Fifteen years after the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a decade after G7 leaders gathered in Gleneagles to promise to 'make poverty history', the end of extreme poverty is within reach. Later this week at a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, world leaders will agree the successor to the MDGs, the global goals for sustainable development. Front and centre will be a new target: to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. But World Bank projections show that even on optimistic growth forecasts, it will not be possible to eradicate extreme poverty (based on the World Bank definition) if the level of inequality stays as it is today. Tackling inequality will therefore be crucial to achieving this goal.

This media briefing will focus on the extent to which rising inequality has hampered poverty reduction in many countries and the potential consequences for progress towards world leaders' pledge to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.