It has been 26 years since a declaration by the United Nations General Assembly designated October 17 as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This is not a day that should have been observed for 26 years. The world would be a much better place if by now it could have been commemorating the day poverty ended, extreme or absolute poverty at the very least.
While there is no single definition of poverty, the general consensus around the world is that extreme poverty exists where persons have to get by on less than US$1.25 a day. (This measurement used to be US$1 a day, but the powers that be changed it to US$1.25 – like that quarter really matters.) These are people in such dire straits that they are unable to meet basic needs for food and shelter. According to statistics from the World Bank in 2013, one in three people in the world survive on less than US$2 a day and a large percentage of them are women.
According to a UN report published in February this year, across the world, women are poorer, more hungry and more discriminated against than men. The reasons for this are well known. Because of their nurturing tendencies, women are far more likely than men to miss a meal so that their children could eat or to spend their last dollar on medicines for their children, husbands or parents. If they had to make a choice between saving or their children’s education women are more likely than men to choose the latter. And in too many places, women still do not receive equal pay for equal work when doing the same jobs as men. Then there is unwaged housework. Globally, the value of such work, done almost exclusively by women and girls in many countries around the world, stands at $10 trillion a year.
Women do not have a monopoly on poverty, nor do they desire same. On the contrary, women want their rights respected, to be paid fairly for the work they do. There are other things but these two would be a start to balancing the scales.
Numerous activists have clearly shown that there is a link between the state of women and children and poverty. Eradicating poverty will therefore never be successful, unless women’s condition is addressed. Essayist and orator Christopher Hitchens said it best when he said: “We’re the first generation of people who do really know what the cure for poverty is. It eluded people for a long, long time. The cure for poverty has a name, in fact. It’s called the empowerment of women.” Mr Hitchens died nearly seven years ago and the uphill battle to cure poverty continues.
There is no mistaking the fact that women are an important part of the international development agenda. The World Conferences on Women—Mexico, 1975; Copenhagen, 1980; Nairobi, 1985 and Beijing 1995—all called for the empowering of women and the promoting of gender equality backed by research which showed how much more could be achieved if these agendas were met. These agendas were also enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals 2000 – 2015 and the Sustainable Development Goals 2015 – 2030.
The problem with these agendas and goals, not just those addressing women and poverty, but all of them — health, clean water, education, climate action and the like — is that they are the world’s goals and agendas. And while the United Nations can hold itself up as the world’s conscience, it is not the world’s government and cannot force countries to act in the best interests of their citizens. Therefore, leaders can show up and sign treaties and then get back to their countries and ratify conventions, but still decide that there are other front-burner issues and less effort is then put into eliminating poverty, violence against women or gender inequality. Or the leader may be well-meaning but then loses an election, or is faced with a debilitating natural disaster or man-made one like war.
Finally, there is also the idiotic contention that empowerment for women means disempowerment for men. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women stepping up out of poverty take their entire families with them. If the world does not grasp this and soon, there will be no end to the merry-go-round of goals and agendas and true international development will remain elusive.
