Poverty is an old enemy with many faces; it means going hungry, not being able to attend school, not knowing how to read or write, not having access to safe drinking water, or not being able to visit a health centre when ill or pregnant. Poor people describe poverty not so much in terms of lack of material items - money, food, shelter and clothing - or living in unhealthy, polluted and risky environments; but as a sense of powerlessness, voicelessness, and social exclusion.
Endemic and persistent poverty, the scourge of HIV/AIDS, frequent and brutal conflicts, and the widening chasm between the rich and the poor all fuel the growing sense of injustice, which is often expressed in protests against institutions that mirror or reflect the concentration of power in today's global economy.
Poverty eradication is a call to action to change the world so that all may have enough to eat, decent work, a place to sleep, access to basic education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their lives and their communities. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) express various dimensions of human poverty in a set of numerical and time-bound targets.
The MDGs reflect the consensus that development is ultimately about reducing human poverty and protecting human rights. Traditionally, the belief was that economic growth would be sufficient to reduce poverty, and that trade liberalisation is the best way to accelerate aggregate growth. But strategies aimed at raising average incomes and liberalising markets have mostly failed the poor. Economic growth and trade are necessary but far from sufficient to reduce poverty. The assumption that more growth and trade will automatically translate into less poverty is - regrettably - incorrect. We wish we could share the faith some analysts have in the power of trade and growth to reduce poverty; but the available evidence raises the spectre of reasonable doubt. Furthermore, the case that inequality is good for growth has been dismissed in the court of economic analysis. Today, we understand better that poverty results not just from the lack of income and jobs but also from a lack of access to basic social services, lack of equity and powerlessness.
At the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, world leaders resolved to "spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty."
The MDGs express many of the faces of human poverty in eight goals:
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Control HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
The entire United Nations system, with its funds and programmes, departments and specialised agencies, has been galvanized by an urgent call to action. Already, the MDGs are taking the debate about human development to parliaments, pulpits, the press and pubs, involving presidents, prime ministers, preachers and primary school teachers.
Most of these discussions centre on the first seven goals. This paper reviews progress on the eighth goal regarding the global partnership for development. Three important aspects of MDG 8 relate to aid, trade and debt relief. They find their current official commitments in the Monterrey Consensus on development finance, the Doha 'development' round on trade, and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, respectively.
Progress on global commitments for improved aid, fairer trade and steep debt relief will determine, to a large extent, the successful achievement of the first seven MDGs by 2015 in most if not all developing countries. It is, therefore, important to assess whether current progress in these three critical areas points towards a stronger global partnership, based on mutual accountability. This is particularly important and urgent because of the long-standing perception among developing countries that demands for accountability has been and remain imbalanced and are applicable mainly to them - while the developed countries have escaped accountability and adequate criticism when failing to fulfil their pledges and live up to their international commitments.
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