Nobody said it will be easy or simple. Nor can it be relegated to a checklist and a timetable. But its importance bears no dispute. Global poverty is the largest and most crucial challenge facing tomorrow's leaders.
The 2008 World Bank Group Global Poll suggests — nay, it emphatically states — that "improving economic conditions for the world's poor remains both a top priority and the largest development challenge." A triple whammy of shocks—financial meltdown, food insecurity, and fuel price sticker shock—coupled with global warming and widespread war and conflicts have drawn attention away from a glaring basic problem.
"1.4 billion people in the developing world—that's one in four people—are still living on less than US $1.25 a day," according to the World Bank's Marwan Muasher. Global poverty is a primary factor in tens of millions of worldwide deaths in 2007. It is a major social determinant of disease, and it's why people who suffer the most from global warming — the poor — are at greatest risk of loss as a result of environmental disaster.
Poverty eradication is, and must remain, one of democracy's core responsibilities. True, there are other highly important issues that must also be addressed. "Growing and strengthening domestic economies ranked second, and improving governance third," according to the World Bank.
The problem, while definable, offers no solution that is not complex or difficult. There is no magic pill that instantly lifts people out of poverty.
Still, a scan of literature on the topic does offer some hints for courses of action. The first comes from the Global Poll itself. Those countries whose citizens are poorest must take "ownership" of the problem and seek to put in place the internal structure and processes that guarantee that outside aid finds its way to those who most need it.
Second is to focus on education. Studies by the International Monetary Fund and others confirm that better access to education and training is a key to shrinking income disparities and alleviating poverty. An "inclusive education policy" is the only sustainable means to lift the world out of poverty, argues Jean Claude de l'Estrac in his contribution to the book Poverty in Mauritius by Sheila Bunwaree and Roukaya Kasenally of the University of Mauritius.
What is needed is a commitment — a really serious commitment — to a long-term process by citizens and leaders willing to embrace a nonpartisan, collaborative, multinational vision to make the world a better place. It will take data that has not yet been defined, experiments in policy that will require a tolerance for trial-and-error as the best policies are developed, and a timetable that goes beyond election timelines.
