Why is growth the only answer?

Right now, economic growth sits at the root of the SDG plan to tackle poverty. The SDGs are aiming for at least 7% per annum in least developed countries, and higher levels of economic productivity across the board. Goal 8 is entirely dedicated to this objective.
This feels intuitive and logical. If economic growth equals more money, and poverty equals a lack of money, then economic growth equals less poverty. It stands to reason. But, now consider this: since 1990, global GDP has increased 271%, and yet both the number of people living on less than $5 a day, and the number of people going hungry has also increased, by 10% and 9 % respectively. Add to that the wage stagnation across the developed world, and increasing inequality both within and between countries pretty much everywhere, and the shakiness of this basic logic becomes evident.
Aggregate economic growth does not translate into less poverty; the stated objective of the SDGs. Maybe this would only be problematic, something that could be fixed by tweaking the growth model while keeping the basic imperative in place, were it not for the second part of the problem. The imperative for every country, every company, and every individual to grow their material wealth, all the time is destroying us, in the most real and painful way. The consumption-driven mechanisms we use to achieve it, and the GDP measure we use to define it, have us locked on a path to ruin by actively encouraging us to treat finite natural resources as if they were infinite, and prioritize the growth of the money supply over everything else. Said another way, the perceived moral imperative for economic growth actually contradicts the laws of nature.
Are there any other reasons why endless growth, everywhere, might be so attractive to the designers of the SDGs? Could there be reason buried in the fact that, in recent years, 95% of all income from growth has gone to the richest 40%?