The Hindu Business Line : Crisis in Niger — Acute poverty in a world of plenty

The looming humanitarian crisis in Niger is mostly the result of the tragic failure to effectively tackle the distributive problems in the global village of plenty.

THE so-called global village is home to 6.3 billion people now. In 2004, the total value of goods and services produced by all the countries was $40.8 trillion. Given the sheer size and composition of output that has been churned it is as if we are living in an era of plenty on a scale never been seen before in the history of human civilisation.

However, a look at the spatial distribution of the output is jolting. For example, the G-7 countries, home to approximately 12 per cent the world population, account for close to 60 per cent of the output. In stark contrast, the Sub-Saharan Africa, also home to approximately 12 per cent of the global population, accounts for a minuscule 1.3 per cent of the world output.

In such a world of incomprehensible unequal distribution of economic output, we must accept the harsh reality that a recurrent unfolding of dire poverty, hunger and starvation in many corners of African countries, including the most recent looming humanitarian crisis in Niger, is unavoidable under the present institutional set-up.

This is mostly the result of the tragic failure of international institutions in devising effective mechanisms to tackle the systemic distributive problems in the global village of plenty.

World over, more than 840 million people are malnourished and go to bed hungry every night, and 95 per cent of them live in the so-called developing country.

Approximately 20 per cent of the malnourished are children under five, and six million of them die every year of hunger and related causes. These are preventable deaths just by spending a paltry amount.

It is worth stressing that the combined annual military expenditure of all countries now exceeds $1 trillion, with the US accounting for close to half of this total. The world community can easily divert a tiny fraction of the military budget on an assault on poverty. As Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen well pointed out, famines can occur even when aggregate food availability is sufficient, if prices are too high and food goes out of the reach of the poor people. Of course, it is well understood that widespread hunger results from grinding, deep-rooted poverty.

"We have enough for everybody's need. But not enough for everybody's greed," observed Mahatma Gandhi more than six decades ago. Given the unprecedented changes in the global economic sphere during the past fifty years, justifiably, now we can slightly rephrase his observation. We have plenty for everybody's increasing basic need in our global village. But not enough for everybody's ever increasing greed for material things in the world of finite natural capital.

The right to adequate food, among other rights, has been enshrined in the Universal Declarations of Human Rights in 1948. The 1974 World Food Conference proclaimed that "every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties."

This was followed by myriad UN initiatives and conferences to tackle the complex and multidimensional facet of poverty, particularly in Africa. Also, the 1996 World Food Summit avowed to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition within a decade.

There has been an increasing gap between what is proclaimed and what actually gets done. The world community must be reminded that myriads of proclamations and enshrinements of assorted rights alone are not going to solve the sickening and elusive problems of poverty, hunger, starvation and human miseries in the world of plenty.

It must be followed by concrete and concerted action particularly within the framework of a renewed institutional policy thrust.

At present, as we are witnessing a horrific humanitarian crisis gradually engulfing Niger, it is worth reflecting on observations made by Charles Darwin in his journal, while travelling the world as a young naturalist, in 1909. "If the misery of the poor is caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."

Niger, a country in West Africa, is home to 12 million people. It is the second poorest country in the world, ahead only of war-ravaged Sierra Leone.

Under normal conditions, the life expectancy of the people in this part of our global village is just 46 years. Given the deepening crisis, life expectancy would fall further.

Four million people, including close to one million children, are suffering from the effects of drought and the worst invasion of crop-devouring locusts in 15 years.

The rates of malnutrition among children are high throughout the country. Shockingly, some 150,000 children face death, if food and medical aid fail to reach immediately.

The global village is awash with unprecedented level of wealth. We should aim to achieve equitable distribution of income. This is the only way to avert the recurrent unfolding of humanitarian crisis in Africa and elsewhere.

(The author is Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada.)

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