by Dr Clive Thomas
We began an inquiry last week into the impact of globalisation on recent trends in human development. The basis for this inquiry is the latest UNDP Human Development Report, 2001. The benchmark used for determining current trends in human development is progress in relation to the Millennium Global Development Goals with a target date of 2015, which the international community has set itself. So far we have considered the goals related to health, education, and basic amenities. This week we shall look at the other goals.
Hunger
Gender equality
Extreme income poverty
Assessment
Guyana and the wider world
Stabroek News
August 5, 2001
The international community has set itself a very simple and explicit goal in relation to hunger. This goal is to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015. We have already examined in earlier articles in this series issues of food security. We noted that globally, per capita calorie intake had risen on average, worldwide. Indeed, the absolute number of undernourished people had fallen by 40 million between the period 1990/92 to 1996/98.
Regrettably, however, there are still 826 million people worldwide that live with hunger. For a considerable number of countries the hunger situation remains precarious. The UNDP data show that 43 countries have either been "on-track" or achieved the target rate. However, 42 countries were either lagging, far behind, or slipping in relation to the 2015 target. These represented eleven percent of the world's population on the wrong side of the target, and 62 percent on the right side.
The Millennium Global Development Goal for gender equality is measured by two indicators. One is the elimination of disparity in primary education between males and females by 2015. The other is to eliminate similar disparity for secondary education. The purpose behind this goal is that a number of studies have shown that education is an essential ingredient for successful human development or, for that matter, one of the best weapons to attack poverty. In every country where there have been adequate national surveys, these show a strong correlation between lack of education and poverty. Similar studies have also shown that in many countries, females are disadvantaged in relation to educational access. There are many reasons behind this disparity and the United Nations target seeks to ensure that males do not continue to enjoy a preference over females in terms of access to education.
Current trends in human development show that many countries are either "on-track" or have achieved rates of elimination of the disparity, consistent with meeting the 2015 targert date. In fact 72 countries are in this situation for primary education, with only 16 either lagging, far behind, or slipping in relation to the target. These latter represent only five percent of the world's population. In regard to the secondary education target, the results are not as good, but nevertheless hopeful. These show 64 countries "on-track" or having achieved the target, and 22 countries either lagging, far behind, or slipping in relation to the target. Overall therefore the results for gender equality are hopeful.
All the goals we have considered so far, whether it is health, education, access to basic amenities, or hunger, point in the direction of poverty. Indeed, not only are they directly related to poverty, but in an important sense they form sub-categories of the broader condition of human poverty. For good or ill, however, income poverty, as distinct from the broader more fundamental concept of human poverty, is also a separately stated Millennium Global Development Goal.
How is this goal defined? Here the target is to halve the proportion of people living in extreme income poverty. This target is expressed as having to live on less than US$1 a day based on 1993 purchasing-power parity dollars. The results so far show that the proportion of persons living on US$1 in developing countries has fallen from 29 per cent to 24 per cent between 1990 and 1998.
There is however, very little satisfaction to be gained from this result. The truth of the matter is that even if the target of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 were to be achieved, it is estimated by the UNDP that there would still be as many as 900 million people living in extreme poverty in 2015.
We have now covered all the Millennium Global Development Goals. This review of performance based on the recent UNDP Human Development Report 2001 shows mixed results. Clearly there has been some human progress over the past year. This has occurred mainly in the important areas of universal primary education and gender equity in primary and secondary education. This achievement suggests that the goals that have been set are achievable, if all hands are put to the wheel.
Regrettably also, there have been many instances where the data suggest that the goals are not likely to be met. This is particularly the case for infant and child mortality, maternal mortality, and access to basic amenities. Among the developing countries, certain regions e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa, fare far worse than others e.g., East Asia.
These outcomes are in keeping with the intrinsically uneven rhythm of globalisation as a process, which we have consistently sought to highlight. There is no doubt that available data confirm that the benefits and costs of globalisation have been very unevenly distributed between countries and within them.
There is also the additional concern, which we should not forget. In the era of globalisation, like other eras in the evolution of the world market, periodic "ups and downs" in the level of economic activity have characterised global growth. Of significance the UNDP Human Development Report 2001 has been published at a point in time when the world economy is in a serious downturn and there is much gloomy forecasting about a possible depression. If that occurs, then the human development trends observed recently are more than likely to go into reverse.
Next week we shall continue to explore this and other related considerations.