It's Possible to Shift Wealth and Power Dynamics Across the Globe by 2030

The UN's Sustainable Development Goals are 17 encompassing objectives meant to address the world's most pressing health, educational, social and economic issues by 2030. This month, the UN General Assembly, as well as many of the governing bodies behind the UN's SDGs, will be convening and we'll be breaking down a goal a day.

Indicators of international equality -- including sustainable income growth, social inclusion of minority communities, and equal political representation -- continue to lag. Despite marked developments in health care technology, rural women remain three times more likely to die while giving birth than women in urban centers, many members of the developing world live in societies with greater income inequality than that of the 1990s, and inequality continues to grow among children in several high-income nations.

Transformative change will be needed to pursue political, social, and economic policies and practices, both in international bodies and individual nations, in order to achieve a marked decrease in global inequality by 2030.

While the G-8 has been expanded to the G-20, most of the developing world remains sorely underrepresented in international decision making, and in the implementation of international policies. The Common African Position, an agenda to enhance implementation of the SDGs in Africa, is a step in the right direction, but many members of the African Union have made it clear that a total restructuring of the UN Security Council may be necessary to increase equal access to global governance.

At home, the American Dream is look increasingly far away, as income inequality continues to grow across the US. The top 1 percent of earners are making more than three times as much as they earned in the 1980s (coming in at a wild $1.3 million average per year) while the income of the bottom 50 percent of American earners has remained about the same.

The difference is even greater for minority communities. Research from Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies shows that middle-income white households own almost eight times as much wealth as middle-income black households, and almost ten times as much wealth as middle-income latinx households.

Inequality and under representation goes beyond income. Only 20 percent of Congress is made up by minorities and women, and only 10 percent identity with non-Christian religions.

It's time to challenge the way that wealth, power, and opportunity is distributed, both in the US, and throughout the rest of the world. Here are the groups and people with that vision in mind.

Abroad

OutRight Action International continues to fight for equal representation and opportunity within, and for, LGBTQ+ communities across the globe.

ONE also fights against inequality through public health, education, economic advocacy with a focus on underrepresented portions of the African continent.

"Whether lobbying political leaders in world capitals or running cutting-edge grassroots campaigns, ONE pressures governments to do more to fight AIDS and other preventable, treatable diseases in the poorest places on the planet, to empower small-holder farmers, to expand access to energy, and to combat corruption so governments are accountable to their citizens," the organization says.

At Home

Fighting inequality is highly correlated with fighting hate and discrimination. The Southern Poverty Law Center is doing just that, by tracking hate groups and providing legal representation to victims of discrimination in the Deep South with a team of more than 100 advocates and lawyers.

Organizations like the Council of American-Islamic Relations and the Transgender Law Center are also fighting unequal access to opportunity for underrepresented groups through education and civil rights advocacy. With a focus on equal pay and employment opportunity, the American Association of University Women fights for gender equality in the workplace and in places of education through salary negotiation workshops, public policy advocacy, and issue-specific research.

To learn more about the SDGs, head to the Goalkeepers site created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,