At the United Nations Millennium Summit of September 2000, what was at the time the largest gathering of world leaders ever, agreed to a set of goals that became known as the UN Millennium Development Goals. The deadline of 2015 was set. Goal number one was to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty.
This principal goal was then supported with seven other goals, aimed at addressing extreme poverty in its various dimensions, namely achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combatting HIV and other contagious fatal diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development.
Closer to home, the European Union adopted the Europe 2020 Strategy in June 2010. It is the EU’s agenda for growth and jobs for the decade 2010-2020. It aims to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as a way of overcoming weaknesses in the European economy, underpinned by a strong social market economy. One of the headline targets is to reduce poverty by lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion.
Yet even more closer to home, the target for Malta is to have 6,500 less people at the risk of poverty and exclusion than in 2010.
The deadline set by the UN Millennium Summit has passed and the targets set were not met. We still have extreme poverty in various parts of the world.
Most of the other related targets have also not been met. The targets set by the European Union may not be met in a number of countries. So is the fight against poverty lost?
History has shown us that with all its imperfections, the social market economy is the best model to fight poverty
I believe we need to make three important considerations, which are essentially economic in nature. The first is that the EU made it clear that its 2020 Strategy is underpinned by a strong social market economy.
That is a very important statement as the EU leaders have collectively decided that their preferred economic model is the social market economy.
It is important to note that the EU is discarding the various other models and is promoting an economic model, which protects the key elements of a free market (private property, free foreign trade and the price mechanism) as well as the essential tenets of social welfare such as free health services for all, a state old age pension system, and an extensive social security system. So there is a coupling high economic freedom with a degree of government regulation to prevent abuses of private power.
History has shown us that with all its imperfections, the social market economy is the best model to fight poverty.
Every other model tried, ranging from a strictly state controlled economy to a strictly liberal economy has failed.
The second consideration is the need to identify who the poor really are. Income is an important consideration as is affordability of food. However, there are many who may have a good enough income to enable them to afford food but still cannot because they spend their money on other things.
Probably such persons would not qualify as poor given their income but in effect they are. And they have become poor because they have fallen victims to a consumer society that promotes consumption for its own sake.
As such we need to take stock as to whether having a consumer society of the type that we have had in the last years is good for the economy.
The third consideration is the issue of empowerment. Targets for education – the primary tool for empowering a population – have been included in both the UN Millennium Development Goals as well as in the EU 2020 Strategy.
If we accept that empowerment is essential to eradicate poverty, governments need to operate with a different mindset.
Governments tend to be very pleased with themselves because they fund food for the poor initiatives and provide basic housing for the homeless. It is obvious why they do it – it wins them votes.
They should really be doing something else. They should seek to end hunger and homelessness. And they do this by empowering people through education. Such a strategy is likely to win them less votes, but is more likely to succeed in fighting poverty, which should always remain a key economic goal for any government.