Taking Stock of Poverty and Development Actions

The technocratic illusion is that poverty results from a shortage of expertise whereas poverty is really about a shortage of rights. The emphasis on the problem of expertise makes the problem of rights worse.

— William Easterly

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the backdrop against which policy changes and programmatic actions to ensure the legal rights of the poor must take place. It provides a stocktaking of the progress, or lack thereof, that the world has made in reducing poverty, inequality, and exclusion. It also highlights various approaches — including the policy instruments that have been successful in certain contexts — and mentions their limitations. Interestingly, the legal rights of the poor, human rights generally, and access to justice and the rule of law have not featured prominently in the dominant approaches to date.

We start by taking a look at the global experience of the fight against poverty over the last several decades. This chapter will draw heavily from the most influential global reports on poverty and development including the HDR of the UNDP and the WDR of the World Bank. However, it is necessary to go beyond these global reports and look at some in-country assessments to get a more complete picture. After this review, we look at some of the poverty-related challenges to development including inequality, equity, and social exclusion. The chapter will conclude with some reflections on the international development enterprise itself, which then sets the stage for the action required to ensure the legal rights of the poor. Though this agenda can benefit a little from international development support, it is in reality a challenge to be addressed within countries, whether developed or developing.

The accelerated progress in reducing poverty in the twentieth century began in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century in what we now can see as the first major wave away from poverty and human deprivation. The ascent started in the foothills of the industrial revolution with rising incomes, improvements in public health and education, and eventually programs of social security. By the 1950s, most of Europe and North America enjoyed full employment and welfare states.

The second major wave of poverty reduction, beginning in the 1950s, took root primarily in previously colonized and newly formed nations around the world. The end of colonialism preceded improvement in education and health and accelerated economic development that led to a dramatic decline in poverty. By the end of the twentieth century, some 3 to 4 billion of the world's people had experienced substantial improvements in their standard of living.

The consensus is that we have made great progress, but much remains to be done. The UN 2013 HDR celebrates the rise of the south. According to this report, "China has already overtaken Japan as the world's second biggest economy while lifting hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty. India is reshaping its future with new entrepreneurial creativity and social policy innovation. Brazil is lifting its living standards through expanding international relationships and antipoverty programs that are emulated worldwide."

But the rise of the south analyzed in the report is a much larger phenomenon: Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, South Africa, Indonesia, and many other developing nations are also becoming leading actors on the world stage. The report suggests that "the world is witnessing an epochal 'global rebalancing' with higher growth in at least 40 poor countries helping lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a new 'global middle class.' Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast."

By 2020, according to projections developed for the HDR, the combined economic output of three leading developing countries alone — Brazil, China, and India — will surpass the aggregate production of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report also shows that new trade and technology partnerships within the south itself are driving much of this expansion. A key message contained in this and previous HDRs, however, is that economic growth alone does not automatically translate into human development progress. Pro poor policies and significant investments in people's capabilities — through a focus on education, nutrition and health, and employment skills — can expand access to decent work and provide for sustained progress.

The 2013 report identifies three drivers of change: a developmental state, tapping into global markets, and innovative social policies. There are also four specific areas of focus for sustaining development momentum: enhancing equity including gender equity, enabling the voices and participation of citizens including youth, confronting environmental pressures, and managing demographic change. This book will argue that increasing equity and voice will depend heavily on a legal-empowerment agenda within developing countries and that such an agenda will benefit directly from all three of the drivers listed here.

In the same vein, Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within twenty years if they continue at present rates.

It identifies nations like Rwanda, Nepal, and Bangladesh as places where deprivation could disappear within the lifetime of the present generation. Close on their heels in reducing poverty levels were Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia, and Bolivia.

Their study of the world's poorest billion people used a new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, which was recently updated in the 2013 HDR. It includes ten indicators to calculate poverty — nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling and attendance, cooking fuel, water, sanitation, electricity assets, and a covered floor. The study found that in 2013, 1.6 billion people were living in "multidimensional" poverty.

The poorest billion people live in one hundred countries. Out of the bottom 1 billion, most live in live in South Asia, with India home to 40 percent, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa with 33 percent. The report also found that 9.5 percent of the billion poorest people lived in developed, upper middle-income countries.

This is not the first time the UNDP HDR has celebrated great progress while reminding us of the severity of global poverty that still exists. According to the 1990 HDR, "Life expectancy in the South rose from 46 years in 1960 to 62 years in 1987. The adult literacy rate increased from 43% to 60%. The under-five mortality rate was halved. Primary health care was extended to 61% of the...