Approaches to eradicate poverty over the next generation

Notes from a talk on eradicating poverty given by Mark Goldring – Chief Executive of Oxfam at the LSE on Thursday 28th November.

Approaches to eradicate poverty over the next generation

• Humanitarian mission has been central since launch of OXFAM in 1942
• Significant decline in extreme poverty over the last twenty years (from 42% to 20% of population living on less than $1.25 a day
• 2013: 37 million living in extreme poverty in china, 322 million in India, 405m in SSA
• Pro-poor policies can make a huge difference

Mini Case Study: Bangladesh

There is a depth to their development far greater than simply economics

Real PPP per capita income doubles since 1990

Life expectancy has risen from 59 to 69

Maternal death rate has fallen from 800 per 100,000 deaths to 194

Infant immunization rate has grown from 64% to 94%

Underweight children (% of total) from 62% to 36%

3 priority problems for poverty reduction

1/ Climate change and resource scarcity

• Land grabs – imbalance of power driving people off the land
• Uncertain climate inhibits farmers from growers
• Burden of the damage cause from extreme weather events falls most heavily on the poor
• Traditional approaches to adaptation for poorer farmers e.g. planting weather resistant crops – are becoming less effective

2/ Inequality

• The richest 300 people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest 3 billion
• Policies
• Progressive taxation
• Free public services
• Living wage and stronger labour standards
• Safety nets

3/ Gender inequality

• 2/3rds of global illiterate population are women
• Gender based violence is a critical problem in countries such as the Sudan, Yemen

Impossible to eradicate poverty without the private sector

Huge rise in inwards FDI flows into SSA

But heavily skewed towards safer countries

Fragile states largely miss out

Oxfam as NGO working with TNCs

Influencing the work of food companies – behind the brands campaign – they have a direct connection with people’s lives

Complicated and diverse supply chains provide huge challenge – e.g. enormous variance in labour standards, actual wages paid, working standards

Aid

In last decade, many people have stopped equating aid and development

In the last 3 years, aid from official sources has fallen by 6%

UK bucks the trend

Increasing non-traditional aid givers e.g. from China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia – questions over the standards applied to this overseas development assistance

A myriad of small donor-led projects can meet their stated objectives (e.g. raise wheat production from small farmers) but the impact can get overwhelmed by wider economic forces such as a steep decline in world prices that causes a sharp fall in farmer revenues and profits.

Food subsidies – impact depends massively on they are targeted

Micro finance often does not take people out of poverty but helps keep them alive – it does not solve national development issues

Debt relief

Important, but so too is tax reform! I.e. a comprehensive system for taxing fairly the profits/rents from business investment

Debt relief is a powerful tool for freeing up money that can be used in scaling public services – but it is only as good as the government spending the money

Fund raising:

1^st six months of Oxfam fund-raising campaign for Syria raised less than money raised in the first six days of the appeal for the Philippines