Eradicating rural poverty to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development A/RES/74/237 and catalyse economic and social transformation, and recognizing the importance of the international community helping African countries to achieve such goals, especially in the rural areas of the African continent, Noting that, while considerable progress has been made over the past decade across all areas of development, the pace of progress observed in recent years is insufficient and uneven to fully meet the Sustainable Development Goals and targets by 2030, especially in the area of rural poverty eradication, Recognizing that poverty is a serious impediment to the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, including those living in rural areas, and that the feminization of poverty persists, emphasizing that the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, acknowledging the mutually reinforcing links between the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and the eradication of poverty, and stressing the importance of support for countries in their efforts to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, Emphasizing that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development depends crucially on the transformation of rural areas, where most of the poor and hungry live, and that in order to eradicate rural poverty, investment should be channelled towards sectors that have a bigger impact, such as education and health, agriculture and infrastructure, while noting an annual financing gap for reaching universal pre-primary, primary and secondary education of good quality in low-income and lower middle-income countries of $39 billion over the period 2015–2030, and that at least $80 billion in annual investment will be needed to meet the demand for food that is projected to increase by 70 per cent by 2050, and that the investments that are needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation also remain underfunded, Welcoming the proclamation of 2019–2028 as the United Nations Decade of Family Farming, to raise the profile of the role of family farming 4 in contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and reaffirming the importance of the United Nations Decade of Action o n Nutrition (2016–2025) in the promotion of activities towards the eradication of rural poverty, Recognizing the interlinkages and integrated nature of the Sustainable Development Goals, and reiterating that the eradication of rural poverty and hunger is crucial for the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and that rural development should be pursued through an integrated approach which encompasses economic, social and environmental dimensions, takes into account a gender perspective and consists of mutually reinforcing policies and programmes, and which should be balanced, targeted, situation-specific and locally owned, include local synergies and initiatives and be responsive to the needs of rural populations, Recalling that nearly 80 per cent of the extreme poor live in rural areas and work in agriculture, that the extreme poverty rate in rural areas is three times higher than in urban areas, and that devoting resources to the development of rural areas and sustainable agriculture and supporting smallholder farmers, especially women farmers, is key to ending poverty in all its forms and dimensions, by, inter alia, improving the welfare of farmers, Taking into consideration the increasing number of young people who decide to leave rural areas for more urbanized ones and the challenges this trend poses to the livelihood of rural families, __________________ 4 19-22511 Resolution 72/239. 3/6