Caring for the poor countries

The French Revolution sanctified equality as a fundamental value of modern Europe. Two de­cades of neo-liberalist hegemony have turned equality into a meaningless, obsolete term. Equality is wrongly accused of wanting every individual to be the same. The in-word now is “fairness”.

The right wing continues to blame people for their poverty. Little do they care that poverty shapes attitudes and behaviour and that these rob poor people from “equality of opportunity”. Poverty today arises primarily out of our socio-economic system and capitalism itself. Just throwing money at poverty tends to perpetuate rather than to alleviate it. The poor need to be given the rod to fish, not the fish to eat. One of the effects of globalisation is that poverty is no longer confined within borders.

There is an ever-growing number of poor people in the richer, more advanced societies. Europe 2020 estimates that there are about 80 million poor people in EU countries. According to a recent US Census Bureau report, the number of Americans living in poverty has jumped to 43.6 million, or one in seven Americans. This at a time when the richest one per cent of Americans earn 23 per cent of national income; up from 10 per cent in the 1970s.

This growing level of poverty at home is bound to lessen the political will of the richer countries to help poor ones. Gone is the bullishness of the western world in its ability to serve as a blueprint for the economically backward countries. These days the media consistently tell us about the super-rich in communist China and how fast India and Brazil are growing. So should we forget about the predicaments of the poor countries given that “charity begins at home”?

Global celebrities such as Didier Drogba, Zinedine Zidane, Carl Lewis, Antonio Banderas, Annie Lennox and Paulo Coelho believe otherwise. They are part of the team seeking to sensitise public opinion and to push for action on the Millennium Development Goals. “War on Extreme Poverty” in poor countries, should remain the world’s topmost jihad.

It has been 10 years since the UN spearheaded an agreement among world leaders to achieve a set of poverty-reducing targets by 2015. Branded as the Millennium Development Goals, eight targets were set; which included halving the number of people living in absolute poverty and reducing by two-thirds the number of children dying before they reach their fifth birthday.

Last month, world leaders got together at the UN to reaffirm their commitment to the MDGs. In 2000, they had agreed to give 0.7 per cent of GDP in aid of poor countries. In 2009, the aid given (0.31 per cent of GDP ) was less than half the set target estimated. This at a time when the world economic recession threatens to plunge millions back into unemployment and poverty. The overall picture is not all gloom.

Although world population has risen, absolute poverty has fallen from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion. Other significant improvements have been registered in reducing children hunger and under-five mortality rates (from 101 deaths per 1,000 live births to 69). The MDGs are off-target primarily on maternal mortality. In poor countries, 350,000 mothers die at childbirth every year.

This has induced Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, to pledge $1.5 billion over the next five years for family planning and maternal and child health. The big challenge, of course, is not just about saving lives but in giving a life to these mothers and their children.

Also, of concern is the fact that progress is bypassing the poorest in the world. Statistics, when available, provide national averages and hide inequality within the country. Also, the figures are significantly skewed by what happens in China, where there has been a dramatic drop in poverty from 60 per cent to 16 per cent. Some commentators have suggested that an equity indicator be built into these goals. The UN prefers to talk of global inequality rather than the domestic inequality within Third World countries.

A major criticism addressed at the MDG programme is that it is concerned with providing the fish and not the rod. How sustainable is the progress that is being achieved? It is disappointing that, while the rich countries talk about fighting global poverty, the Doha trade round is stalled. The poor countries keep insisting that, ultimately, they prefer “trade not aid”. They want the rich countries to do away with their agricultural subsidies and protectionism so as to allow them to compete on a fairer playing level.

Granting foreign aid is not only about charity. Aid is a way of creating demand for donor country exports. “Tied aid” obliges recipient countries to spend the money on goods and services from the donor countries themselves. Aid is also important in buffering global political instability. As British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg pointed out at the UN summit, “22 of the 24 countries that are furthest away from the MDGs are steeped in conflict. Conflict breeds radicalism, extremism, terrorism” (The Guardian, September 22).

The great merit of the MDG programme is in keeping poverty on the global agenda despite all the media clutter, economic woes and increased egoism. Promises made should be kept. As the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, told the General Assembly, “the consequences of doing otherwise are profound: death, illness and despair, needless suffering, lost opportunities for millions upon millions of people. We must hold each other accountable”. This whether we care about equality or just being fair.

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