LA LUCHA CONTRA LA POBREZA Y LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS<br>LA LUTTE CONTRE LA PAUVRETE ET LES DROITS HUMAINES<br>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4"><b>From: "CETIM" <<a href="mailto:cetim@bluewin.ch">cetim@bluewin.ch</a>>,<br></b></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4"><b>We have the pleasure to
send your the last electronic report edited by CETIM.<br>This
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<a href="http://www.cetim.ch/fr/publications_cahiers.php" target="_blank">http://www.cetim.ch/en/publications_cahiers.php</a></b></font><font size="4"><br>
Do not hesitate to forward this reports to your networks !<br>
Please, let us know if you are no longer interested in receiving our
further reports.<br> The CETIM team</font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0.2in"><font color="#cc0000"><font size="4"><b>THE
FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS</b></font></font><br>If one
refers to the data of the World Bank, there are currently almost a
billion and a half persons living in extreme poverty throughout
the world, living on less than US$ 1.25 per day, and another billion
persons living on less than US$ 2 per day – which corresponds to
almost half of the human race. Although the World Bank's method
of measuring poverty is questionable, (v. Chapter III), the fact
nonetheless remains that, according to the United Nations
specialized agencies, today, some one billion persons suffer from
famine and malnutrition; just as many lack drinking water, and 2.5
billion have no access to sewerage systems and sanitation; scores of
millions of persons lack housing, and more than a billion are
inadequately housed; there are some 200 million unemployed and 900
million working poor; nearly 800 million adults are illiterate; each
year 6 million children under five die of illnesses that could be
prevented...<br>For nearly a quarter of a century, the theme of
poverty has occupied a prominent place on the international
community's political agenda, and the fight against poverty has
become the official priority of cooperation and development programs.
It has also become a priority for the European Union and several
governments. Such focus and effort are reassuring, yes, obviously,
because poverty ought not exist in our world, a world that is so
rich. At the same time, one must ask why poverty suddenly emerged as
a priority theme. Why was it absent from the political agenda before
1990? And why are we still waiting to see any success for the
strategies adopted in the fight against poverty?<br><br>Although
there is a consensus on the need for poverty reduction, poverty
definitions vary according to time, actors and place. This is why it
has seemed useful for us, in the present critical report, to analyze
the concept of poverty according to periods of history and the powers
in place (Chapters I and II) as well as the strategies planned and
developed to fight poverty (Chapters III and IV). It will be seen
that the quantification of poverty (in figures sometimes) mask many
realities (Chapter III). This is also the case for contemporary
strategies of the fight against poverty that not only disregard
inequality (Chapter III.E) but are bound to fail (Chapter V). The
treatment of the subject from the angle of human rights opens
unexplored perspectives and constitutes certainly the best
strategy in the fight not only against poverty, but also against
inequality, and a movement toward universal social protection
(Chapter IV).</p>
<p><strong><font color="#cc0000"><font size="1"><u>Contents</u></font></font></strong><font color="#cc0000"><font size="1"><u>:
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Introduction<br><b>I. What is
Poverty?</b><br><font>A. The Semantic Fog<br>B. A
Multidisciplinary Field of Research<br>C. What is Lacking in the
Research<br>D. Multidimensional Poverty</font><br><b>II. The Lessons
of History: Ideology and Poverty<br>III. Quantifying Poverty</b><br><font>A.
Measuring Monetary Poverty<br>B. Measuring Non-monetary Poverty<br>C.
Figures Relative to Poverty<br>D. How do These Figures Help Us?<br>E.
And Inequality</font><br><b>IV. Strategies in the Fight against
Poverty</b><br><font>A. From Francis of Assisi to the Great
Confinement<br>B. From Mandeville and Marx to Social Citizenship<br>C.
>From the ILO to the U.N. and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights</font><br><b>V. The Break with Neo-liberalism and its
Repercussion within the U.N.</b><br><font>A. Debt, Structural
Adjustment Programs, the World Bank and Its Claim to Fight Poverty<br>B.
The Millennium Development Goals: A Story of a Preordained Failure</font><br><br>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4"><b>CONCLUSION</b></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">One must face the facts: such as it is
conceived now, poverty reduction policies cannot succeed, and this in spite of the well-intentioned
efforts of thousands of social workers and volunteers.</font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">How can one claim to fight poverty if,
at the same time, one is carrying out policies that create poverty? By privatizing public services
and charging those who use them, by laying off workers and reducing unemployment compensation, by
maintaining social assistance below the poverty level, by privatizing pensions... one can only
increase the number of poor. By the same token, in the Third World, by selling huge tracts of land
and chasing small-holders from their lands, by leaving the way open to huge transnational corporations
that are not obliged to respect any social, environmental, fiscal, human rights policies, by
underpaying the workers, one can only make poverty permanent.</font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">But, perhaps, the purpose of these
strategies is it not to eliminate poverty? Perhaps, one might be
satisfied just to avoid conflicts, to
maintain a certain social cohesion and to help the poor to better
formulate their social demands? In that
case, the poor are certainly helped and will be better able to
evaluate their situation themselves and to
present their demands; as for their poverty, it will not be
diminished for all that.</font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">The only real solution to poverty is to
end the process of impoverishment. That means setting up an economic and social system subject to
democratic control, which will correct the inequalities and rectify the injustices, an economic system
respectful of decent work standards, of the environment, and of</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">human rights. That will also mean
creating a system of social protection and public services. The “pursuit of growth” is a dead-end.</font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">That means above all that poverty must
be viewed not as a problem of the poor but as a problem of society overall. If one wants to fight
effectively against poverty, the crying inequalities of our society must be fought. In 1992, the 20%
richest persons in the world had 82.7% of the overall income.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">Today, 1% of them controls 50% of the
world's wealth. In 20 years, there has been a concentration of wealth (and power) in the hands of a
tiny minority. It is one more proof – if any more were needed –</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">that poverty cannot be eliminated
without an equitable sharing of wealth, without a fair tax system, without income redistribution. The
fight against poverty and against inequality is not possible through</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">charity. It will never succeed without
radical changes: it is the current system that produces ever greater inequality.</font></p>
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</p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">Poverty is a denial of human rights
(civil, political, economic, social and cultural), as the United Nations human rights bodies affirm.
Treating the question of poverty from the perspective of human</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">rights makes it possible to take the
fight against poverty out of the realm of charity where it is presently situated. Moreover, poverty
cannot disappear without the respect of all human rights, which</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">implies the elimination of all
discrimination, the right to an adequate standard of living allowing
for health, education, housing etc. These
last elements are listed in the International Covenant on Eco-</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font size="4">nomic, Social and Political Rights, and
governments are under obligation to respect them, to see that they are respected by others (financial
and international trade institutions as well as transnational corporations, for example) and to
implement them, at both the national and the international level.</font></p>
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