How inclusive are UN benchmarks to end poverty

By The Standard | Jul 3, 2017 | 4 Min read

When I was growing up, the gospel was health for all by the year 2000. And as a youngster, with so many expectations, I imagined a day when everyone was going to be disease-free, a situation where all critical drugs would be readily availabe.

guest column: Peter Makwanya

I continued to wonder what the world would be like when the year 2000 arrived. The road to the year 2000 was long and it appeared as if the year would never come, and when it did, to my horror, more people couldn’t access health facilities, they were dying from malaria, HIV/Aids was on the rise, so was tuberculosis and many other opportunistic infections. In short, there was no health for all by the year 2000.

When I was grown up and a bit more knowledgeable and informed, I brightened up and started to read about the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap). I remember seeing the late Finance minister Bernard Chidzero talking about Esap on national television and what I can still remember up to this day, is that he used to encourage people to tighten their belts, and I wondered what that meant.

So what was the good doctor of finance talking about? I also read about countries around the world suffering from this Esap phenomenon, especially those from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

To cut the long story short, when I was old and well informed, having read a bit extensively, when I could comprehend a lot, I read about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), I even published and presented some papers around this theme, the MDGs, all designed to end or rather to minimise poverty and manage it to acceptable levels.

Despite all these efforts, people remained poor, children were still dropping out of school around the world, meaning illiteracy and poverty were not tamed. The forests around the world continued to be destroyed and land degraded, fuelling carbon emissions that caused global warming and climate change. Stories about hunger and malnutrition hogged the lime-light, and, as such, the poor seemed to have been left out of the MDGs framework.

Because many people seem to have been left out by the MDGs, then came the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), purporting to be all inclusive and its mantra is not to leave anyone behind by year 2030. But as things stand, it seems people are being left out. So what is wrong with these world benchmarks.

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One wonders why people always set themselves non-achievable goals and then ditch them for others, on realising they have not worked and then they come up with a new name to replace the old one.

All these world benchmarks I have spoken about, were designed to manage poverty levels and improve the livelihoods, environmental sustainability and resilience. The benchmarks were also designed to foster economic development and a healthy delivery system. But I wonder if the said poor around the world know anything about these much publicised goals.

I also wonder if the poor have contributed anything towards these goals. As things stand, one would question if it’s the poor, who never learn or it’s those who purport to champion their needs who never learn from their previous mistakes.

The Agenda 2030 is not very far away from us, and indications on the ground are that the world is still a troubled place, with increased suffering, and standards of living worsening in most parts of the world, especially in developing countries, tough enough to make people reach the 2030 in graves.

Of course, the United Nations cannot be seen to be quiet, it has to be seen planning something for the people and the world.

But it’s the countries that are not doing enough to stop ecological destruction of nature, biodiversity loss, and famine.

In fact, it’s the poor people, who are drowning in the Mediterranean seeking better living prospects in Europe, and it’s also the poor, who are removed from their lands when their governments want to embark on programmes for mining fossil fuels, that would emit carbon emissions, which would in turn cause global warming.

It is also the governments and expansionist multinational conglomerates, that are stealing the poor people’s land, not to improve their living standards but to destroy the environment, and one wonders if these SDGs will ever work.

Local communities are not aware that, in their own communities there are SDGs being implemented or that they are supposed to be part of. They are just living as if nothing is the matter. The local communities don’t know anything about the 2030 Agenda, of course it’s in the board rooms of the governments around the world and in the United Nations offices and its subsidiaries around the world.

It is also important that people are able to see how SDGs will improve their lives and how they can be included in the programmes that are aimed at improving their livelihoods. The future that these poor people want is crafted without their knowledge and input, and they are later forced upon them to implement.

The poor also don’t know about the 1,5 degrees celsius emission threshold as well as what constitutes the Paris or Marrakesh resolutions.

These people are also confused further when some influential world leaders publicly deny the existence of climate change.

The thrust of environmental sustainability is not premised on attending international conferences without coming up with sustainable resolutions, but it’s deeply rooted in localised climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes that include the poor. People would be happy if the highly publicised COPs and SDGs do a lot to unite and inspire poor people to adapt to climate change. If people cannot see their situations improving then these goals and world benchmarks will not make any sense.

Peter Makwanya is a climate change communicator. He writes in his own capacity and can be contacted on: [email protected]