FEATURE REVIEW Human Development to Eradicate Poverty

ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol 18, No 4, pp 777± 779, 1997 FEATURE REVIEW Humandevelopment to eradicatepoverty Leen Boer HumanDevelopment Report 1997, UnitedNations Development Programme, New York:Oxford University Press (for UNDP), 1997 pp245,US$ 19.95pb The theme of UNDP’ s eighth HumanDevelopment Report (HDR)isthe eradication of poverty.This topic is a goodcomplement to last year’ s, economic growth and human development.The report deals with the concept and measurement of poverty from a humandevelopment perspective as well as with the extent of worldwide poverty, the copingbehaviour of thepoor, the impact of globalisation upon poverty and the political dimensionsof poverty eradication. The report ends up with six priority actions for eradicatingabsolute poverty in the early 21st century. Humanpoverty As acomplementto the human development concept theÐ rather uglyÐ term `human poverty’is introduced. Human poverty is to be distinguished from povertyde® ned in terms ofincomeor basic needs. Human development is theprocess of enlarging people’ s choices.Human poverty means that people lack the choices and opportunities basic to humandevelopment: to leada long,healthy, creative life and to enjoya decentstandard ofliving.Human poverty is theabsence of the basic capabilities to function, the lack of realopportunity to lead a valuableand valued life, because of socialconstraints as well aspersonal circumstances. The relevance of the income perspective for analysing povertyis not denied, but income alone is considered to be too narrow a measure. Povertyis too complex to be reduced to a singledimension. Bytradition this year’ s HDR toopresents a newindex, the human poverty index. Silentlydiscarding earlier indexes appears to have become a traditionas well. Though itis not admitted in so many words, last year’ s `capabilitypoverty measure’ seems to havebeen dumped on the garbage heap. Rightly so. Both indexes pursue the same approach,but have different components. The human poverty index values are more plausiblethan the results of the capability poverty measure in last year’ s report.The capabilitypoverty measure resulted in on average higher poverty ® guresthan the income measureapplied in the HDRs(basicallythe World Bank’ s povertyline of US$1a dayper person,1985 purchasing power parity dollars). The human poverty index provides poverty® guresthat are lower on average than the income measure. Income poverty affectsa thirdof the developing world’ s population,human poverty a quarter.This pictureis in agreementwith the message brought by the HDRsfrom thestart: a highlevel ofhuman development can be realised at a relativelylow income level. LeenBoer is atthe Strategic Policy Orientation Unit, Ministry of ForeignAffairs, PO Box20061, 2500 EB The Hague,the Netherlands . 0143-6597/97/040777-03$7.00 Ó 1997Third World Quarterly 777 FEATURE REVIEW Inbroad outlines the human poverty index is the reversal of the human development indexthat has been elaborated in the HDRssince1990. Both comprise longevity, knowledgeand living standard. The three components of the human poverty index are: thepercentage of people expected to die before age 40, the percentage of adultswho are illiterateand, an index within the index: a compositeof the percentage of people with accessto health services and safe water,and the percentage of malnourished children underage ® ve.The problem of aggregation is acknowledged: there is insuf® cient informationon the overlaps in the dimensions of the human poverty index. Just as with regardto economic performance and human development, some countries, Egypt for example,have done better in reducing income poverty than human poverty. Other countries,China and Kenya for example,have done better in reducing human poverty thanincome poverty. Because of its components the human poverty index can only be usedfor developingcountries. Variables such as social exclusion typify poverty in more af¯uent countries. According to the HDR thereis no real possibility of constructing an indexof human poverty that would be equally relevant in both types of countries. Progressand setbacks The HDR isremarkably positive on the achievements to date in reducing poverty. In the 20thcentury there has been a dramaticreduction of poverty. Income poverty has fallen faster inthe past 50 yearsthan in the previous 50 decades.By the end of the 20th century thenumber of people deprived in other aspects of life will be reduced to some 1± 2 billionfrom 2±3 billionthree decades ago. Between 1850± 1925 there was muchprogress inprimary education, public health, sanitation and housing in the industrial European countries.The same period saw thebeginnings of themodern welfare state.In theyears followingthe Second World War humanpoverty was reducedin Eastern Europe, the former SovietUnion and most developing countries. Of course,it is alsopointed out that manypoor people still remain, that inequality is rising and that the face of poverty is changing.Progress has been uneven, leading to different forms ofdisparity, between as wellas within countries. The human development index values of 30 countries fell between1993 and 1994, the reference years of last year’ s andthis year’ s human developmentindex, respectively. Most of these countries are either in sub-Saharan Africa orin Eastern Europe and the CIS, orare countries in con¯ ict. Poorpeople have to cope with a widerange of adversities. The challenge of poverty eradication,therefore, is to strengthen poor people’ s abilityto cope. Resources, material andimmaterial, are crucial. The world is rapidlychanging at the end of the20th century; povertyis changing too. Liberalisation and globalisation, the rising number of con¯ icts withinnational borders, the spread of HIV/AIDS areamong the factors causing or reinforcingimpoverishment. Economic growth is a powerfulmeans to eradicate poverty. Inmanycountries, however, it hasbeen stagnant or too slow or itsquality and structure havebeen insuf® ciently `pro-poor’ . Toincrease the poverty-reducing impact of growth oneshould focus on raising the productivity of small-scale agriculture, promoting micro-enterprisesand the informal sector, on labour-intensive industrialisation, expand- inghuman capabilities and establishing a pro-pooreconomic policy framework. It all soundspretty familiar. Theimpact of globalisation Thechapter on the impact of globalisation on poor people and nations does not contain muchnews either. It turnsout to be rather dif® cult to establish the effects of globalisationon poverty. Still, it is concluded that developing countries have seen the 778 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TOERADICATE POVERTY gapsamong themselves widen and that unemployment and income inequality have increasedin many industrial countries. Globalisation has its winners and losers. The processof globalisation is uneven.Poor countries often lose out because the rules of the gameare biased against them, particularly those relating to international trade. Yet it is stressedthat inequality is notinherent in globalisation.It alsoleads to newopportunities. Poorpeople can gain from realeconomic liberalisation, because of the comparative advantageof their cheap labour. In some countries globalisation has indeed reduced poverty.China and India are mentioned as examples. However, bad policies, weak links from theformal to the small-scale or informal sector and uneven liberalisation often leavethe poor worse off. Embracingthe market The HDR 1997embraces the market: `Market competition offers animportant way in whichpeople, especially poor people, can escape economic domination by exploitative government,big landlords and big retailers’ (p 102).But competition must be real. An activeand enabling state is crucial. The recommendation to the state to resist pressure from theeconomically powerful sounds a bitsimple. It neglectsthe realities of political economy.The conclusion that government that acts in the interest of poor people is easierto achieve in democratic systems where the poor represent a signi®cant electoral blocmakes more sense. The importance of poor people’ s mobilisationfor collective actionand strategic alliances with other groups in society is duly emphasised. Concludingremarks Theeradication of absolute poverty early in the 21st century is feasible, is the message of the HDR 1997.To realise that goal it is necessary to accelerate pro-poor growth, to improvethe management of globalisation, to empower people to gain greater control overtheir lives and resources, to strengthengender equality and to ensurean active state. Thisstrategy is rather broadly formulated. The HDR 1997is not a vesselof new insights. It isa state-of-the-artreview. As such itisoneof thebetter in theseries. However, it isamazing that topics like human security andthe sustainability of developmentthat were extensivelydealt with in earlier HDRs are inadequatelyintegrated in this report’ s analysisof poverty.There should have been more cumulationin theanalysis. There is at times an excess of ®guresin the text that reduces thereport’ s readability.The HDR 1997has a greatersense of reality than earlier ones. It stillcontains naive assertions, eg that only 1% of global income is needed to eradicate absolutepoverty (a strangeneglect of themultidimensional nature of poverty),but such assertionsare much less emphasised than in earlier HDRs.The discussion of the fairness ofthecriticism on the United Nations is very unbalanced; it does not address ef® ciency andeffectivity (p 93). There is remarkably little attention paid to another major

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