Rethinking Poverty

Fifteen years ago, the world summit for social development (Copenhagen) identified poverty eradication as one of the three pillars of social development. Since then, poverty eradication has become a major focus of development efforts, as reflected in the internationally agreed upon Millennium Development Goals that aim to halve extreme poverty by 2015. According to statistics, there has been some success in meeting these goals.

Assessing Progress: Eradication of Poverty

I attended a side-event titled “rethinking poverty” during the Commission of Social Development. At this event, the current criteria used to quantify poverty was deemed controversial and a barrier to true poverty eradication. Furthermore, the progress portrayed by existing statistics was also brought into question. For example, when China is removed from the existing statistics (for the year 2005) the number of people living in extreme poverty increases from 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion. The World Food Programme stressed that “investment in human development and capability” is needed. The panelist from theInternational Labor Organization stressed the need for more “equity orientated policies”. The panelists agreed that the most important challenge was the need to “rethink how we communicate poverty”. (See Rethinking Poverty—an executive summary of the World Social Situation 2010.)

The main theme of the Commission was social integration. The panelists noted that the social perspective of development requires addressing poverty in all its dimensions. The focus must be placed on a people-centered integrated strategy. It was mentioned that a properly conducted Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) contributes to national debate on policy options and promotes national ownership of strategies that could potentially contribute to the “operationalization of Copenhagen’s commitments”. I found this breakout session very interesting. The extremes of wealth that exist are a stark contrast with the reality of extreme poverty under discussion. The current economic crisis shows how fragile wealth actually is. The panelist from UNICEF talked about the unpublished multidimensional poverty analysis of 2010/2011. Problems of defining, indentifying (the nature/ extent of) and measuring poverty proved persistent. Panelists articulated the need not only to rethink ways of tackling poverty, but also ways of being heard by policy makers so as to allow them to make decisions in line with the latest research. Yet, I found it interesting that they had not changed their methods of communication to attempt to solve the problem. To my further surprise, panelists mentioned that countries showing the best recovery from the global economic crisis were the ones that did not follow the international “script” for economic recovery.

I am still pondering the questions posed by the panelists: How do you strengthen governments to help them differentiate between good and bad policy advice? What is the optimal mix of domestic and international poverty eradication policy? How are reports / data actionable?

As a recent graduate of a Masters of Business Studies in Government, I found the topic very thought provoking. The research was relevant and thorough. I look forward to learning more during my year here.