Prayer Squares: A Prayer for No Poverty (SDG #1)

Our Prayer Squares are a freely-printable resource to help you pray for women and girls, and the world, using the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as an engaging framework.

Download the Sustainable Development Goal Prayer Squares
Read more of the Salvationist Prayers for Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations has set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as 'an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.'

We believe that prayer is the biggest action a Christian can begin with. Will you join us in an urgent call for prayer, as we intercede for women and girls through each of the Sustainable Development Goals?

Prayer for Sustainable Development | Whakakāhore Hāhoretanga
Goal #1: No poverty | Find out more
End poverty in all its forms everywhere

• More women than men live in poverty, especially during their peak childbearing years. Women and girls around the world are 4% more likely than men and boys to live in extreme poverty, and the risk rises to 25% for women aged 25 to 34.

'Pāpā, nō mātau anō te whiwhi ki te tuku inoi ki a koe hei manawa ora mā rātau te hunga pōhara o te ao hurihuri nei.

Father, we pray for your will to be done. Where there is poverty, we pray that you would wipe it out and restore the balance and restore equity for all people. Infuse hope where there is no hope.

Father, we pray that if there is any assignment of the enemy that is preventing governments, organisations or individuals from sharing and distributing wealth and provisions to those in need, that the assignment would be cancelled in the name of Jesus by His blood been shed on Calvary.

Nō reira, ko Koe Io, te puna o te kaha, te ora, te tuakiri, te wairua, te oranga tonutanga mō ngā iwi katoa. Āmene.'

- Envoy Anihera Caroll, Divisional Director of Māori Ministries Midland Division

'Jehovah Jireh, Lord you are our provider. We give you thanks for your provision. We thank you Lord for our time, energy, finances, family and practical needs like food, clothing and shelter.

We give you thanks for all you have given us. Lord, you have provided enough for us all. So we say sorry, and repent, for not always being good stewards of what you have given us. We say sorry and ask for your forgiveness for our greed; for consuming more than we require, for holding on to things that we could be sharing, for our lack of generosity and for not always stewarding well what you have given us.

Lord, we recognise that there are times when this means others miss out. Father, I pray that we would have the courage to live generously, that we would steward our resources in such a way that others would be lifted out of poverty. We pray that we would be like the church described in Acts, giving to those in need. Oh Lord, that we would embrace the kind of community you desire for us. We recognise the different kinds of poverty that people live within, but right now we think specifically about economic poverty.

We pray that peoples basic needs of food, clothing and shelter be met, we pray that they would have access to healthy living conditions and education. Show us Jehovah Jireh our place in sharing your provision with others. For those living in poverty, may they find hope, peace and freedom in you Jesus. 

May your church be your hands and feet to those living in poverty and may we see more people rise up out of the oppression of poverty and into the freedom and abundant life that you have for them. Amen.'

- Captain Sammy Millar, The Salvation Army Napier