An International Anti-Poverty Pact

     The Social Development Summit in Copenhagen in 1995 emphasised the importance of both national and international action to eradicate extreme poverty and reduce overall poverty. But the Summit commitments did not define poverty for that purpose or set specific criteria for measuring progress. Some target dates for specific improvements in relation to basic health and education were proposed but were not given prominence in the Summit process.

     The Copenhagen commitments were also vague about mobilisation of resources to help achieve poverty reduction. The long-standing target for donor countries of providing 0.7% of their gross domestic product as official development assistance (ODA) to developing countries was reaffirmed. But no specific targets were set, or specific actions agreed, on other matters which could have helped to mobilise necessary resources such as debt relief, financial market regulation, tax reform and reductions in military expenditure.

The International Development Targets

     A year after the Summit, however, twenty of the wealthiest countries adopted seven specific International Development Targets (IDTs) for achievement throughout the world by the year 2015. The targets focus mainly on reducing the worst forms of poverty and disadvantage, especially in developing countries. In particular, they involve specific reductions in developing countries in extreme poverty and infant and child mortality. In relation to all countries, they call for universal primary education, elimination of gender disparities in education, universal access to reproductive health services, reductions in maternal mortality, and reversal of environmental losses.

     The targets were intended largely to identify priorities and measures of progress in relation to development assistance by the wealthy countries of the North. But it was also hoped, of course, that they would influence other governments, international organisations and civil society. They have subsequently been endorsed by, amongst others, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

     Substantial benefits can be achieved by specifying a limited number of international priority targets for reducing poverty and hardship. If properly selected, they can help to generate understanding and support for allocation of public resources towards their achievement. They can also help to strengthen the commitment, cooperation and effectiveness of governments, international agencies and civil society organisations. They can greatly assist in assessing progress towards the general goal of poverty reduction and, where necessary, in strengthening or adjusting relevant policies and programmes. They also can help to balance the current emphasis in political and public debate on targets for economic growth, inflation and fiscal austerity.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the IDTs

     The seven International Development Targets have considerable strengths. They focus on problems which are undoubtedly key indicators and/or causes of severe forms of hardship, especially in developing countries. They do not focus unduly on income as a measure of poverty at the expense of other key factors such as health care, education and gender equity. Most of them are numerical and measurable, and all have target dates for achievement. They set levels of achievement which are very ambitious, and will require major improvements in policies and commitments of resources, while not being so unrealistic as to lack credibility.

     The targets have been criticised by some observers for omitting major problems such as malnutrition, adult illiteracy and HIV/AIDS. On the other hand, in the countries where these problems are greatest, substantial progress in relation to them will clearly be necessary for, and result from, achievement of the IDTs relating to education and health. Moreover, the relative breadth of the targets leaves valuable flexibility for concentrating on particular problems and responses which are of special relevance to achieving the overall targets in individual countries. Of course, any list of priority targets which is sufficiently brief to be useful in this context will attract criticism for its omissions. It is notable, however, that the IDTs bear close similarities to priority lists developed by the United Nations, amongst others, after the series of global conferences during the 1990s.

     It is also notable that, following adoption of the IDTs, twenty-one indicators were identified as means of measuring progress towards their achievement. They include, for example, several indicators of progress towards eradication of extreme poverty in addition to the well-known but much-criticised criterion of achieving incomes above US$1 per day. They also include several indicators of progress towards the reproductive health and environmental protection targets. Organisations such as Christian Aid have proposed use of interim progress targets for dates prior to 2015. It may also be useful to adopt complementary criteria so that, for example, universal primary education is not achieved at the expense of adequate quality of provision.

The Role of the Rich Countries

     Some criticism has been leveled at the IDTs on the ground that they were selected by wealthy donor countries, rather than by a more inclusive process, and could be used to impose forms of conditionality on developing countries. However, the origin of the targets means that the richer countries cannot legitimately dispute their validity and can reasonably be called upon to contribute adequately towards their achievement. It is unrealistic to expect these countries to contribute substantial amounts without some agreements or understandings about how they will be used, and in this context the IDTs can be seen as much more flexible and less intrusive than many of the types of conditionality or project specification which have been traditionally imposed on developing countries. Moreover, almost all of the targets have been agreed at global conferences during the last decade (including the preparatory meetings for the UN’s five-year review of implementation of the Copenhagen Summit).

     The IDTs do, however, suffer from one fundamental weakness. It is clear that they cannot possibly be achieved in developing countries without substantial and sustained contributions from the wealthier countries, especially those countries by which they were adopted. When the targets were being adopted, at least one of the donor countries rightly argued that they would lack credibility and impact unless accompanied by specific commitments about further mobilisation of resources, especially from the wealthy countries which had developed them. Unfortunately, however, this argument was unsuccessful. It is now crucial to revisit the proposal and insist that the specific outcome targets are matched by equally specific commitments to adequate resource mobilisation.

The Anti-Poverty Pact

     It is for this reason that a series of meetings during the last two years, involving representatives of thousands of civil society organisations from around the world, has led to the development of a draft International Anti-Poverty Pact. The principal purpose of the Pact is to select a limited number of specific, high-priority, time-bound targets for poverty reduction and link them with a similar number of specific, high-priority, time-bound actions to mobilise resources. The proposed Pact would be negotiated and agreed by governments through the United Nations and would also be endorsed by major intergovernmental institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation.

     The Anti-Poverty Pact deliberately adopts the same targets as those which have been selected as the IDTs. They are sufficiently few in number to have credibility as a list of highest priorities, they focus on severe forms of poverty and hardship, and there is no compelling case for replacing one or more of them with other targets. Also, as mentioned earlier, the use of targets which have been chosen by the wealthier countries provides strong grounds for insisting that they “put their money where their mouth is” by way of resource mobilisation.

     The proposed Pact matches the seven IDTs with seven key actions for mobilising resources. In its current form, the draft Pact identifies the seven types of proposed action in general terms. It is intended that under each such heading, one or two specific actions would be negotiated and included in the Pact for full implementation by the year 2005. For example, under the heading of improving official development assistance there could be a commitment to increase ODA to at least 0.5% of GDP by no later than that year. A review of progress with implementation of the Pact would be undertaken by the United Nations in 2005 and a second phase of resource mobilisation for completion by 2010 would be agreed for inclusion in the Pact. This approach reflects the inevitable time lag between providing resources and achieving their full impact on anti-poverty outcomes. It also reflects the fact that specific, credible commitments on resources are more likely to be obtainable in relation to a five-year than a fifteen-year period.

A Balanced Package

     The proposed actions in the Pact for mobilising resources involve two important balances. First, they involve a balance between international and national contributions towards poverty reduction in developing countries. For example, they require international contributions in the form of debt cancellation and official development assistance but also contributions by developing countries themselves through tax reform, re-directing excessive military expenditure and reducing corrupt misuse of public resources. This balance is essential if the Pact is to develop general credibility and commitment.
 
     Secondly, the Pact involves a balance between mobilising public and private sector resources. For example, debt cancellation and reallocation of military expenditure involve contributions from public resources while the proposed improvements in trade and financial systems would mobilise private sector resources towards poverty reduction by encouraging productive investment and fair competition, where appropriate, at both international and national levels. It should also be noted that while the Pact recognises the need for tax reform to help generate adequate public revenue it also places heavy emphasis on the need to make better use of existing revenue.

The Way Ahead

     The fundamental purpose of the proposed Anti-Poverty Pact is to achieve credible and sustained commitment by all governments and key international institutions to the achievement of key poverty reduction outcomes and mobilisation of the requisite national and international resources. It is intended to be a brief document of firm commitments to action. Lengthy descriptions, rhetoric and analysis are readily available from other sources and their inclusion in the Pact itself would serve only to divert attention from the key operative commitments.

     The Pact deliberately focuses on resource mobilisation initiatives because they are of such crucial importance. But it is fully recognised that such initiatives will not be sufficient unless accompanied at both international and national levels by good governance, effective programmes, equitable practices and personal empowerment. Proposals in these areas are being pursued vigorously by other means.

     An international Anti-Poverty Pact may be largely ineffective unless it is complemented by vigorous monitoring and advocacy at the national level. This could include development of national Anti-Poverty Pacts which involve greater focus and detail on ways of implementing the international Pact within individual countries. The development and implementation of these international and national Pacts could become a key element of activities in connection with International Anti-Poverty Day on October 17 each year.

     Another supplementary initiative to implementation of the Anti-Poverty Pact could be commencement of the long-term task of negotiating a legally-binding covenant or convention of rights relating to poverty reduction. A prior task, however, might be to concentrate on strengthening ratification and enforcement of existing human rights treaties in this area, especially the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There is also, of course, a substantial danger that many countries, especially the wealthiest, will regard agreeing to commence negotiations for an inevitably vague convention (which would not take effect until a decade or two from now) as being a relatively easy way of avoiding pressure to sign an Anti-Poverty Pact which would instead commit them to specific forms of resource mobilisation from a much earlier date.

An Anti-Poverty Movement

     The Anti-Poverty Pact is designed to be a key part of a broader Anti-Poverty Movement aimed at a goal which, as was the case with the Anti-Slavery Movement and the Anti-Apartheid Movement, can seem impossibly daunting but ultimately prove to be achievable. The Pact has already attracted widespread support from civil society organisations throughout the world and from a number of governmental and intergovernmental sources, including the Chair of the UN’s five-year review of implementation of the Copenhagen Summit. It will be pursued further through that review and the UN’s upcoming Financing for Development process, to which it is clearly of special relevance.

     In the course of this campaign, a wide range of civil society organisations and other interested actors will have the opportunity to be involved in identifying the specific actions which should be included in the Pact for implementation during the first phase up to 2005. Of course, vigorous and rigorous action on many other fronts, both national and international, will also be essential to the development and success of a global Anti-Poverty Movement.