POVERTY, DEVELOPMENT AND HUNGER (original) (raw)
Related papers
World Poverty and Food Insecurity
3 Penn. State Journal of Law and Int'L Affairs 56-83 (2015)
The article draws upon the insights of Yale philosopher Thomas Pogge to suggest a way that we might think about the structural inequities in the global economic order that produce food insecurity. The article argues that chronic undernourishment is not a function of food scarcity, bad weather, or simply bad luck. Rather, it is a function of international political and economic arrangements that systematically benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The article concludes with several legal and policy reforms that the United States and the European Union can adopt to reduce the burdens that our societies place on the world's most vulnerable populations.
4 Raising the Standard: The War on Global Poverty1
Oxford University Press eBooks, 2010
India and China contributed two-thirds (1 billion) to the total. Poverty then was essentially an India-China story. More than two decades of growth later, the importance of India-China is substantially reduced, but for some methods, the share in world poverty for these two Asian economies is around 30 percent. Both Bhalla (2002), Imagine there's no country: Poverty, inequality and growth in an era of globalization, hereafter referred to as Imagine, and Sala-i-Martin (2006) have contended that world poverty is significantly below the World Bank estimates. Depending on assumptions, our estimates for global poverty for 2005 range from about 200 to 500 million, an order of magnitude lower than the official estimates. Which set of estimates are "correct" has enormous implications for aid and development policy, and for evaluations of how the globalization growth process in the last twenty years has affected the lives of the poorest. These "new" estimates have been partly based on the old method of estimating poverty, and the one followed universally till the early nineties (see Ahluwalia, Carter, Chenery 1979-here onwards referred to as 'ACC'-for the first such estimate). The ACC method relies upon national account means of per capita consumption, and household survey distributions of consumption (or income). 4 Critics have rejected such estimates of poverty, for two reasons: first, that survey based estimates of per capita consumption, and not national accounts based estimates, are a more reliable estimate for the "true" mean; and second, that if the distribution of the survey distribution is trusted, then so must the mean be trusted. This paper is not about poverty estimates as revealed by household survey data "matched" with national accounts data. 5 Rather, this paper is about the authenticity and reliability of survey based measures of poverty. If the survey estimates are accurate or "correct", what can we say about poverty, inequality, and growth in the developing economies for the period 1980 to present? If they are not correct, then can alternative more accurate estimates of poverty be presented, and estimates based on all the available data, surveys and national accounts? This chapter is also properly viewed as an extension of the poverty estimates reported in (Bhalla 2003c, 2004a). Bhalla 2003c documented how World Bank data and poverty measurement methods (i.e. using survey, not national account means) themselves indicated that the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty to 15 percent of the developing country population by 2015 had already been reached-and reached at about the same time as the goals were being formulated in 2000. Bhalla 2004a documented how some of the important parameters of World Bank poverty calculations (e.g. growth in per capita consumption between 1987 and 1998) could not be reproduced by the country specific data on survey means made available by the World Bank on its website. Given this inaccuracy, there is a need to develop alternative estimates of world poverty according to survey means not suffering from World Bank "adjustments". Several agencies now publish estimates of both survey means and distributions, two essential ingredients in the calculation of poverty. WIDER, in particular, provides detailed estimates of distributions. 6 This paper uses data from all available sources to construct three estimates of poverty-the World Bank method with only World Bank data, the World Bank method with all available data and third, an alternative method also using all available data. 7 This new method incorporates all the characteristics of survey data except one, the noisy and declining character of survey capture: the ratio of household survey means to national account means (S/NA). This method forces the ratio of the survey mean to national accounts mean to be constant and reflect the value obtained in an arbitrary year, chosen to be 1987 for all the countries. The reason this year was chosen was because generally, for most countries, the survey capture ratio started to decline somewhat sharply after the mid-eighties. A declining survey to national accounts ratio means that the growth rate in survey consumption is most likely understated, and understated by the percent decline in the survey to national accounts ratio. If the S/NA is understated, then absolute poverty is overstated. This new method allows the survey/national accounts ratio to be different across countries, but to stay constant within a country, and constant at its 1987 value or if a survey was not conducted in that year to be constant at the value of the latest survey prior to 1987. The distribution of consumption, used by us, the World Bank, Sala-i-Martin, etc. are all similar, if not identical, and do so because they originate from the same source, household surveys; and unlike for survey means, researchers have generally refrained from "adjusting" data on distributions. The three methods yield differing estimates of poverty, but strikingly, the strong result that emerges is that regardless of the method chosen, developing country poverty in 2005 was already close to the MDG goal of 15 percent for 2015; that world poverty today is essentially about poverty in Africa; and that the World Bank estimates of poverty in India
The rise of globalization across the world over the 20 th and throughout the start of the 21 st century has, particularly, for certain parts of what is defined as the western world, increased the quality of living for millions of people. Academics such as Shanguan describe economic globalisation as the 'increasing interdependence of world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of commodities and services, flow of international capital and wide and rapid spread of technologies' 1 . We can see this in everyday life for example in the billion pounds football and the investments made by foreign owners, to chain stores dotted around city high streets and 'McDonaldisation' in fast food industry. This can be also be seen in the fast paced world of finance, such as in data sets detailing the acceleration of trading in foreign exchange markets which has reached over 4 trillion US Dollars as compared to 500 billion in the early 80s. 2 Despite this, globalisation and the interdependence of world economies has a flip side. The OECD has recorded that the richest 10% of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times more than the poorest 10%. By contrast, in the 1980s the ratio stood at 7:1. 3 Across the world, we still see the effects of poverty every day in the news, with recent statistics from the OECD stating that increase in foreign aid from the 17 countries in the development Assistance Committee (DAC) had increased by 6.1% between 2012 and 2013 alone. 4
The globalization and development reader: perspectives on development and global change
2007
This book is an intellectual tour de force. It considers the contemporary Keynesian intellectual counter-revolution with regard to the political economy of underdevelopment. The basic thesis of the work is that there were two economic epochs in the postwar period. The first constituted the golden age of capitalism (1945-1973), to borrow a phrase coined by Cambridge (UK) Keynesians. The second period, post-1980, was not so benevolent an age. The global growth record of all countries and regions during the golden age was phenomenal-nobody disagrees. In the second phase since 1980 there has been considerable divergence in global growth and income, mainly because of economic collapse in Africa and Latin America, making the last two decades of the twentieth century lost decades for some. Again there is no disagreement with that-the question is why. Writers such as Amartya Sen talk about capabilities and rights without much reference to the costs of their provision. Jeffrey Sachs speaks of the big-push fundamentalism of increasing aid (mainly to Africa). Bill Easterly outlines the abject failure of development assistance. Dani Rodrik advocates a more eclectic and technocratic 'identify the constraints to growth' approach. Paul Collier elucidates on the povertyconflict traps of the bottom billion along with possible Iraq/Afghanistan-like protracted interventions to prevent conflict re-igniting. In this book Amsden argues that the first postwar era succeeded because developing countries were left alone to pursue independent strategies of economic development that were also 'demand' driven, while during the second phase they were subjected to colonial style prescriptions dictated by the structural adjustment syndrome; something that morphed into poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), which is really structural adjustment in drag. Both periods, Amsden argues, were driven by American dominance of an empire, unprecedented in its sheer size and extent. The golden age has been described as the era of 'Pax Americana'; the post-1980 globalization phase is likely to be remembered as less benign. Throughout history empires last while they are seen to provide security and prosperity in return for the tribute they exact. Underlying the thinking behind the second phase was the market fundamentalism of the 'Washington Consensus' quartet, something that has latterly changed its emphasis to institutional quality. The Washington consensus 'high priests' are curiously unforthcoming in producing a popular version of their own solutions to the world's contemporary economic predicament. Could they be a tad embarrassed by their failure to deliver? What is missing in Amsden's analysis is the fact that the earlier American and Western laissez faire (or in Richard's Nixon's words: 'don't give a damn') attitude to the home-grown development strategies of the third world was predicated on a genuine fear of countries adopting, in whole or in part, the alternative Soviet model. In fact, countries like India did rather well by playing off the two superpowers.
Beyond the North±South divide: the two tales of world poverty
For more than a generation the North± South divide was central to the explanation of world poverty. In recent years, however, the North± South analytical framework has been upset by the emergence of two competing approaches: the`Bretton Woods paradigm' and the`UN paradigm' . Both approaches emphasise the impact of globalisation, but they differ considerably in their world-views, interpretations of the determinants of poverty and political platforms. In short, according to the`Bretton Woods paradigm' , the gap between the haves and the have-nots is in the process of being narrowed, whereas, from the point of view of the`UN paradigm' , the rich± poor divide is growing wider. In spite of the greater degree of political support currently enjoyed by thè Bretton Woods paradigm' , the`UN paradigm' offers the most coherent alternate narrative on world poverty. Therefore, because they comprise the main theses in an unresolved debate, these two approaches can fruitfully be examined together.
EMERGENCE OF POVERTY AND WORLD HUNGER
World poverty and hunger are present in all countries of the world; developed countries, developing countries as well as underdeveloped countries suffer from this unfortunate social ill, many severely, some a little less severely, and a few other countries suffer this in a very minimal extent. This article explores world poverty and hunger, it defines concepts and looks at theories that attempt to explain the emergence of world poverty and hunger from some scholars, and organisations that seek in various ways to end this universal misfortune. However, it remains pervasive and seemingly permanent and difficult to eliminate, especially in peripheral countries and communities of the world. This article finally presents a path which can be developed into a working policy to governments or organisations that seek to end poverty.