The First UN Millennium Development Goal

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The First UN Millennium Development Goal

• Thomas Pogge
• Columbia University and
• NIH Department of Clinical Bioethics
• ltthe views here presented are the authors not
  those of the NIHgt

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The First UN Millennium Development Goal (2000)

• to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of
  the worlds people whose income is less than one
  dollar a day and the proportion of people who
  suffer from hunger.
• www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.shtml
• (unanimously adopted without a vote by the UN
  General Assembly on September 8 of the year 2000)

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The 1996 World Food Summit in Rome

• We pledge our political will and our common and
  national commitment to achieving food security
  for all and to an on-going effort to eradicate
  hunger in all countries, with an immediate view
  to reducing the number of undernourished people
  to half their present level no later than 2015.
• www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.htm

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Goal 1 Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

• Target To halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
  proportion of people whose income is less than 1
  a day.
• The target has largely been met in East Asia and
  the Pacific, but Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin
  America and the Caribbean, and parts of Europe
  and Central Asia are falling short.
• www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDG-Page1.pdf

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Population Living in Extreme Poverty by Region
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDG-Page1.pdf
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Population Living in Extreme Poverty by Region
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDG-Page1.pdf
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World Bank Upbeat

• After increasing steadily over the past two
  centuries, since 1980 the total number of people
  living in poverty worldwide has fallen by an
  estimated 200 million even as the worlds
  population grew by 1.6 billion.
• James D. Wolfensohn Responding to the
  Challenges of Globalization Remarks to the G-20
  Finance Ministers and Central Governors, Ottawa,
  November 17, 2001
• www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/whatsnew2001.htm

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World Poverty 1820-1998
http//econ.worldbank.org/prr/globalization/text-2
857/, page 8
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The Conventional (World Bank) Method of
Defining Poverty

• 1. Stipulate an international poverty line (IPL)
  defined in terms of the purchasing power that
  some arbitrary US income had in the United
  States in some particular base year. The World
  Bank has successively introduced two IPLs under
  the 1/day label, defining as extremely poor
  those living in households whose income per
  person falls below, respectively
• 365/year PPP 1985 or 393/year PPP 1993

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The Conventional (World Bank) Method of
Defining Poverty

• 2. Use official purchasing power parity
  conversion factors (PPPs) to translate the chosen
  -amount into other-currency amounts deemed to be
  equivalent in purchasing power in the chosen base
  year. This yields national poverty lines
  supposedly equivalent to the IPL in the IPLs
  base year. For example
• Naira 4560/year in Nigeria in 1993
• 393/year PPP 1993
• Rupees 2756/year in India in 1993

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The Conventional (World Bank) Method of
Defining Poverty

• 3. Use the national consumer price indices (CPIs)
  of the various countries to inflate or deflate
  each countrys national poverty line for the
  IPLs base year so as to derive national poverty
  lines for the same country for other years. For
  example
• 293/year in the US in 1985
• 393/year in the US in 1993
• 504/year in the US in 2003
• Rs 1562/year in India in 1987
• Rs 2756/year in India in 1993
• Rs 5510/year in India in 2003

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Poverty Trend 1987-98
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The Conventional (World Bank) Method of
Defining Poverty

• 3. Use the national consumer price indices (CPIs)
  of the various countries to inflate or deflate
  each countrys national poverty line for the
  IPLs base year so as to derive national poverty
  lines for the same country for other years. For
  example
• 293/year in the US in 1985
• 393/year in the US in 1993
• 504/year in the US in 2003
• Rs 1562/year in India in 1987
• Rs 2756/year in India in 1993
• Rs 5510/year in India in 2003

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World Bank Poverty Estimates are Not Robust w.r.t
Choice of PPP Base Year

• The World Banks switch in PPP base year from
  1985 to 1993 produced the following changes
• For most countries, poverty lines were uniformly
  lowered for all years -- e.g. by 20 for the US
  and by 61 for Mauritania.
• For a few countries, poverty lines were uniformly
  raised for all years -- e.g. by 42 for Nigeria.
• As a consequence, Mauritanias poverty rate
  estimate (1990 survey) was lowered from 31.4 to
  3.8, while Nigerias poverty rate estimate (1985
  survey) was raised from 31.1 to 72.2.
• Likewise, the 1993 poverty rate for Latin America
  was lowered from 23.5 to 15.3, while the 1993
  poverty rate for Sub-Saharan Africa was raised
  from 39.1 to 49.7 percent.

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The Human Cost of Poverty

• Among 6133 million human beings (2001), about
• 799 million are undernourished (UNDP 2003, p.
  87),
• 880 million have no access to basic medical
  care (UNDP 1999, p.22),
• 1000 million lack access to safe drinking water
  (UNDP 2003, p. 9),
• 1000 million lack adequate shelter (UNDP 1998, p.
  49),
• 2000 million have no electricity (UNDP 1998,
  p.49),
• 2400 million lack basic sanitation (UNDP 2003, p.
  9),
• 876 million adults are illiterate (UNDP 2003,
  p. 6),
• 250 million children (aged 5 to 14) do wage
  work outside their family, 8.4 million of them in
  the unconditionally worst forms of child labor,
  defined as slavery, trafficking, debt bondage
  and other forms of forced labour, forced
  recruitment of children for use in armed
  conflict, prostitution and pornography, and
  illicit activities (International Labour
  Organisation A Future Without Child Labour,
  2002).

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The Human Cost of Poverty

• Worldwide 34,000 children under age five die
  daily from hunger and preventable diseases (US
  Department of Agriculture U.S. Action Plan on
  Food Security, 1999, www.fas.usda.gov/icd/summit/p
  ressdoc.html, p. iii).
• One third of all human deaths some 18 million
  per year or 50,000 daily are due to
  poverty-related causes (such as starvation,
  diarrhea, pneumonia, tuberculosis, measles,
  malaria, perinatal and maternal conditions) which
  could be prevented or cured cheaply through food,
  safe drinking water, vaccinations, rehydration
  packs, or medicines (cf. World Health
  Organisation The World Health Report 2001
  (Geneva WHO Publications 2001,
  www.who.int/whr/2001), Annex Table 2). Females
  are substantially overrepresented among those
  suffering these deprivations (UNDP Human
  Development Report 2003, New York Oxford
  University Press 2003, pp. 310-30).

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Deaths(Millions)
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Income Poverty Relative to the Banks
1/day and 2/day Lines
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Related Annual Amounts
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Is Severe Poverty Homegrown?

• Rich countries cut their tariffs by less in the
  Uruguay Round than poor ones did. Since then,
  they have found new ways to close their markets,
  notably by imposing anti-dumping duties on
  imports they deem unfairly cheap. Rich
  countries are particularly protectionist in many
  of the sectors where developing countries are
  best able to compete, such as agriculture,
  textiles, and clothing. As a result, according to
  a new study by Thomas Hertel, of Purdue
  University, and Will Martin, of the World Bank,
  rich countries average tariffs on manufacturing
  imports from poor countries are four times higher
  than those on imports from other rich countries.
  This imposes a big burden on poor countries. The
  United Nations Conference on Trade and
  Development (UNCTAD) estimates that they could
  export 700 billion more a year by 2005 if rich
  countries did more to open their markets. Poor
  countries are also hobbled by a lack of know-how.
  Many had little understanding of what they signed
  up to in the Uruguay Round. That ignorance is now
  costing them dear. Michael Finger of the World
  Bank and Philip Schuler of the University of
  Maryland estimate that implementing commitments
  to improve trade procedures and establish
  technical and intellectual-property standards can
  cost more than a years development budget for
  the poorest countries. Moreover, in those areas
  where poor countries could benefit from world
  trade rules, they are often unable to do so. Of
  the WTOs 134 members, 29 do not even have
  missions at its headquarters in Geneva. Many more
  can barely afford to bring cases to the WTO (The
  Economist, 25 September 1999, page 89).

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• Global Institutional Order

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Shares of World PopulationPoorest Households
versus Richest Countries
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Shares of Global IncomePoorest Households
versus Richest Countries
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Reported Changes in Population Below 1 a
DayChina vs. the Rest of the World
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Reported Changes in Population Below 2 a
DayChina vs. the Rest of the World
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Income Disparity1820 - 1997
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Income Disparity1820 - 1997
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Is Severe Poverty Homegrown?

• The purely domestic poverty thesis in John
  Rawls the causes of the wealth of a people and
  the forms it takes lie in their political culture
  and in the religious, philosophical, and moral
  traditions that support the basic structure of
  their political and social institutions, as well
  as in the industriousness and cooperative talents
  of its members, all supported by their political
  virtues. the political culture of a burdened
  society is all-important ... Crucial also is the
  countrys population policy (Rawls 1999, 108).
  When societies fail to thrive, the problem is
  commonly the nature of the public political
  culture and the religious and philosophical
  traditions that underlie its institutions. The
  great social evils in poorer societies are likely
  to be oppressive government and corrupt elites
  (Rawls 1993, 77).
• Explanatory Nationalism in Development
  Economics.