How to help the world’s poor most in 2026

THE start of a new year is a time for reflection and resolve. Yet amid our personal goals for 2026, we rarely pause to ask a harder question: if we want to help the world’s poor, how can we do this in the best possible way?

The United Nations’ (UN) attempt to answer that question effectively died in 2025. A decade ago, it committed everything to everyone through the Sustainable Development Goals – promising to fix poverty, hunger, disease, unemployment, climate change and war by 2030.

Last year’s progress report admitted the painful truth: only 18 per cent of 169 UN targets are on track, while one-third are stalled or going backwards. While global hunger declined slightly, child stunting crept upward in Africa. The learning crisis – where more than half of 10-year-olds in low-income countries still cannot read a simple sentence – barely budged.