Special Issue
Received Abstracts
We are pleased to announce that 12 abstracts have been received for the special issue titled “Approaching the End of the SDGs: Building Resilient Communities for the World's Most Vulnerable Across Education, Healthcare, Social Mobility, Migration, Housing, and the Climate Crisis.”
Abstract 01
Title: Roma and Dalit Women and Girls: A Comparative Feminist Perspective on Contemporary Descent-Based Discrimination
Abstract: Target Theme: Women and Girls from CDWD Communities
Women and girls from Communities Discriminated against based on Work and Descent (CDWD) experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that affect their everyday lives, opportunities, and participation in society. This paper would bring together the experiences of Roma and Dalit women and girls, two communities living in very different historical, geographical and political contexts, but both affected by longstanding forms of descent-based discrimination. As the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approaches, global progress reporting continues to be constrained by persistent “data invisibility” regarding Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD). Roma women in Europe and Dalit women in South Asia experience intersecting forms of structural exclusion that aggregated global metrics can obscure. Using an intersectional and relational framework, this paper would comparatively examine the lived realities, structural barriers, and agency of Roma and Dalit women and girls across distinct historical, social, and political contexts. The paper would explore the similarities and differences in the challenges faced by Roma and Dalit women and girls, with particular attention to the ways gender and descent-based discrimination intersect. It looks at issues such as poverty, social exclusion, access to education and employment, gender-based violence, stereotypes, discrimination, and limited opportunities for participation and decision-making. Importantly, the paper would center the voices and experiences of Roma and Dalit women themselves. It explores how women and girls experience and understand discrimination. By bringing Roma and Dalit women into dialogue, the paper would seek to identify both shared challenges and important differences between the two communities. It also creates space to explore what Roma and Dalit women can learn from one another and how their experiences can contribute to a broader understanding of gendered descent-based discrimination.
Abstract 02
Title: From Global Solidarity to Grassroots Multilateralism: A Model of Community-Driven Development from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent
Abstract: Growing calls to rethink and strengthen UN multilateralism1, particularly in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reflect persistent implementation gaps, changing global power dynamics, and a convergence of crises that increasingly exceed the capacity of traditional forms of international cooperation.
As the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals approaches, persistent inequalities among Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD) expose the limitations of development models that remain fragmented, institutionally siloed and largely driven from the top down. CDWD such as Roma, Dalit, Quilombola, Palenque, Osu, Haratine, Burakumin and others face distinct historical, political and socioeconomic context-specific challenges. They share structural experiences of inherited status-based discrimination, exclusion from decision-making and unequal access to resources and rights. This paper argues that these communities should not be understood primarily through the lens of vulnerability or resilience as adaptation. Rather, their transnational organising offers an important model for community-driven development, global solidarity and grassroots multilateralism.2
Drawing on the advocacy practice of the Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD), the paper examines how a global solidarity platform can connect geographically and historically diverse communities around a shared structural experience while preserving the specificity and political agency of each community. GFoD provides a space through which grassroots organisations, women, youth, researchers and community leaders can exchange knowledge, build collective strategies and enter multilateral spaces together. This model challenges the conventional architecture of international advocacy, in which communities are often approached individually, consulted temporarily or represented by external organisations. Instead, it seeks to build horizontal and intersectional solidarity across borders and communities, transforming fragmented local struggles into collective political claims.
The paper conceptualises this practice as grassroots multilateralism: a form of multilateral engagement in which communities historically excluded from global decision-making become active producers of knowledge, advocates and co-creators of international policy. Through engagement with UN human rights mechanisms, treaty bodies, Special Procedures, the Human Rights Council, the Commission on the Status of Women, the High-Level Political Forum and other multilateral processes, CDWD communities can bring grassroots evidence into global policy spaces while simultaneously bringing international standards, recommendations and political visibility back to local and regional advocacy.
Particular attention is given to the role of women in this model. GFoD approach positions women as researchers, Rights Experts, advocates and political actors who shape collective priorities and engage directly with decision-making institutions. Cross-regional initiatives enable Roma women to learn from Dalit women, Quilombola leaders from African CDWD communities, and activists from different regions to develop shared strategies around discrimination, decent work, housing, water, climate justice, gender equality and political participation.
The paper further explores how this model responds to the shrinking and increasingly constrained funding environment. In contexts where community organisations compete for limited resources, a global solidarity platform can create forms of collective capacity that do not depend solely on the scale of individual organisations. A CDWD model of grassroots multilateralism offers one possible pathway: connecting local realities to global institutions, translating lived experience into collective policy demands, and using international solidarity to strengthen community-led action.
The paper concludes by proposing principles for a post-2030 framework grounded in community ownership, transnational solidarity, meaningful participation, intersectionality, flexible financing and accountability to grassroots constituencies.
Abstract 03
Title: Descent-Based Discrimination: A Comparative Study of Caste, Hereditary Occupation, and SDG 8 and SDG 16 across South Asia
Abstract: In much of South Asia, the work a person does is still shaped by the caste they are born into. Communities affected by descent-based discrimination, especially Dalits, remain tied to hereditary occupations such as sanitation work, leatherwork, and manual scavenging, which are low-paid, unsafe, and socially stigmatised. This paper asks how this inherited division of labour connects two of the Sustainable Development Goals: decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) and peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16). It argues that the failure to secure decent work for these communities is closely linked to weak legal protection and unequal access to justice, so the two goals cannot be understood in isolation. To examine this, the study compares India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. For each country it reviews the relevant constitutional and statutory protections, official records and reported cases on how these laws are applied, and available reports from governments, courts, and human rights bodies on the working conditions of affected communities. This allows a comparison of where legal commitments exist on paper but fall short in practice. The findings suggest that anti-discrimination law alone has not broken the link between caste and occupation, because institutions remain weak, reliable data is scarce, and accountability is limited. The paper recommends stronger enforcement, better collection of caste-disaggregated data, and closer coordination between labour policy and justice institutions to make both goals meaningful for the most excluded.
Abstract 04
Title: From Regional Recognition to a Global Norm: ACHPR Resolution 619, Agenda 2063 and Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent across Africa
Abstract: The persistence of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD) challenges the promise of equality, inclusion and “leaving no one behind” at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Across Africa, inherited social status linked to descent, traditional occupation, caste-like systems, slavery and servile ancestry continues, in different contexts, to shape access to dignity, education, livelihoods, land, political participation, marriage, justice and other opportunities. Although these forms of discrimination have deep historical roots, their consequences remain contemporary, intergenerational and structural.
This paper examines the emerging African normative response to CDWD, with particular attention to African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution 619 (ACHPR/Res.619 (LXXXI) 2024) and its relationship with the aspirations of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. Adopted in November 2024, Resolution 619 represents a significant continental recognition that discrimination based on work and descent constitutes a form of social-origin discrimination under Article 2 of the African Charter. It further acknowledges the persistence of caste-based discrimination, inherited status, traditional and modern forms of slavery and untouchability, and calls upon African States to formally recognize CDWD, adopt legislative, institutional and policy measures, collect disaggregated data, and ensure the participation of affected communities in addressing these forms of discrimination.
The paper argues that Resolution 619 provides an important bridge between human rights protection and the transformative ambitions of Agenda 2063. Agenda 2063’s commitment to good governance, human rights, justice and the rule of law, together with its vision of a people-driven Africa in which citizens participate in decision-making and no one is excluded, cannot be fully realized while inherited hierarchies continue to determine social status and life opportunities.
At the same time, the African experience exposes a central challenge in building a global norm on CDWD: recognition alone does not dismantle inherited systems of inequality. The gap lies between formal equality and the structural realities that reproduce discrimination across generations. A meaningful global norm must therefore move beyond prohibiting individual acts of discrimination and explicitly address the institutional, social, cultural and economic structures through which inherited status is reproduced.
Drawing on the African experience and the significance of Resolution 619, the paper proposes that Africa can play a norm-making role in advancing a global framework on CDWD. Such a framework should recognize CDWD as a distinct and structural form of discrimination; require States to identify and address its historical and contemporary manifestations; strengthen data collection and accountability; guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities; and provide targeted measures to overcome intergenerational exclusion. The paper concludes that breaking inherited hierarchies is essential to achieving both the human-rights commitments of the African Charter and the transformative vision of Agenda 2063. Africa’s emerging recognition of CDWD therefore offers not only a regional response to a long-neglected form of discrimination, but also an opportunity to contribute to the development of a stronger global norm.
Abstract 05
Title: A Thriving Belize: Who Gets to Grow? Indigenous Women versus Climate Change and Agricultural Resilience
Abstract: When a crop fails for an Indigenous woman, the consequences extend far beyond the field. A changing and increasingly overbearing climate impacts agricultural production but also threatens household subsistence, food security and the livelihoods that sustain the overall Belizean nation, particularly Indigenous communities in vulnerable areas where Indigenous women play significant roles in planting and cultivation of food. Belize’s efforts to address its impacts remain comparatively siloed, while rising temperatures and rapidly evolving environmental conditions continue to challenge agricultural livelihoods. From cassava, maize, plantains, and other native crops, agricultural production is an essential part of household subsistence, food security and community livelihoods, yet these livelihoods are continuously challenged by insects, pesticides, environmental degradation and limited access to resources for adaptation. This paper examines how climate-related pressures crosscut gendered and indigenous systems that affect agricultural resilience among Mayan and Garifuna women in Belize. Special attention will be placed on the gendered division of agricultural labor and the changing social position of Indigenous women, including historically traditional systems that have positioned women in subordinate roles to men. The paper investigates how these structures interact with climate vulnerability, agricultural dependence and women’s adaptive capacities. Using a qualitative literature review approach and drawing on Crenshaw’s intersectional framework, the paper argues that resilience-building must recognize Indigenous women’s agricultural knowledge, capacity, agency and community-based adaptation practices. It proposes a gender-responsive approach to agricultural resilience that places Indigenous women in the Caribbean at the center of post-2030 SDG development planning.
Abstract 06
Title: Dementia in the Black Community: Its Impact on Individual’ and Families Well-being and Socioeconomic Status
Abstract: Background: The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) envisions a world with universal and equitable access to health care for all people, and is committed to promoting well-being and healthy lives for all ages (United Nations, 2015). As one of the leading causes of disability and dependency amongst the elderly, dementia poses significant health and socioeconomic costs on individuals, their families and societies (Aranda et al., 2021; Zuckerman et al., 2008), directly undermining SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing), 5 (Gender and Equality), 8 (Decent Work of Economic Growth) and 10 (Reduced Inequalities). In Canada, Black people account for 4.3% (1,547,870) of the nation’s population (Domey & Patrsiurko, 2024). Of this total, 4,800 people of African descent are living with dementia and this population is projected to increase to over 29,000 by 2050 (Federal Black Employee Caucus, n.d). Despite Jamaica’s low population of 2,834,683, 5.9% to 6% of the elderly population (30,000 to 45,000) are currently living with dementia.
Objective: The objective of this scoping review maps existing research on Black experiences of dementia and efforts launched to address its impacts across Canada and Jamaica, particularly targeting the four affiliated development goals (SDG #3, 5, 8 and 10). It identifies gaps and advances community-led, culturally-centered alternatives that address the challenges Black people with dementia experience.
Method: The comprehensive review of literature examined studies from medical researchers and practitioners in the various healthcare sectors, while others were derived from the Afrocentric principles of storytelling in audio-visual material. Most peer reviewed articles did not focus on the spiritual and social well-being of participants, highlighting gaps in understanding the culturally relevant and responsive practices of knowledge-building from people of African descent. A qualitative content analysis was used to identify the themes.
Results: The findings revealed the growing problem of dementia among Black individuals’ and families’ experiences and challenges in the health care systems, the gendered and racial dynamics of unpaid labour for caregivers, economic and social constraints and its comparison across high income and lower and middle income contexts. It highlights the importance of using an Afrocentric framework in centring Black experiences, values and community needs as central to the analysis in resilience, culturally grounded care and dementia scholarship.
Conclusion: We highlight for discussion how the preponderance of dementia in Black communities across Canada and Jamaica affect the specific goals of the United Nations’ SDG (#3, 5, 8, and 10) and existing gaps in resources and support hinder the elderly resilience and overall well-being. The article further captures recommendations for high and low- and middle- income countries in adequately addressing dementia and implementing Afrocentric community driven change.
Abstract 07
Title: Youth and Breaking Intergenerational Discrimination: Empowering CDWD Youth to Lead Change
Abstract: Young people from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD), including Dalits, Roma, Haratin, Quilombola, and other descent-based communities, are not only inheriting the consequences of generations of caste-, work and descent-based discrimination; they are also actively challenging and transforming these entrenched structures. Across diverse regions and contexts, CDWD youth are stepping forward, raising their voices, and acting as agents of change by expanding access to quality education and decent work, advancing digital inclusion and technological literacy, championing climate justice in communities most exposed to environmental harm, strengthening political participation and civic voice, and pursuing access to justice and legal redress. By doing so, they are creating new pathways for equality, dignity, and structural transformation that reach well beyond their own generation.
Breaking the cycle of intergenerational discrimination requires a fundamental shift in how youth are perceived and engaged, moving decisively beyond a framing that positions young people merely as passive beneficiaries of protection or aid. CDWD youth must instead be recognized as leaders, decision-makers, and rights-holders, with meaningful representation in the spaces where policy is shaped, dedicated resources to sustain their organizing, and genuine opportunities to influence the decisions that affect their communities' futures. This requires deliberate investment from governments, civil society, and international institutions alike in building the platforms, mentorship structures, and funding mechanisms that allow youth leadership to flourish rather than remain symbolic.
This paper will explore how youth leadership, sustained intergenerational dialogue, and collective action can work together to dismantle inherited inequalities and build more inclusive societies. It examines concrete strategies through which CDWD youth are already reshaping policy debates and community practice, the barriers that continue to constrain their full participation, and the conditions under which cross-generational collaboration - drawing on the lived experience of elders alongside the innovation and energy of youth - can accelerate lasting, structural change.
Abstract 08
Title: Climate Change and Environmental Vulnerability
Abstract: While climate vulnerability has been widely discussed, its precise contours—particularly how it affects racialized communities, including those discriminated against based on work and descent—require further elaboration and reflection.
Climate change does not affect all people equally. First, it is not merely a natural phenomenon but a human one, shaped by racial relations and racism. Second, its negative impacts stem from long-standing unequal policies that disproportionately affect racialized communities. Third, recovery from these impacts differs markedly: racialized communities face greater obstacles, including invisibility in recovery policies and lower priority in the distribution of funds and resources.
Vulnerability today cannot be understood as a static condition; it must be articulated in terms of clear rights and obligations, both legally and in public policy.
This article aims to further examine climate vulnerability as it applies to communities discriminated against based on work and descent (CDWD). This article argues that vulnerability has a legal bearing, entailing obligations on States and non-state actors. It will apply general concepts of climate vulnerability, states’ positive obligations and climate racism to the specific circumstances of these communities, with the goal of developing concrete policy recommendations and a more robust legal framework to effectively address this human rights violation.
Abstract 09
Title: Approaching the End of the SDGs: Building Resilient Communities for the World's Most Vulnerable Across Education, Healthcare, Social Mobility, Migration, Housing, and the Climate Crisis
Abstract: The lack of access to clean drinking water in First Nation Reserves is an ongoing epidemic across Canada. As such, many Indigenous Peoples are forced to spend countless amounts on safe and clean drinking water due to the unsafe conditions and lack of infrastructure. While the Canadian Government continues to table this issue, Indigenous Communities continue to advocate for the health of water, specifically by using their traditional Scientific Knowledge of the land and water, and their cultural values and principles including the Nêhiyawak view of wâhkôhtowin (relational accountability/kinship) and kwayâtisiwin (preparation/responsibility). In this article, we focus on Indigenous Traditional Knowledge of the Nêhiyawak (Plains Cree) in Alberta through the voices of community members and Elders. Their testimonies are centered on Indigenous Scientific Knowledge about the health of the Water and Land as case studies through the currently funded New Frontier Research Fund – International (NFRF-I) multidisciplinary project titled “Relational Accountability of Mother Earth”, led by Dr. Paulina Johnson at the University of Alberta. We discuss the ways in which relational research can be conducted and our learnings about water and land from the voices of the Indigenous communities in Alberta. We highlight the strides forward that we have achieved to connect researchers and community back to the spirit and health of water. By combining the Natural and Applied Sciences with Social Sciences alongside Community-Engaged research rounded in Indigenous Methodologies, we illustrate how Indigenous Knowledge is the way forward for restoring the health of Mother Earth and how Knowledge Braiding may provide ethical and culturally appropriate solutions for water security and conservation.]
Abstract 10
Title: Operationalising Asset-Based Community Development for Inclusive and Sustainable Community Empowerment
Abstract: Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) offers a strengths-based and participatory approach to community development that shifts attention from needs and deficits towards the skills, knowledge, relationships, networks, institutions, and other assets that exist within communities. This paper examines how ABCD can be operationalised as a framework for fostering inclusive, resilient, and sustainable communities through participation, collective action, and local ownership. It explores key processes through which ABCD is translated into community practice, including storytelling, asset mapping, relationship building, community visioning, and the mobilisation of local and external resources. Particular attention is given to the integration of an equality and inclusion lens, examining how ABCD can create opportunities for women, men, girls, and boys to participate as active contributors and agents of community change.. The paper argues that ABCD is most effective when operationalised through culturally responsive and genuinely participatory processes that enable communities to identify their own strengths, articulate shared visions, and develop locally led responses to common challenges. Integrating equality within ABCD further strengthens community participation by challenging structures and practices that exclude particular groups from decision-making and development opportunities. The paper contributes to interdisciplinary discussions of community development by positioning assets, agency, relationships, inclusion, and collective action as interconnected foundations for sustainable and locally led community transformation.
Abstract 11
Title: The Hidden Voices of South America: The Hope of a Future Beyond 2030
Abstract: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have advanced a global framework for equity and inclusion. Yet Afro-descendant maroon communities across Latin America, including the Palenquero people of Colombia, and Quilombola communities across Brazil, remain largely invisible within its monitoring architecture. This paper identifies three pertinent areas of unmet need for these populations that current SDG targets and indicators fail to adequately capture.
First, territorial and land tenure security remains unresolved despite constitutional recognition in both Colombia and Brazil (Rayo, 2025). Quilombola and Palenquero communities continue to face protracted, under-resourced land titling processes, encroachment by agribusiness and extractive industries, and displacement, none of which is captured by SDG 1 (No Poverty) or SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) indicators, which were not designed with communal, ancestral land claims in mind.
Second, the near-total absence of ethnically and racially disaggregated data within national statistical systems obscures the scale of descent-based inequality these communities face. SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) presumes the very data infrastructure that would make Afro-descendant disparities in health, education, and income visible to policymakers, yet most Global Reporting frameworks do not require disaggregation by descent-based or maroon community status (Pardelli & Kustov, 2022).
Third, linguistic and cultural preservation, specifically safeguarding Palenquero (the only Spanish-based creole language in the Americas) and Quilombola oral and religious traditions, receives no substantive treatment under SDG 4 (Quality Education) or SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), despite mounting evidence that cultural erasure compounds economic and social marginalization.
Together, these gaps illustrate how a universalist development framework can inadvertently reproduce the invisibility that communities discriminated against on the basis of work and descent have long confronted, and they point toward the specific policy interventions a post-2030 development agenda must prioritize.
Abstract 12
Title: When Collective Care Is Not Enough: Gendered Obligation and the Embodied Costs of Women’s Caregiving
Abstract: Background: Women comprise approximately 68% of informal caregivers in the United States, yet the health consequences of unpaid caregiving remain underrecognized within systems shaped by gendered expectations. Although SDG 5 Target 5.4 calls for recognition and valuation of unpaid care, community-based care-sharing, financial protection, and institutional support remain limited. Guided by Feminist Political Ecology of Health (FPE-H), this study examined how structural forces, cultural norms, and community infrastructure shape caregiving burden and health vulnerability among women.
Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of in-depth interview transcripts from 20 women caregivers aged 23–76 years (M = 51.5, SD = 14.5) caring for relatives with chronic conditions. The sample was racially and ethnically diverse, with participants identifying as White (35.0%), Black/African American (30.0%), Hispanic/Latino (25.0%), and Asian/other (10.0%). Data were analyzed using a hybrid deductive-inductive approach, with FPE-H domains guiding deductive coding and inductive coding capturing emergent themes.
Results: Two interconnected domains emerged. Gendered structural determinants concentrated caregiving responsibility through childhood socialization into caretaking, familial enforcement of caregiving as a female obligation, unequal family care labor, gender bias in clinical encounters, and compounded paid, domestic, and caregiving demands. Embodied health consequences included depression and anxiety, chronic-condition exacerbation, severe sleep deprivation, and malnutrition. Financial strain and relational isolation intensified vulnerability. Community resources including peer networks, faith communities, senior centers, and neighborhood mutual aid partially mitigated isolation; however, cultural collectivism could simultaneously reinforce gendered caregiving obligations.
Conclusions: Through the FPE-H lens, women’s caregiving burden represents a structural health inequity produced by gendered expectations and inadequate community care infrastructure. Addressing this inequity requires supportive labor and social policies, routine caregiver-burden screening and health monitoring, and investment in respite care, peer networks, and family care-sharing mechanisms. These findings advance SDGs 3, 5, and 10 by positioning community-supported redistribution of unpaid care, rather than individual coping alone, as central to improving women caregivers’ health and resilience.
Abstract 13
Title: Breaking Inherited Hierarchies: The Challenge of Building Global Norms on Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent
Abstract: Across continents, millions of people continue to experience discrimination arising from inherited systems of social hierarchy. These systems have distinct histories and manifestations, including caste and descent discrimination in South Asia, discrimination against Roma communities in Europe, inherited slavery and status-based hierarchies in parts of Africa[1], and discrimination against Quilombola communities in Brazil, rooted in the historical legacy of slavery and continuing through racialized inequalities. These should not be collapsed into a single historical experience. Yet across these differences are recurring structural features: inherited social status, ascribed or stigmatised occupations, segregation, restrictions on social mobility, and discrimination reproduced across generations.
This paper examines why these common structural patterns have not yet resulted in a sufficiently coherent global normative framework on discrimination on work and descent. It traces the gradual emergence of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD) as a framework connecting otherwise separately addressed experiences of caste, descent, inherited slavery, occupation and related forms of exclusion. It considers the contribution and limitations of existing international and regional human rights standards and emerging initiatives to building such a norm.
The paper argues that this normative gap also has significant development consequences. When inherited social hierarchies remain inadequately recognised in law, policy, data and development planning, the communities affected by them can remain invisible within interventions addressing poverty, education, health, housing, employment, migration and climate vulnerability. This raises a fundamental challenge to the SDG commitment to “leave no one behind.”
As the international community approaches 2030, the paper proposes moving towards a global norm that recognises both the diversity of these communities and the common structural character of inherited discrimination. Such recognition must go beyond enabling marginalised communities to become resilient within unequal systems. It should strengthen their agency while addressing and transforming the inherited hierarchies that continue to reproduce exclusion across generations.
Abstract 14
Title: Still Left Behind? Assessing Roma Inclusion as the SDG Era Approaches Its End and
Lessons for the Post-2030 Agenda
Abstract: The 2030 Agenda committed to “leaving no one behind” and to reaching those furthest behind
first. In Europe, Roma, Europe’s largest ethnic minority, remain among the groups most
affected by centuries of discrimination and social exclusion, intergenerationally transmitted
poverty, inadequate and undignified housing conditions, selective access to basic services,
discriminatory practices in municipal service provision as manifestations of antigypsyism, and
environmental injustice. Against this background, and a decade after the SDGs officially came
into effect in 2016, this study examines the extent to which the socioeconomic conditions of
Roma communities in Europe have improved and, more importantly, whether these
improvements have narrowed the inequality gap between Roma and the general population.
To address these questions, the study draws on the multidimensional framework for assessing
Roma inclusion employed in UNDP’s 2017 report and adopts a comparative secondary-data
and policy analysis, relying primarily on successive surveys conducted by the European Union
Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2011, 2016, 2021, and 2024. Focusing on European
countries for which comparable longitudinal data on Roma populations are available, the study
examines poverty (SDG 1), education (SDG 4), employment and decent work (SDG 8),
inequality and discrimination (SDG 10), and housing and access to basic services (SDGs 6 and
11). Within this framework, progress across the relevant SDG indicators is assessed along three
dimensions: changes in outcomes for Roma over time; the magnitude of the remaining gap
between Roma and the general population; and the distance from the targets established under
European Roma inclusion frameworks.
By distinguishing between absolute improvements in living conditions and genuine
convergence between Roma and non-Roma populations, the study asks whether socioeconomic
progress has constituted a step towards substantive equality or whether improving averages
conceal persistent and, in some cases, deepening inequalities. The Roma case demonstrates
that, for communities in which disadvantage has been historically reproduced across
generations, assessments of the “leave no one behind” commitment cannot be limited to
aggregate national indicators. The study thus contributes to debates on the unfinished SDG
agenda and argues that a post-2030 framework should place greater emphasis on disaggregated
data, explicit indicators of inequality gaps, and monitoring mechanisms capable of
distinguishing genuine convergence from improvements in absolute terms alone.
