leave no one behind

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the central normative commitment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, expressing the principle that the benefits of development — improved health, education, income, security, and rights — must reach every person, with specific attention to those at greatest risk of being excluded: the extreme poor, people with disabilities, women and girls facing discrimination, members of marginalised ethnic and racial communities, residents of geographically remote areas, and conflict-affected populations; the principle originated in humanitarian and human rights discourse and was elevated to the centre of global development policy in 2015, creating an obligation not only to measure average improvements but to track whether the most marginalised groups are also progressing; achieving the leave no one behind commitment requires targeted investments, disaggregated data to identify who is being left behind and why, and political willingness to prioritise the hardest-to-reach populations whose inclusion may be more expensive and less politically visible than improving conditions for those already closer to development thresholds