The state of global research on poverty after SDG declaration

Poverty is a significant global problem which can hinder the attainment of the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Poverty reduction or elimination requires adequate scientific or research contributions, creating socio-scientific frames that could inform relevant stakeholders in policy planning, implementation and evaluation. This study aims to review the state of global research on poverty (2016 and upwards), since the UN's declaration of SDGs in 2015.

This study adopted a bibliometric review design. On 31 May 2022, a systematic SCOPUS-based search was conducted to retrieve all journal papers published on poverty (2016 till 31 May 2022). The bibliometric data of the retrieved papers were analysed using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer software.

A total of 15,143 journal papers on poverty were retrieved, of which 91.2% were published in English, whereas slightly more than half (52.9%) were published in the social sciences. Although all regions of the world sourced journal papers on poverty, however, countries from the Global North, particularly the USA and the United Kingdom, dominated other countries in terms of authorship, funding and institutional affiliations. Among Global South countries, China leads in terms of authorship, funding and institutional affiliations. South America and Africa contributed the smallest volume of journal papers on poverty.

There exist global inequalities in research productivity on poverty. The global poverty problem skews to the Global South, but the scientific contributions flow from the Global North. There is a need to narrow the existing inequality gaps in the research productivity on poverty through North-South synergetic research collaborations.