UN Sustainable Development Goals
The millenium development goals (MDGS) were created at the 2000 UN summit and set targets to improve conditions in developing countries. When they expired in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals were set.
Investing in Impact
Since the launch of the Millennium Development Goals, the world has seen real progress: material poverty reduced, education and healthcare improved, hunger addressed. But systemic challenges remain.
Today, the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a clear roadmap for change - and an opportunity for strategic, values-driven investment.
Our Contribution
Five Talents operates in Burundi, DRC, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia and Malawi—targeting four key SDGs:
1 – No Poverty
5 – Gender Equality
8 – Decent Work & Economic Growth
16 – Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions
We focus on enterprise as a driver of stability and opportunity. For philanthropists and corporate partners, aligning with the SDGs through our work offers a measurable, long-term return - both socially and economically.
If you’re exploring how your giving can shape a more inclusive global economy, we’d welcome a conversation.
Explore our strategy and how we deliver sustainable impact through an innovative model rooted in community led savings and financial resilience - without the use of traditional microfinance.
Whether you’re an individual, company, or a church, you can help us move towards the SDGs.
Sustainable Development Goal 1 - End Poverty In All Its Forms Everywhere
In 1990, 47% of the world lived on less than $1.25 per day. The MDGs set out to reduce this proportion to 23.5% (achieving 22% in 2010). The SDGs take this goal to the logical conclusion by aiming to reduce the percentage of people living in extreme poverty to zero by 2030. The UN recognises that without access to financial services, many are unable to increase their incomes at all. Access to economic services such as microfinance is therefore included within a clause of this goal.
Five Talents believes that an increased income is vital, not as a goal in itself, but to give people dignity and choice in how they support themselves. For many members in programmes Five Talents supports, this may mean being able to invest in their child’s education, build a well to access safe water or visit the doctor when they are sick. In communities living below the poverty line, this represents an incredible safety net.
Sustainable Development Goal 5 - Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls
The inclusion of a point relating to gender equality in the SDGs has been widely welcomed by the development community. By 2030, the UN hopes to have eliminated all discrimination, violence, and all 'harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations'.
The majority of our members across programmes in 8 different countries are female.
Once a woman earns an income, her decision making power at home and in the wider community increases. This means she is no longer forced to depend on her husband and her children are more likely to go to school and to receive nutritious and regular meals.
In some areas where Five Talents works there are particular issues facing women such as female genital mutilation (FGM) or gender based violence. Here our partners work closely with the whole community to teach about the positive role women can play and to teach women about their rights.
Sunstainable Development Goal 8 - Promote Sustained, Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth, Full and Productive Employment and Decent Work For All
One clause of this goal contains a reference to the need for 'formalisation and growth of micro, small and medium sized enterprises including through access to financial services'. Five Talents is keenly aware of the need for development at this end of the enterprise scale. We also understand the important role that access to basic financial services play.
Our microfinance strategy is a powerful tool in the struggle for sustained and sustainable economic growth.
Some of those that we work with have been dependent on food aid for many years - reliant on these handouts but with no hope of feeding their own families. Enabling communities to use the skills, trust and small pockets of money they already have to increase their incomes is a big part of our work.
Sustainable Development Goal 16 - Promote Peaceful and Inclusive Societies for Sustainable Development, Provide Access to Justice For All and Build Effective, Accountable and Inclusive Institutions At All Levels.
Several of the sub clauses within point 16 align directly with Five Talents' operating philosophy, namely ensuring 'responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels,' developing institutions of good 'governance' and promoting 'non-discriminatory…policies for sustainable development'.
Our partners ensure these principles are put into practice through the community-owned savings groups which form the basic building blocks of all our programmes. The savings groups our partners support are owned and operated by members. They form their own constitution, elect their own leaders and set their own saving and loan rates.
