Don Cayo
Sun
Half full? Half empty? How should we interpret the picture in the latest assessment of mixed progress toward the Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty and improving life in poor countries?
People like me, who champion the power of trade to make life better for most of mankind, are fond of focusing on the positive. And why not? Between 1990 and 2004 — a time when the global population grew by about a billion — the number of people living in abject poverty actually fell by 278 million, an average of more than 1.5 million a month.
Meanwhile, people like World Bank president Robert Zoellick are stressing the negative perspective. And why not? He no doubt understands the power of trade, but he knows that many countries — almost all in sub-Saharan Africa, plus a scattering elsewhere — are doomed to miss most or all of the targets. Also, their other quality-of-life indicators — maternal and child health, education and nutrition — seriously trail behind.
In other words, there’s a lot left to do, and a huge risk it won’t get done. Worse, the double whammy of rising food prices and global warming could stall or reverse the still-fragile progress to date. So you can’t fault Zoellick for pressing his case for more action.
But neither the half-full nor the half-empty analogy quite fits this latest report, a joint analysis released this week by the World Bank and the IMF. What it really says is that, for a lot of once-poor people, their glasses are filling up nicely. And for a lot of others, they’re draining dry.
Part of this reality of increasing disparity is nailed by Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion — a book that I admire and have written about before. He takes issue with what he sees as over-emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals, pointing out that any analysis of “average” progress entirely misses the grim stagnation in 50-plus countries where his bottom billion reside.
I’d take this a step farther. Averages also ignore the plight of those who live in starting-to-prosper countries, but have failed to capture a share of the new-found wealth. Farm families are particularly vulnerable compared to others who moved to the city.
Collier might argue that, if poor people are lucky enough to live in a country where the economy is surging, at least their children will have a shot at a better life. To which I’d counter that, while this is a cheering prospect for tomorrow, it doesn’t ease today’s deprivation and suffering.
So I think there are lessons in both the optimistic and the pessimistic views of progress to date in the fight against global poverty.
Those who underline the bleakness of remaining problems are right to shine the spotlight on the need for renewed commitments to aid. This is not just a matter of getting the rich countries back on track for their promises to double aid levels by 2010. It also means getting more bang for our bucks — finding ways to deliver aid more effectively than in the past. As Collier pointed out in his book, this will necessitate some new ways of thinking — for example, willingness to focus aid much more sharply where and when it has the best chance for success, and willingness to use outside military forces to maintain order in countries embroiled in turmoil.
The need for greater effectiveness in aid was a theme taken up by Canada’s aid minister, Bev Oda, at a meeting of her G-8 counterparts in Tokyo last weekend, although she didn’t spell out that kind of detail.
But it was interesting that she chose to broach the subject given that CIDA, the department she took over last summer, has in recent years stood out among its peers for being particularly ineffective.
If I can be forgiven a paragraph to return to a favourite theme of mine, may I also point out that the optimists’ view of the recent poverty figures also holds a lesson. The remarkable progress fighting poverty in countries that have managed to catch the globalization wave underlines the power of this approach. And the need to extend it, through accommodating policies and reductions in barriers, to countries that have been left out.
If trade is harnessed to do the heaviest lifting, what’s left for aid becomes a lot more manageable.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
