SDG 1 2030 FOR ENDING POVERTY - CAN ACHIEVE THIS GOAL IN THE BALKAN COUNTRIES?

The eradication of poverty as the main target of Sustainable Development Goal 1 by 2030 is the subject of this paper, which analyzes the national voluntary reviews of the Balkan countries and the data presented in them and which are primarily related to poverty as a multidimensional concept. Further, the paper investigate concept of poverty and gives overview poverty conditions in the region, underlining their complexity and some implications. Education seems to be an important determinant and poverty has also a spatial dimension in all these countries. As part of this paper, the issues of the situation with poverty in the Balkan countries through the prism of the covid crisis are considered, as well as this burning challenge - "inequality virus" for the situation in Macedonia with emphasis on the relevant strategic documents. Poverty moreover affects unemployment and that is why the paper presents the number of unemployed in 2020 in the Balkan countries. In the paper we concludes that governments must act on the urgency to create significant reforms, in redesigning the types and adequacy of social welfare cash benefits and support to the most vulnerable categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]