POVERTY AND SURVIVAL
In 2000, the United Nations proposed a set of objectives it aimed to achieve, and it called them the Millennium Goals. 189 Heads of State and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank undertook to “fight harder against poverty, generalised hunger, gender inequality, the deterioration of the environment, the lack of education, medical attention and drinking water.”
The first of these eight Millennium Goals is “to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger”, which aims to be achieved through two specific objectives: to halve the number of people whose income is less than a dollar a day, and those who suffer from hunger.
Five years on, in its latest report, the UN maintains that these goals can be achieved. A few positive details are in contrast with what is still left to achieve and the will to carry out the project: 1,200 million people are still living on less than 1 dollar a day, and 3 million do so on less than 2; 1% of the richest population in the world receives the same income as 57% of the poorest; 1,300 million people have no access to drinking water; 800 million people suffer from malnutrition, and 10,000 men and women die every day as a result of diseases caused by the poor sanitary conditions they have to live in.
Due to this violation of the Human Rights of over 1,000 million people all over the world, different international organisations have increased their efforts in a Global Call to Action against Poverty. They consider the efforts to achieve global sustainable development to be “terribly inadequate” and demand that four specific objectives are fulfilled.
Firstly, they ask for international trade standards to be modified, in order to achieve Fair Trade, which allows developing countries to set their own priorities and not, as has been the case up until now, a tool to impose conditions that are detrimental to their own land. Among the measures to be adopted, they highlight the need to put an end to subsidies that the rich countries grant their own national products to enable them to be exported below the production cost price, thus having an adverse effect on the maintenance of rural communities in developing countries.
Likewise they demand that the Foreign Debt be cancelled, as this is a lot more money for poor countries than the amount of international aid they receive. Between 1970 and 2002, the most needy countries in Africa received a loan of around 294,000 million dollars, they gave back 298,000 million and they left outstanding a further 200,000 million. They also condemn the fact that the cancellation of the debt is linked to contracts with the creditor countries and to economic conditions that are detrimental to those living in poverty.
Thirdly, they ask governments and international organisations to urgently increase and improve the necessary resources to achieve the Millennium Goals through the guarantee of 0.7% of the Gross Domestic Product for aid, to consider the priorities established by the community receiving that aid, and to explore new mechanisms to finance development.
The Global Call to Action against Poverty also requires the different national governments to involve their entire societies in the local development plans and policies, without forgetting the poorest collectives and the socially marginalised groups. Among other aspects, it also asks for controls to guarantee the correct allocation of resources to achieve quality public services, and that they take a strong stand against corruption and other such incidences.
In Spain, over 400 organisations form the Pobreza Cero [zero poverty] platform and they have been moving to condemn the fact that there still hasn’t been significant progress in the reduction of hunger and poverty.
The disparity between rich and poor nations continues to rise. International trade, globalisation and financial speculation favour the strongest economies, the foreign debt is an obstacle to development in many countries and the international aid system is scarce and uncoordinated in some cases and does not achieve any significant results. The responsibility for this situation appears to lie in the financial interests and lack of political will of 10% of the planet that enjoys 70% of the Earth’s wealth and resources.