Fact Sheet

What do we understand by the term ‘global prosperity’? The opening lines of the first “Human Development Report” 1990 states:

“The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long healthy and creative lives.”

In a special contribution to the “Human Development Report” 1999, Paul Streeten points out:

"More income is only one of the things poor people desire, adequate nutrition, safe water at hand, better medical services, more and better schooling for their children".... do not show up in higher income per head, at east not for some time.

Streeten also notes that there are non-material benefits that are often more highly valued than material improvements e.g. liberation from oppression, violence and exploitation, security from persecution and arbitrary arrest, a satisfying family, the assertion of cultural and religious values, a sense of purpose in life and work and a sense of belonging to a community.

Condition of the World today

Despite considerable improvements between 1990 and 1997 in health education, the status of women and children, etc. there are still significant developmental problems.

These problems exist because the improvements in the world’s prosperity have been very uneven and there are new setbacks. Some reasons are highlighted below:-

- Because of technological progress, (transportation, communication etc.) People’s lives, their jobs, income and health are affected by events in countries far away from them: e.g. environmental degradation, oil spills, deforestation, poisoning of rivers, lakes, over fishing etc. will affect the economic, food and health security of most countries.

- Global travel has meant that a disease which starts in one country can soon become an international epidemic. The most obvious example now is the spread of HIV/AIDS.

- Civil conflicts in a particular country can affect neighbouring countries through the flow of refugees across the border. (e.g. the present conflict in Afghanistan)

What is the solution?

There are many suggestions as to how global prosperity can be promoted:

a) Possible national actions:

Expand the capabilities, opportunities and life choices of poor people e.g.

• Build human capabilities through education

• Ensure access of poor people to productive resources including credit.

• Reduce inequality through progressive income taxation and other redistributive policies

• Make public provision of safe water, health services and housing accessible to poor people.

• Create effective partnerships of various groups in a country e.g. between NGO’s, local firms, and multinational corporations. Greater co-operation between labour and capital is another objective to strive for.

b) International actions

• Strengthen the global commitment to humane governance. Globalisation has expanded people’s awareness of their connection with the wider world. Securing political support for more humane global governance will depend on increasing that awareness even more - and on making people conscious of their being citizens of the world, not just their countries. In other words creating a sense of global responsibility.

• Strengthen global ethics and responsibility. Global government with a humane face requires shared values, such as those spelt out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, e.g. respect for justice, equality etc. and tolerance and mutual caring.

c) Economic measures include

• Preserving the environment - Create a world environment agency. Narrowing global gaps - Accelerating debt relief for the highly indebted poor countries.

• Promoting fairer trade, especially for the poorest countries - Make the World Trade Organisation fairer and give it a mandate over multi-national corporations.

• Refocusing aid to support poverty reduction, especially in the poorest countries.

• Protecting people during periods of economic crisis and adjustment. International support is needed to ensure that education and health services do not decline in periods of economic pressure.

World Poverty

• There must be an emergency programme to help the world’s poorest coutnries in the poverty belts of Africa and Asia.

• There must be an end to mass hunger and malnutrition. This means more funds for developing agriculture, irrigation, agricultural research, crop storage, fertilizers and other aids.

• There should be more international support for family planning programmes.

• Funds and skills being put into arms production must be channeled into peaceful needs.

• World trade should be encouraging the developing countries to have more part in the processing, marketing and distribution of their own commodities, to increase their earnings.

• Flows of overseas aid should be enlarged.

• There should be an international ‘income tax’ to spread wealth from the rich to the poor.

• The international monetary system must be reformed, giving greater participation and advantage to poorer countries.

• A new World Development Fund could act to distribute resources raised on a universal and automatic basis.

• More attention must be paid to educating public opinion, and the young especially, about the importance of international co-operation.

North-South

North-South is a very simple way of showing how the world divides into rich and poor countries. The rich North includes North America, Europe, Russia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The poor South includes most of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Countries of the South are sometimes called the Third World, underdeveloped or developing countries.

North:

• 25 % of the world’s people

• 80 % of the world’s income

• a person can expect to live on average more than 70 years

• most people are educated at least through primary and secondary school

• over 90% of the world’s manufacturing industry

• about 96% of world’s spending on research and development, nearly all the world’s registered patents

• dominates most of the international economic system and institutions of trade, money and finance.

South:

• 75 % of the world’s people

• 20 % of the world’s income

• a person can expect to live, on average, to about 50 years.

• 20 % or more of the people suffer from hunger and malnutrition

• 50 % of the people still have little chance of formal education.

Problems

The Brandt Report pins its hopes for the world’s poor on negotiations between governments. But the majority of Third World governments represent only the interests of a wealthy elite with too much to lose to allow any major redistribution of wealth. Quite simply, rich people everywhere are anxious to keep their wealth and to avoid too much upset, commotion or revolution. The gap between the North and the South is as wide as ever.

At the beginning of the 1990s we witnessed the historic reunification of Germany and disintegration of the USSR. On many levels this has been good news as regards world peace and security, but many people fear that the effects on the Third World will be catastrophic. The rich nations are already beginning to redirect ‘aid’ from the developing nations of the South to the countries of the East.

Definitions

Absolute poverty: A condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency.’

(Robert Macnamara)

Absolute poverty is a trap that imprisons about one billion people, nearly a fifth of the world’s population. Ninety % live in the countryside, more than half are small farmers and a quarter are landless labourers.

Whilst people in the North worry about diets, 35,000 people every day starve to death in the South.

Even if people are somehow able to survive a malnourished childhood they will never be given the opportunity to realize their full human potential. All the routes out of the trap are firmly shut because of lack of education, technical aid, employment, sanitation or safe water, access to health services, transport or communication. Most Southern governments are unlikely to change their policies because often resources are too scarce. The poor are left with the greatest toll of death and misery – and they fall prey to exploitation by landlords, merchants, employers and the police. They are the powerless ones.

The majority of people in developing countries manage to survive on an income of under US$150 a year. Many people live on less. There are over 825 million illiterate adults in the world, mostly in the South, the majority are women. In 60 countries over 40 % of houses have no piped water. Some 1.4 billion people do not have access to clean water.

Over 450 million people are mentally or physically disabled; 800 million have no access to health care. At least 15 million children die every year.

WHILE YOU ARE READING THIS, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE STARVING OR MALNOURISHED AND DO NOT KNOW WHETHER THEY WILL BE LIVING BY THIS TIME NEXT WEEK.

Basic Needs

Food

Food helps us grow and develop. Without the right amount of food or the right kinds of food, people suffer from malnutrition which can result in death. At least one in eight of the world’s population does not have enough to eat.

Water

Clean, safe drinking water is essential for life. It is vital for the control of diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera. The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of all sickness and disease can be attributed to inadequate water and sanitation. Such diseases cause an estimated 50 million deaths each year. Children are hardest hit: one child in seven in the developing world dies before its fifth birthday. Most of the deaths could have been prevented.

Housing

Housing provides us with protection and security, Today, as more and more people in Third World countries are drawn to cities in search of work and a better life, overcrowding becomes a major problem.

Health

Health care is important to ‘ensure a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or illness'’(World Health Organization). This requires adequate food, access to safe drinking water, sewage disposal, health education and health care. Yet 70% of the Third World population do not have access to organized health care and 90% of child deaths are linked with malnutrition, contagious diseases and unhygienic living conditions.

Education

We take education for granted but in the poorest countries of the world only four adults in ten can read and write and less than one in four children go to secondary school.

Work

Work can give us identity, security and the means to meet many of our other basic needs. Today world unemployment stands at around 500 million. 300 million of these are in the Third World.

Reflection:

‘More people have died as a consequence of hunger in the past six years than have been killed in all the wars, revolutions and murders in the past 150 years.’

(The Hunger Project, 1987)

The Great Divide

We have virtually conquered the planet, explored the moon, overcome the natural limits of travel and communication; we stand at the dawn of a new age, ready to move farther into space and perhaps inhabit other planets. Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life span, significantly modify our behaviour, alter the course of human evolution, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with an unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life. The future is, however, filled with dangers.

In learning to apply science to life, we have opened the doors to ecological damage, over-population, political repression and nuclear and biochemical disaster. Humanity, to survive, requires bold and daring measures. The ultimate goal should be the fulfilment of the potential for growth in each human personality - not for the favoured few, but for all of humankind.

The huge divide between rich and poor in the world has been created by human greed and selfishness. There is enough food to feed everyone, and if nations redirected their wealth to help their fellow global citizens, instead of spending it on armaments and nuclear weapons, the world would be transformed. For the cost of two fighter aircraft ( US$25 million) we could install 300,000 hand pumps in villages in Africa to give the people access to safe drinking water.

Main ideas:

• The real wealth of a nation is its people and the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives

• More income is only one of the things poor people desire

• The problems that exist have become increasingly a matter of international rather than national concern.

Activities:

1. Draw a pictorial representation of the unequal distribution of the wealth of the world.

2. Create a mural showing the life styles of the rich versus the poorer peoples of the world.

3. Draw a tree representing the world and its conditions as they are today. Write the problems on the roots and show the consequences in the tree itself (its leaves and fruits etc). In contrast draw a tree representing the world and what the conditions will be if we solve today’s problems. Write the solutions on the roots and show the effects these solutions have on the tree itself (its leaves and fruits, etc).

4. Make a chart of the basic material things that everyone should have access to without exception. On the same chart, list the spiritual or non-material things that everyone should have access to without exception.

5. Make a rectangular puzzle with six randomly cut pieces. Give one piece to each group member in a group of 6 youth. Ask them to piece together the puzzle while following these rules: No one can ask another person for their puzzle piece, but anyone can offer their piece to someone else. Everyone must cooperate with each other to accomplish the task. This activity can be done with any number of groups working at the same time. The purpose is to learn how to cooperate and work together.

6. Make a set of twenty cards. On each write a difficult situation that is common in the world today, i.e. You are a high school drop out and you cannot read very well. OR You are a single mother of six children in a developing country. OR You have a physical disability and you cannot leave your home unaided, etc. Put the cards into a hat and have each member of your group pull out a card and speak for two minutes about how they would try and overcome the difficulty.

Readings:

`Indeed, the chief reason for the evils now rampant in society is the lack of spirituality. The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interest of mankind that people in general do no longer feel the necessity of raising themselves above the forces and conditions of their daily material existence…The universal crisis affecting mankind is, therefore, essentially spiritual in its causes...Man’s outlook on life is too crude and materialistic to enable him to elevate himself into the higher realms of the spirit.’1

`The earth is upheld by the veracity of those who have subdued their passions, and, following righteous practices, and, are never contaminated by desire, covetousness or wrath.’ 2

`The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war.’ 3

`When such a crisis sweeps over the world no person should hope to remain intact. We belong to an organic unit and when one part of the organism suffers all the rest of the body will feel its consequences.’ 4

`It is we who portion out between them their livlihood in the life of this world: and We raise some of them above others on rank, so that they may command work from others. But the Mercy of your Lord is better than the wealth which they amass.’ 5

`In keeping with the requirements of the times, consideration should also be given to teaching the concept of world citizenship as part of the standard education of every child.’ 6

` He who has two coats, let him give him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.’7

`All the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, become increasingly interdependent. For none is self sufficiency any longer possible, inasmuch as political ties unite all peoples and nations, and the bonds of trade and industry, of agriculture and education, are being strengthened every day. Hence the unity of mankind in this day can be achieved.’ 8

References:

1. Baha’i Writings…

2. Hinduism – Vishnu Purana 3.12

3. Baha’i Writings…

4. Baha’i Writings…

5. islam – Qur’an 43.31-32

6. Baha’i Writings…

7. Christianity – Luke 3.11

8. Baha’i Writings…

9. Baha’i Writings…