Reduce poverty, spend $2 billion for one billion children

Ashish Swarup, Expert, Management and Development Issues, Karawang, West Java

After reading Kofi Annan's recent thoughts on and understanding of sustainable development, I felt sad and suspicious about what seems to be the attitude of the United Nations towards the poor.

Just look at the last 300 years of economic development: The most important task for the wealthy has been to keep the poor impoverished. Annan, throughout his lecture, swung from "being pro-poor" to "not being anti-rich."

The real issues are lost between the lines.

He rightly points out that improving the lives of six billion people today, and generations to come, is a tough task. So one must be truly passionate about it -- balancing acts will not be of much help.

The rich and the nations in which they live will continue to succeed in their main task, using the same methods, for years to come.

In this globalized world, nations will continue to exist.

Governments should be responsible for their own people first in a democratic framework, and in other systems, so as to have at least a pretext of such a society.

This "national-selfism" is a fact of life. "National selfism" promotes the accumulation of wealth, over the socialistic, equitable distribution of wealth among nations.

Unfortunately, globalization is fast becoming a vehicle for amassing wealth by powerful nations.

Let's return to the central issue -- sustainable economic development for the poor.

First, we should define a geographical area as a workable unit for development, rather than talking too globally. There may be a few districts or a province, based on their homogeneity, in culture, race, beliefs and locally available resources.

Development for the poor within a defined geographical unit simply means a "well earned" 2200 Kcal diet, average health care and shelter with windows and a roof overhead.

The term "well-earned" is extremely important, and signifies the way to motivate individuals to create wealth by using locally available resources, and thus keeping society away from the dangers of "unengaged minds."

This minimum definition of development is more practical than talking about the mortality rate, protection against HIV/AIDS, or walking a few kilometers to fetch few liters of water.

Once this can be achieved, then the safety and peace of mind for the wealthier members of society. To Annan, security is first prerequisite for the rich, not poverty.

Regarding sustained development for the poor: If a nation- state within a geographical area manages to feed all of the soon "to be born," then development has become truly permanent.

The UN and Breton Wood institutions need to spend much more money to clearly understand issues like the urban poor, migration, town planning, and eradicating slums.

Simply put, if a village can provide enough food for its own people, along with sufficient income to facilitate minimum standards of living, then it can be viewed as developed.

Development itself is a relative concept. So first efforts should move quickly to address the issues facing people at the lowest strata of society.

If resources can sustain future inhabitants of a village, then it is a sustainable system in and of itself. Here again we are talking about accumulation of wealth, but at a very small level -- just enough to survive. So what it needs is grassroots capitalism, not globalization.

The rich and industrial nations do not have a good track record when it comes to sharing wealth.

So it is not realistic to assume that they will give out enough to eradicate poverty. Hence, eliminating poverty has become the job of poor themselves.

I firmly agree with Annan's observation that the world's poor are an enormous, untapped reservoir of initiative and entrepreneurship. I have seen adoption of high yield seeds by poor farmers.

Companies can multiply their sales of "good seeds" by 3 to 20 times in one season. And one can see similar reversal in a single season. So far, I have yet to hear of any such great adoption of consumer goods.

So don't challenge intellect and risk by taking abilities of poor nations and people. All of us know high-risk means high returns. This risk-taking ability is the ultimate resource one needs for material development. To put this ability to work, the poor need education.

Armed with this new knowledge and discipline, they can understand better the world around them, and capitalize on opportunities -- and not merely ending up as being just a source of low-cost labor within the global framework.

I would like to tell Annan that, if the UN really wants to halve extreme world poverty by 2015, then please spend on education. And not only on air-conditioned in classrooms but just one or two teachers, for every 50 primary school students.

To create and fill 20 million teaching jobs for one billion children, just pay US$100 per teacher.

In all, it would cost only $2 billion per month for the wealthier nations, would commit to this for 13 years, until 2015.

Mathematically, sustaining small developing nation will depend on its population and growth rate. There is an enormous amount of evidence to prove that the rate of population growth is higher among the poor and uneducated -- irrespective of religion, climate, or other factors.

Education will certainly lead to a better understanding of family planning. It may be too late if we wait for results of education to come: Population growth is always in geometrical proportion.

I would like to ask Annan to concentrate on this area. This will surely relieve the pervasive traffic congestion in slum areas which, in many developing nations, exist side-by-side with skyscrapers.

I would like to see a world in which a man and woman can become rich by creating wealth -- not by transferring it through currency markets, commodity trading, or negotiating with the elites and other players in the global economy.

As the people of a poor country, we should have faith in ourselves, and rest assured that nobody can take away our freedom to dream -- in particular from poor people who are insecure about their social status which so awkwardly contrasts with the Indonesia's moneyed ruling class.