“Even before COVID-19, we squandered a decade in the fight against poverty, with misplaced triumphalism blocking the very reforms that could have prevented the worst impacts of the pandemic” a stinging final report from @PhilipGAlston chrgj.org/2020/07/05/phi…
From the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, at the end of his 6-year term, this is both a critique and manifesto for very specific change in the way the global poverty reduction agenda is framed, measured, and pursued
“Over the past decade, the UN, world leaders and pundits have promoted a self-congratulatory message of impending victory over poverty, but almost all of these accounts rely on the World Bank’s international poverty line, which is utterly unfit for the purpose"
"The decline it purports to show is due largely to rising incomes in a single country, China. And it obscures poverty among women and those often excluded from official surveys, such as migrant workers and refugees"
"The line is scandalously unambitious .. the best evidence shows it doesn’t even cover the cost of food or housing in many countries ..it obscures poverty among women and those often excluded from official surveys, such as migrant workers and refugees.”
The industry of "colorful posters and bland reports" around the SDGs doesn't get off any easier
"Rather than an end to poverty, unbridled growth has brought extreme inequality, widespread precarity in a world of plenty, roiling discontent and climate change—which will take the greatest toll on the world’s poor.”
And Davos man is not going to fix it: “The rush to fund the SDGs through ever-greater reliance on the private sector, whether through public-private partnerships or philanthropy, is a blind alley. Too many ‘win-win’ promises are fairy tales".
The full report is here: chrgj.org/wp-content/upl…
If you doubt the relevance of the human rights framework to address the current moment, this is an example of what it looks like when someone with a traditional institutional mandate, who isn’t afraid of “politics” puts its power to work.
Ends
