Editorial
South Centre Bulletin 22October, 2001
Between one to three billion people in this world are estimated to be living in poverty. For them, it is a daily fight to obtain one or more of the basics of survival - food, water, clothing and shelter. There are fears already being expressed in certain quarters that given the current state of affairs in international co-operation, the targets to reduce poverty, as set out in the Millenium Declaration last year, may not be met. The inside articles look at what may have gone wrong and what still needs to be done.
In the aftermath of September 11th, the slide in the world economy appears to have quickened. In highly industrialised nations, one can see giant corporations in the airlines and related industry awaiting a governmental bail-out. The sums of money involved are staggering - hundreds of billions of dollars. The sums are even greater if one adds the planned "stimulus" packages that many industrialised nations are set to approve to prevent a full-blown recession.
Ironically, on the same day, 11th September, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report assessing the dismal economic performance of sub-Saharan Africa, which has apparently become poorer than it was 20 years ago. It identified the principal reasons as declining aid and terms of trade, mounting debt, and ineffective adjustment policies - with the nature of international co-operation having a bearing on each of those components. Interestingly, the report called for an additional $10 billion a year in official flows for reducing aid dependency in the future and for making poverty reduction targets more than empty promises.
The fate of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is especially worrying when one notes that African policy makers have made great efforts to play by globalisation rules. Structural adjustment policies, trade liberalisation and capital account openness have been the big policy forces shaping the continent's economic landscape over the past two decades. It is estimated that for each dollar of net capital inflow to SSA from the rest of the world, a dollar and six cents has flowed out: 51 cents through terms-of-trade losses, 25 cents through debt servicing and profit remittances, and 30 cents through leakages into reserves build-up and capital outflows. These figures point to a net transfer of real resources from SSA to the rest of the world.
In numerous deliberations of UN conferences, so much has been talked about reducing the debt burdens of developing countries, especially the least developed countries. But the pace with which the famous HIPC initiative appears to be moving, is more like a `Hiccup.' Similarly, calls for the reform of the global financial architecture do not seem to be making much headway. The call for an international Health Fund to fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria, made with such fervour at a recent summit in Africa was just for 8 to $10 billion. Money is hard to cough up for more than 30 million lives at risk from AIDS alone!
Even the World Trade Organisation, which lays down binding rules to govern international trade is going through a crisis of `international co-operation.' The major players of the industrialised world appear to be showing little to no flexibility in taking on board the developmental concerns of the majority of the developing country members. In the hard-boiled negotiating rooms (designated with different colours) of the WTO, calls for justice and equity somehow get evaporated. If the rights of businesses and corporations continue to triumph over basic needs of billions of people, it is bound to fuel more anti-WTO protests that would be difficult to silence.
The nature of future response of the international community to a whole host of issues already on the table in different domains of human activity raises the bigger question of human dignity. That dignity should not be defined by nationality, race, colour or religion. The longer it takes to set things right, the greater are the chances that disruptive and destructive forces in society will raise their ugly heads again. A single mobile human bomb, we have seen, can be far more dangerous than all the sitting stockpiles of nuclear arsenals our world possesses. To change the mindset of those ready to sacrifice themselves by taking others' lives will not be simple and will take time. Unless the love of life is made stronger than the will to die, the future is bound to spring violent surprises. That is a monumental challenge because it implies that life has to be made worth living for.
The war on poverty must be fought anew. Not in terms of setting more development and poverty reduction goals. That has already been done enough. In his address to the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD on 1st October, the UNCTAD Secretary General talked about the lessons that must be drawn, "The first of these has to be the need to give concrete expression to our belief in the interdependence of nations. True interdependence should lead to an increase in multilateral co-operation using methods such as intergovernmental deliberations and other forms of consensus-building. We have to use all the possibilities at our disposal, and not allow ourselves to be carried away by particular problems, while forgetting others."
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