Relative poverty is unpreventable. The global development community should focus its energies on reducing inequality
Despite the on-trend rhetoric and optimism, the chances of (all but) ending absolute poverty in our generation are slim. The chances of ending poverty altogether are zero.
The closer we get to ending extreme poverty, the harder it is going to be to do it. We're going to have to pretty much end violent conflict, experience a Damascene climate conversion, sustain high rates of economic growth, avoid any recession in poor countries and make sure nobody who is disabled or seriously ill sees their income drop to less than $1.25 a day. It would potentially cost some of the world's biggest businesses billions of dollars and need to be agreed by a group of world leaders who, if they all went out to dinner, would be sat around the table with their calculators out arguing about how to split the bill.
Call me a cynic but I'm sceptical. This chart did the rounds in response to Bill Gates' annual letter and demonstrates the trajectories on which the end of poverty hype is based – and that's just in countries where we have some idea of the data (if we can trust the data at all). In sub-Saharan Africa we are not on track to hit many millennium development goals – look at DfID's annual report if you don't believe me (page 23).
Luckily, there is more to development, as an effort in international solidarity, than simply ending absolute poverty. It is an important benchmark, but a world in which a billion people live on $1.26 a day would contain as much cause for outrage as the one we live in today. A big box would be ticked but how many lives would really have changed?
Poverty is a perception – it is a status which is bestowed on people who have relatively little – even in societies of plenty. That's why we probably can't really ever "end" poverty. To see a world in which so many people have less than you and to want them to have more is, to many of us, human nature. It's why poverty in the UK matters as much as poverty abroad, despite the material differences. Relative poverty will always exist and it should always be at the forefront of efforts to improve our world because it demands more than the bare minimum solution.
Despite this, the aid industry currently has quite a few eggs in the end poverty basket. We risk assuming that the public distinguishes between absolute and relative poverty. It probably doesn't - especially not in austere times. Just look at the prevailing political view on aid to middle income countries that contain hundreds of millions of desperately poor people. Too much negativity and we're accused of not making any progress with aid money, too much talk of progress and aid is no longer necessary. It shouldn't be a Catch 22 but in reality, for some, it is.
As Owen Barder alludes to in his turn of the year assessment, aid agencies are an increasingly endangered species. For those working in organisations that are dependent on official development assistance, it is hard to talk about ending their dependency, but the 21st century demands the challenge is not ducked.
So if we accept that we won't be satisfied if we overcome absolute poverty, where do we go next? The emerging consensus around the perils of inequality presents as opportunity to articulate a broader and more sustainable vision. It is essential that we take it.
We've worked really hard on helping those at the very bottom, but is that really enough? Imagine how different the world would be if the focus of much aid spending was not "ending $1.25 dollar a day poverty" but "creating a fairer and more equitable world".
Inequality is about much more than income and that is why it is such a valuable frame. A recent Oxfam report generated welcome headlines but If we took the wealth of the world's richest and used it to double, treble or even quadruple the incomes of the world's poorest three billion people would that be enough? It would make a big difference but those people would still be relatively poor and deserving of better, fuller lives. The politics of inequality will be as important as the economics.
It is policy not aid which matters most in today's world – decisions taken on tax regimes, remittance flows and trade concessions are now the fastest route to assist poor countries in their development. Yet it is proving very hard to secure those decisions. Inequality is at the root of the reasons why.
Inequality, as a focal point for campaigns, allows us to accept and explain that building a better world is a slow and perennial endeavour. Delivering a world where the quality of education, healthcare and national infrastructure available to every person is sufficient to bestow on them meaningful hope and ambition is hopefully the aim of "development". It is not possible without tackling inequalities. Goals and targets will help us to keep moving forwards but achieving them will not equal success, which is why – despite its important role as an aspiration – we shouldn't be so belligerent about zero poverty and especially about whether aid is the tool to get us there.
Jonathan Tanner is media and public affairs officer at Overseas Development Institute. He writes here in a personal capacity. Follow @Tannerjc on Twitter
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