UNITED NATIONS, July 12: “The world is on track to halve income poverty by 2015, driven by the tremendous economic growth of China and India,” said a UN economist and the co-author of the UNDP 2003 report.
However, the economist, David Stewart, warns that the world is not about to become richer, as countries like Pakistan need to address poverty trends on a priority basis.
Goals set by the United Nations Millennium Summit to lift millions of people out of poverty by 2015 can only be achieved if poor countries pursue wide-ranging reforms and wealthy nations respond with improved trade terms and increased aid, says the UN Human Development Report 2003, which covers the 10-year period from 1990-2000.
The report says that 54 nations ended the decade poorer than they began it and in 21 the human development index actually went backwards.
Mr Stewart termed the report a “battle plan” to cut in half income poverty and hunger by 2015.
The 368-page development report says that such goals could only be reached if wealthy nations increased aid and trade with poorer ones and the impoverished pursued wide-ranging reforms.
The economist described the slide as unprecedented and said that among other things, it would prevent sub-Saharan Africa from reducing its under five-year mortality age for 150 years.
The UNDP also calculated the human development goal index, a rough measure of human development and includes indicators of life expectancy, literacy, income and school enrolment.
“The top of the index is Norway as it was last year, but it is important to note that it is a photo finish for the top 10 or 15 countries, 0.014 points, a minuscule number separates the first from 10th, so very small changes in indicators can make quite large changes in ranks, even if it doesn’t reveal a huge amount of what is going on in the country,” says Mr Stewart.
At the bottom of the index, as last year, was Sierra Leone. Of the 34 most impoverished nations, 30 are from sub-Saharan Africa.
The report introduced the Millennium Development Compact proposing new global and regional policies to encourage growth and reduce poverty. It argued for investment in industries and businesses that create jobs, such as manufacturing and textiles, rather than industries that require large amounts of capital, such as oil exploration and production.
The report called for prioritizing of spending in developing countries, such as building primary schools, not universities; rural clinics, not technologically advanced city hospitals.
“The poor countries on one side need to institute quality reforms, fight corruption and most importantly put the Millennium goals at the centre of their development strategy,” Mr Stewart said. “On the other side of the coin, the richer countries really have to fulfil the commitments they made to these goals.”
Aid needed to be just about doubled for the goals to be met, “yet aid to the poorest countries in the last decade has fallen by about a third,” the economist said.
Mr Stewart’s fellow economists identified 59 countries in the report that are not only poor, to begin with, but also were failing to make progress or even moving backwards.
Mr Stewart explained that many of these countries face issues such as being locked far away from world markets, having small domestic markets, climactic conditions that are unfavourable to agriculture, that cause natural disasters, or have high disease burdens.
“Many of them also are fighting unsustainable debt levels and trying to trade in an unfair trading environment,” he said. The conclusion is quite straightforward, Mr Stewart said. “Significant support from richer countries is needed for goals to be met.”
Trade is also absolutely vital. “If the poorest countries are to find a sustainable way to develop and progress they need to be able to trade fairly in the world environment and this just is not the case,” the economist said.