by a number of individual targets and indicators.
As highlighted in the UN’s most recent SDG progress report, the slowdown in poverty reduction since 2015 has been greatly exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, for example, around 120 million people were pushed back into extreme poverty, representing the first increase in extreme poverty in over 20 years. Along with workers in the informal economy, the pandemic has also disproportionately impacted young and female workers. At present, the goal of eradicating poverty by 2030 is not on course to be met, with around 600 million people expected to be living in extreme poverty in 2030. Against the backdrop of the growing climate crisis, significant efforts are therefore needed to bring the 2030 target within reach.
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This Research Topic will address the first Sustainable Development Goal from a sociology-specific perspective. It will enquire about the framing and elaboration of the goal, its adaptation to particular geographical contexts, stakeholder involvement in it, and influence and impact of social mobility and social stratification studies on it.
Given the setbacks to poverty reduction across the world resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s edition of the Research Topic will focus particularly on the challenges and complexities of poverty reduction in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
This Research Topic welcomes papers that will provide both theoretical and empirical findings. Potential issues include, but are not limited to:

• New approaches to definitions and measurement of poverty in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.

• Lived experience of poverty, inequality, and unfairness.

• Measurement as well as social and political implications of the informal economy.

• Interventions in marginalized communities and peripheral areas.

• Qualitative or quantitative studies focusing on poverty.

• Case studies and good practices in battling poverty.

• The development of programs and initiatives related to the social economy and solidarity economy.

• Examples of social disparities and inequalities unveiled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Local, regional, national, and international policies on poverty reduction.

• Planning, management, governance, and evaluation of social policies.

• Poverty reduction in the COVID-19 pandemic-related interventions, for example, response and recovery plans, programs, strategies, and funds.

• Comparative social policy studies, including differences across nations, a variety of policy ideas and policy instruments, and policy transfer and learning.

• Multi-level, cross-sectoral, and multi-sectoral cooperation of various stakeholders, including public, private, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and non-formal entities.

• Evaluation of poverty reduction schemes and strategies.

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Frontiers in Sociology

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