Reporting the underreported about the plan of action for People, Planet and Prosperity, and efforts to make the promise of the SDGs a reality.
A project of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as the Flagship Agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK | YANGON (IDN) — By early 2022, nearly half of Myanmar’s 55 million population—some 25 million people—will be living below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A survey leaves no doubt that the country’s poverty headcount is likely to return to levels not seen since 2005, effectively erasing 15 years of pre-pandemic economic growth.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — Yemen, currently among the poorest countries in the world, continues to be mired in a conflict underway since 2015, which in addition to the loss of life is tearing apart livelihoods, social fabric, causing Yemen to teeter on the brink of famine, and resulting in widespread reversals of development progress.
By Nena Palagi
PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan, Philippines (IDN) — It is a feat unimaginable by any modern standard. Six young people from this remote island of Palawan, in the Philippines, have taken on the goliaths of land ownership, and won. They got over 40,000 hectares of land legally declared as protected habitat with the direct endorsement from the Indigenous custodians. (P19) INDONESIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN
![We Are in a Global State of Emergency on Extreme Poverty Viewpoint by Shameran Abed The writer is Executive Director, BRAC International. Originally founded in 1972 as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee and later known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, BRAC’s operations have grown globally and with that growth, the organization is now simply known as BRAC. DHAKA (IDN) — It is time we start treating extreme poverty as the global emergency it is. This International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, October 17, we are looking at 100 million more people being forced into extreme poverty by the end of 2021 as a result of COVID-19, joining nearly 700 million people who were living in extreme poverty before the pandemic struck. This increase is likely to be most significant in low-income countries, where poverty is projected to increase at a faster rate than before the pandemic. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have limited access to income, food, clean water, healthcare, and employment, yet extreme poverty does not receive the attention or resources that other humanitarian crises do from the international community. Extreme poverty is more than a lack of income - it is inextricably linked to and exacerbated by ongoing disasters, contributing to rises in child labor, gender inequality, and famine around the world. In 2020, progress in eliminating child labor stalled for the first time in 20 years due to rising poverty in Africa; 47 million more women and girls have been pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic; and amid rising poverty and food prices, 41 million people are at imminent risk of famine in 2021. The lack of urgent action on ending extreme poverty has been due, in part, to a misplaced belief that growth alone could end the deepest forms of poverty. However, progress toward global poverty reduction began slowing in recent years and existing anti-poverty policies and programs were missing many of the most marginalized populations. 79 percent of the bottom quintile of earners in low-income countries were receiving no social assistance whatsoever. The data is clear: We will not be able to eliminate extreme poverty under the status quo. COVID-19 has further exacerbated the issue and made clear that we need all sectors at the global, regional, and local levels to actively take measures to alleviate the worst forms of poverty. The pandemic has taken the world off course in poverty reduction, particularly in low income countries where poverty is projected to increase at a rate of 2.7% in 2021 as compared to 0.2% before the pandemic. The long-term global impact could mean nearly 600 million people could still be living in extreme poverty by 2030, an increase of 50 million people compared to pre-pandemic estimates. Setting a course to eradicate extreme poverty in the foreseeable future will require increased financial support from the international community as many of the governments who are facing rising levels of extreme poverty lack the fiscal space to address it. But money alone will not be enough to address this emergency. Countries will also need to change their policies and programs aimed at poverty reduction to ensure they reach people who are poorest and enable them to build long-term resilience. Extreme poverty is not insurmountable. Evidence-based interventions with the potential to make a tremendous impact on extreme poverty worldwide exist. They are called economic inclusion programs, and they have enabled millions of people around the world to escape cycles of extreme poverty. These interventions focus on empowering people who have been socially and economically excluded to build sustainable livelihoods and often involve providing support for their basic needs alongside asset transfers, skills training, and ongoing coaching. A recent report from the Partnership for Economic Inclusion at the World Bank finds that these interventions are experiencing an unprecedented surge worldwide, with 219 programs now reaching nearly 92 million people across 75 countries. With government-led programs scaling in some countries, economic inclusion programs could reach nearly 20 percent of all people experiencing extreme poverty by 2030. Economic inclusion interventions have the ability to break the poverty cycle for good. The evidence base supporting this is broad and growing; research from LSE found 93% of participants in BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation program in Bangladesh have seen a continued increase in income, savings, consumption, and self-esteem for years after program interventions ended. Innovations for Poverty Action compared Village Enterprise’s Graduation program in Uganda to cash transfers of the same cost and found that economic inclusion interventions led to greater improvements in income, consumption, nutrition, and subjective well-being than cash alone. More evidence is surfacing that suggests these programs have long-term impact. MIT research by Garima Sharma and Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo studied Bandhan’s Graduation program in West Bengal, finding that even ten years after starting the interventions, participants saw significant improvements in their consumption, food security, income, and health. Another study conducted by LSE and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) finds that more than a decade after completing BRAC’s Graduation program in Bangladesh, participants were more likely to have more productive jobs with greater job security in 2020 despite the economic shocks of COVID-19. As development actors seek to make meaningful strides in poverty eradication, an emphasis on sustained impacts and resilience building will be more crucial than ever as worsening climate shocks such as flooding, drought, and soil erosion threaten to destroy lives and livelihoods. By scaling economic inclusion interventions, countries can go beyond providing much-needed cash and food aid, enabling people in extreme poverty to build their savings, diversify and increase their incomes, and learn the skills needed to withstand shocks which would otherwise force them back into the poverty trap. Beyond increased financing and more effective long-term approaches, eradicating extreme poverty will require a shift in political will. To drive systems change around the emergency of extreme poverty, we need a new paradigm for how we think and talk about it. Many still believe poverty is a fact of life and there is little we can do about it. This is demonstrably false when we have rigorous evidence to show that a single, two-year intervention can empower people to escape extreme poverty and improve their wellbeing for years afterward. We need to start viewing extreme poverty as a policy choice and take the steps needed to change policies to better meet the complex needs of people who experience it. We also need to stop viewing people in extreme poverty as victims. When given the right tools and resources, people who are the furthest behind can become agents of change in their lives, escaping the poverty trap and building the resilience to continue an upward trajectory that benefits their households and communities. To truly move the needle on ending extreme poverty by 2030, financial and political change is needed, but it is not impossible. We must strive to mobilize support and resources at the global, regional, and local levels, cultivating multisectoral partnerships to rapidly expand proven anti-poverty policies and programs. Only then will we be treating this issue with the urgency it deserves. [IDN-InDepthNews – 14 October 2021] Photo: (left) Buildings affected by worsening flooding in Bangladesh. After Nurjahan moved into a slum to escape flooding in Bangladesh’s south, she used the Graduation program to give her and her family a new outlook on life (right). Credit: BRAC 2019.](/images/bangladesh_floods.jpg)
Viewpoint by Shameran Abed
The writer is Executive Director, BRAC International. Originally founded in 1972 as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee and later known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, BRAC’s operations have grown globally and with that growth, the organization is now simply known as BRAC.
DHAKA (IDN) — It is time we start treating extreme poverty as the global emergency it is. This International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, October 17, we are looking at 100 million more people being forced into extreme poverty by the end of 2021 as a result of COVID-19, joining nearly 700 million people who were living in extreme poverty before the pandemic struck.
Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir
The writer is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and president of the High Atlas Foundation.
MARRAKECH (IDN) — The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are aspirationally universal, addressing globally relevant issues with earnest objectives. Despite the profound good that they represent, fundamental problems exist with the Goals. They lack prescriptiveness, even to the extent of not explicitly aligning with what we know is indelible to sustainability: local people’s participation. (P09) ARABIC | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH
![Conquering Poverty in America Is Possible Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Adam Smith who in 1776 wrote “The Wealth of Nations”, the Bible of capitalism, which has become the standard economics text for over two centuries, was quick to single out monopolistic tendencies as the most important tool in undermining the virtues of capitalism. It kept the poor poor. The laws that give these capitalists their freedom to exploit the marketplace, so-called rent-seeking, “may be said to be all written in blood”. At the moment, Amazon is in the firing line for practicing such practices. Indeed, a majority of Silicon Valley companies rent-seek. Big pharma companies, like Pfizer, which is expecting this year 25% profits on its corona virus vaccine are another. Rent-seeking is a major cause of wage stagnation among working-class Americans and has much to do with the “deaths of despair”, argue Anne Case and Angus Deaton in their recent, well-reviewed, book, “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism”. Poverty in the US is worsening, they write. Suicide rates among middle aged, white, Americans is on the up—in particular among those without a bachelor’s degree. (However, suicide rates among blacks are lower than among whites in this group; black mortality rates have declined.) Drug overdoses from too freely available opioids have risen extraordinarily fast among working class whites. Alcoholism, always a problem with this group, has increased rapidly. This group has also been hit by pandemic-caused unemployment—the relief mandated by the Trump Administration was too on and off to do what should have been done. We know that President Donald Trump practiced the wizardry of co-opting poor whites. Trump in effect told poor whites that although they might not have much at least they were white. As Martin Luther King observed, the poorer white men “ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him no matter how badly off he was, at least he was a white man, better than a black man”. White working-class men have seen their purchasing power fall. Between 1979 and 2017 they lost 13% of their purchasing power while national income per head grew by 85%. The corona virus pandemic has accelerated this decline in wages. Moreover, wage decline has been joined with job decline- from better jobs to worse jobs. Other rich countries—in Europe, neighbouring Canada, Australia and elsewhere—have not seen an epidemic of deaths of despair nor a long-term stagnation of wages, although they were badly hit for a few years by the Great Recession of 2008, triggered by US bank failure, for which the bankers suffered personally hardly at all while lower income mortgage holders lost everything. Globalization and technological change, often named the culprits by pundits and academics, do not seem to have had such a bad impact. This suggests that in the US other factors are at work. The main trigger of poverty and despair is the health care system. Second is the move, more than anywhere else in the Western world, of market and political power away from labour towards capital—the Amazon workers’ ongoing fight to unionize and Uber’s attempt to refuse contracts (recently declared illegal by the UK Supreme Court) to its drivers are two indications of this. Other rent-seekers are doctors, pharmaceutical companies, banks, real estate businesses, car dealers and hedge fund managers. All these have pushed legislatures to give them tax breaks and special deals and regulations. None of these operate in a true free market as described by Adam Smith and most of his economist successors. Reducing rent-seeking would probably do more good than increasing taxes on the rich. The problems with the health industry go far beyond the opioid scandal. The US spends huge sums of money for some of the worst health outcomes in the Western world. “A cancer at the heart of the economy”, Case and Deaton call it. Robin Hood robbed the rich to aid the poor. In the US it is the other way round. One bit of good news is the reported improvements among black people. Black lives do matter and since the onset of Martin Luther King’s civil rights protests time has been increasingly kind to black people. Black mortality rates have fallen rapidly. The percentage of blacks with a bachelor’s degree has risen. Black incomes among its working class have not improved as much as they should but non-material advances are plain to see. Discrimination has diminished. Voting power has increased—indeed the black vote in South Carolina assured Joe Biden that he would be the Democrats’ presidential candidate. The gate to becoming middle class has opened. Health has improved. Intermarriage has become acceptable. (Gallup refers to this as “one of the largest shifts of public opinion in Gallup history”.) The number of black politicians has risen very fast. Black people have held important positions, often enough the top positions, in the White House, the cabinet, the government agencies, the military, the police, the civil service, multinational companies, schools, universities, broadcasters and newspapers. (Yesterday the Los Angeles Times appointed a black journalist as its editor in chief.) When Barack Obama became president it looked like a big divide had been crossed. This, presumably, is why the suicide rate among poor blacks is much less than among poor whites and why the resentment of poor whites that Trump drew on increased. As poor whites see it, they live on a downhill slope. For blacks there is the benign feeling of progress. Of course the pandemic has shaken things up for everybody but doubtless once it has ended the US will return to where it was two years’ ago. Enter Joe Biden, stage left. He has promised to correct these grave malfunctions in American society. Indeed, his multitude of planned reforms are already underway—from tax rises for the rich to universal kindergarten provision for all. Nevertheless, for him to change norms that are deeply embedded in American society will be extraordinarily difficult. There is an inbuilt wall of resistance, from banks to hospital insurance companies. Free market capitalism was high jacked by special interests a long time ago and those interests are entrenched in the body politic. It is imperative that they be dug out. For this Biden needs to win over poorer whites, many of whom voted against their own economic interest and went for Trump. Biden has to persuade poor whites that he is on the side of all the poor, and that he stands for their economic progress. If successful, that will ensure him a Congress that gives him a future majority and ensures a Democratic victory at the next presidential election. As for the blacks, he needs to hold on to their support, keeping their upward trend going, not least in non-material things—improved education, health care, unemployment and social benefits, the housing of the homeless and encouragement to rebuild trade unions. Biden must lift all boats among the working class. It is an immense challenge. But it is possible. * About the author: The writer was for 17 years a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune, now the New York Times. He has also written many dozens of columns for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times. He is the European who has appeared most on the opinion pages of these papers. Visit his website: www.jonathanpowerjournalist.com [IDN-InDepthNews — 04 May 2021] Photo: Tents of the homeless in San Francisco, California, May 2020. CC BY 2.0](/images/Memorial_Day_2020_San_Francisco.jpg)
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Adam Smith who in 1776 wrote “The Wealth of Nations”, the Bible of capitalism, which has become the standard economics text for over two centuries, was quick to single out monopolistic tendencies as the most important tool in undermining the virtues of capitalism. It kept the poor poor. The laws that give these capitalists their freedom to exploit the marketplace, so-called rent-seeking, “may be said to be all written in blood”. At the moment, Amazon is in the firing line for practicing such practices. Indeed, a majority of Silicon Valley companies rent-seek. Big pharma companies, like Pfizer, which is expecting this year 25% profits on its corona virus vaccine are another.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — Eminent thought leaders in economic and social fields have called for fundamental change in the multilateral system in the spirit of international solidarity to combat the severe impacts of COVID-19. They comprise the United Nations High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, convened by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
In their two-day meeting middle of April, twenty Advisory Board members explored various approaches to confront the once-in-a-century crisis, with inequalities, climate change and lack of access to COVID vaccines topping the priority list.
By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (IDN) — The long-awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)—set to be the world’s biggest free-trade zone by size—which entered into force on January 1, 2021, promises a new era for African trade.
An Africa-wide free-trade pact could bolster the region’s income by $450 billion and lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035, if accompanied by significant policy reforms and trade-facilitation measures, according to the World Bank. When fully operational, the Free Trade area will create a market of 1.2 billion and drive a combined GDP of $2.5 trillion. (P02) GERMAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SWAHILI
By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA (IDN) — A once-in-a-century crisis—a Great Disruption unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic—hit the world economy in 2020. The pandemic has reached every corner of the globe. Meanwhile, more than 120 million have been infected and close to 2.7 million people killed worldwide.
High unemployment and loss of income have pushed millions into destitution during the pandemic. The total number of people living in poverty is expected to have increased by 131 million in 2020 alone. As many as 797 million people will still be trapped in extreme poverty in 2030, representing a poverty headcount ratio of over 9 per cent. (P33) CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN | PORTUGUESE
Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir
Dr Yossef Ben-Meir is president of the High Atlas Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to sustainable development in Morocco.
MARRAKECH (IDN) – October 17 marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The commemoration of this day suggests that the way to end poverty is not a matter shrouded in mystery. In fact, its celebration denotes that, at a minimum, the manner to end poverty is most likely established knowledge. While it could withstand further evaluation, its people-centred methodology is tested as plain as day, and it is as well understood as the brutality of en masse denial of the potential of our humanity.
