Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities

What Goal 10 asks for

Goal 10 is about the distribution of gains rather than their total, and its first target says so plainly: the income of the bottom 40 per cent of the population should grow faster than the national average. That is a demanding test, because an economy can grow steadily while the bottom 40 per cent falls further behind. The second target broadens the definition beyond money, asking for the social, economic and political inclusion of everyone irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic status. A third asks countries to eliminate discriminatory laws, policies and practices, and a fourth asks specifically for fiscal, wage and social protection policies that produce greater equality, which puts tax and transfer design inside the goal.

The goal also covers inequality between countries and the movement of people between them. There are targets on better regulation of global financial markets, on greater voice for developing countries in international economic and financial institutions, and on special and differential treatment for developing countries in trade. One target asks for orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration through planned and well-managed migration policies. Another sets a concrete number: reducing the transaction cost of migrant remittances to less than 3 per cent and eliminating corridors where the cost exceeds 5 per cent, on the reasoning that money sent home by migrant workers is one of the largest income flows to poor households anywhere.

Goal 10 in India

Indian inequality is structured as much by caste, tribe, gender, disability and region as by income, and the constitutional and legal framework reflects that: reservation in education and public employment for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, and, under the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019, a 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections outside those categories. Programme design follows the same logic. PM-JANMAN, launched in 2023, targets 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups with housing, water, education, healthcare, connectivity, electrification and livelihoods. Eklavya Model Residential Schools provide schooling for Scheduled Tribe students in remote areas, growing from 129 operational schools in 2014-15 to 499 by May 2026 on the Ministry of Tribal Affairs' reporting. Stand Up India, from 2016, provides collateral-free composite bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to women and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe entrepreneurs. The Aspirational Districts and Aspirational Blocks approach is an explicit attempt to close regional gaps by concentrating delivery in the worst-performing administrative units.

Financial and digital inclusion is the other main lever. Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, launched in 2014, exists to give unbanked households a basic savings account, and the government reported beneficiaries rising from 17.9 crore in August 2015 to 58.16 crore by May 2026, with Bank Mitras providing branchless service; this is the infrastructure that direct benefit transfer runs on. Non-profits working on Goal 10 in India generally do three kinds of work: enabling people to claim what they are already entitled to, through documentation, certificates and grievance redress; direct services for groups the mainstream misses, including persons with disabilities, transgender people, manual scavengers and their families, denotified and nomadic tribes, and internal migrants who lose access to entitlements the moment they cross a state line; and legal and advocacy work on discrimination, atrocities and access to public institutions.