Challenging poverty amid unprecedented prosperity
Thalif Deen
Global poverty is thriving - rather ironically - amidst one of the
most prosperous times in human history.
|
|
Poverty and
wealth exist side by side in the Third World |
Kul Chandra Gautam, a former Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy
Executive Director of the UN children's agency UNICEF, points out that
world economic output was never more prodigious: last year it hit the
60-trillion-dollar mark.
At this time of unprecedented global prosperity, in which someone
becomes a new billionaire every second day, "We have the contrasting
situation of nearly one billion people living on less than a dollar a
day and 800 million going to bed hungry every night," he added.
And according to the U.S.-based Forbes magazine, the number of
billionaires worldwide reached 1,125 this year, a staggering increase
from 179 in 2007.
They emerged not only from rich countries such as the United States,
Germany and Japan but also from developing countries, such as Egypt,
Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Belize, China, India, Mexico and
Venezuela.
Addressing the third forum of the Tokyo-based Global Network of
Religions for Children (GNRC), Gautam said it is because of poverty that
nearly 10 million children die every year from causes that are readily
preventable.
"It is poverty that keeps 93 million children out of primary schools,
the majority of them girls, and it is poverty that lands millions of
children in child labour, often in hazardous circumstances, when they
should be going to school."
The recent dramatic rise in food and petroleum prices is also bound
to further impoverish the already poor, "and as usual, children are
likely to be its main victims", Gautam told IPS.
The Arigatou Foundation of Japan, the organisers of the Hiroshima
Forum, is convinced the time has come for the world's religious
institutions, and all those who profess religious faith, to come forward
and join hands in this global fight to alleviate the suffering of
children and promote their well-being.
Since its founding in May 2000, GNRC has emerged as an important
global alliance of religious organisations and people of faith committed
to interfaith dialogue and action aimed at improving the lives of
children.
One of the themes of the Hiroshima Forum, currently underway, is "the
ethical imperative to ensure that no child lives in poverty".
The United Nations estimates that over 600 million children live in
absolute poverty worldwide. The reduction of extreme poverty by 50
percent is one of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with a
target date of 2015.
But Dr A.T. Ariyaratne, founder and president of the Sarvodaya
Movement, one of the most successful grassroots movements in Sri Lanka,
is sceptical about reaching that goal.
"Poverty and powerlessness go hand in hand - both at the political
and economic level," he said. In most developing countries, Ariyaratne
said, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen by the
day.
He dismissed as a "bunch of lies" some of the statistics doled out by
national Governments to bolster the argument that poverty is on the
decline in their respective countries.
"I have met a number of political leaders - even at the cabinet level
- who don't even know what the Millennium Development Goals are,"
Ariyaratne told IPS. The Venerable Kojun Handa, supreme priest of the
Tendai Buddhist denomination, singled out the "deep economic
disparities" in which children are deprived of their basic necessities,
including adequate food and education.
"At the same time, if we turn our eyes to those regions of the world
that are considered 'advanced nations,' including Japan, we see a
ubiquitous emphasis on excessive material wealth."
He said these rich nations believe in the ultimate superiority of
their economies and the many negative facets of an internet-based
society in which children are corrupted through the damage inflicted
upon them.
Still, Gautam quoted his former boss and mentor, the late Jim Grant
of UNICEF, who said there had been more progress for children in the
last 50 years - during the second half of the 20th century - than
perhaps in the previous 500 years.
In Asia alone, over a billion people have been lifted out of poverty
in the past half century, of whom 400 million were from China. India is
rapidly following a similar trend. The Republic of Korea has seen its
per capita income increase from 100 dollars to 17,000 dollars.
Late last year, UNICEF reported that for the first time since it
started keeping records, the annual number of child deaths decreased to
below 10 million. This accounted for a 60-percent reduction in the
under-five mortality rate since 1960.
"This is a remarkable testimony to the continuing progress in child
survival and success of many health interventions," said Gautam.
Smallpox, which used to kill five million people a year in the 1950s,
was eradicated during our lifetime. Polio, which used to cripple
millions, is on the brink of eradication. Deaths due to measles, one of
the biggest killers of children, declined by 90 percent in Africa in the
last seven years, he noted.
"There are more children in school today than ever before, and gender
disparity is rapidly declining at the primary school level," he added.
"And thanks to the heightened sensitivity created by the U.N.
Convention on the Rights of the Child, issues such as child labour,
trafficking and abuse of children, children in armed conflict and other
violence against children are being systematically exposed, and action
taken to address them."
"And many non-governmental organisations (NGOs), faith-based and
inter-faith groups like the GNRC, and civic leaders are championing the
cause of children," he said. Overall, he said, children are much higher
on the world's political agenda. Increasingly, they figure prominently
in election campaigns, parliamentary debates and national legislation.
The fantastic communications capacity in the world today makes it
possible to bring the blessings of science and technology to the
doorsteps of even the poorest people in the most remote corners of the
world.
And child-oriented programmes are benefiting from this information
and communications revolution.
But the bad news is that much of this progress has bypassed the
bottom billion people in the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and
parts of South Asia, Gautam said. Civil wars and conflict, and the
pandemic of HIV/AIDS have exacerbated the fight against poverty by
weakening the economies and social fabric of many countries,
specifically in Africa.
"We all thought there would be an era of peace, and a huge peace
dividend, following the end of the cold war. But regrettably, ethnic
conflicts and tensions spread following the collapse of the Soviet Union
and former Yugoslavia," he added.
Inter Press Service
|