UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, Releases Final Report, Condemns Failed Global Poverty Eradication Efforts

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UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, Releases Final Report, Condemns Failed Global Poverty Eradication Efforts

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https://chrgj.org/2020/07/05/philip-als ... n-efforts/
New York (6 July 2020) – Global poverty is rising, directly contradicting the mainstream wisdom that it is being eradicated, according to a new report to the UN. States are completely off-track to meet their goal of extreme poverty eradication by 2030, and COVID-19 is now rapidly impoverishing many more.

“Even before COVID-19, we squandered a decade in the fight against poverty, with misplaced triumphalism blocking the very reforms that could have prevented the worst impacts of the pandemic,” said Philip Alston, the former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, upon the release of his final report, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council tomorrow by his successor, Olivier De Schutter.

“COVID-19 is projected to push hundreds of millions into unemployment and poverty, while increasing the number at risk of acute hunger by more than 250 million. But the international community’s abysmal record on tackling poverty, inequality and disregard for human life far precede this pandemic,” said Alston.

“Over the past decade, the UN, world leaders and pundits have promoted a self-congratulatory message of impending victory over poverty, but almost all of these accounts rely on the World Bank’s international poverty line, which is utterly unfit for the purpose of tracking such progress,” said Alston. The expert condemned the near universal reliance on the Bank’s line, currently $1.90 (2011 PPP) per day, which he said is deeply flawed and yields a deceptively positive picture.

The Bank’s line shows the number of people in extreme poverty fell from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 736 million in 2015. “But the line is scandalously unambitious, and the best evidence shows it doesn’t even cover the cost of food or housing in many countries. The poverty decline it purports to show is due largely to rising incomes in a single country, China. And it obscures poverty among women and those often excluded from official surveys, such as migrant workers and refugees.”

While World Bank economists have quietly recognized many of these limitations, the Bank’s focus remains fixed on the line, which features prominently in its research and publications, and the international community has followed suit.

“The result is a Pyrrhic victory, an undue sense of immense satisfaction, and dangerous complacency. Using more realistic measures, the extent of global poverty is vastly higher and the trends extremely discouraging,” Alston said. “Even before the pandemic, 3.4 billion people, nearly half the world, lived on less than $5.50 a day. That number has barely declined since 1990.”
Link to his Twitter, wherein he summarizes his findings

PDF of his Full Report
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