The powerful nations of the world declare in unison that they want to eradicate poverty. The UN commands through collective will,that it will achieve this, though the timeline keeps changing each time it releases an update!As we make way through the 21st Century, is there any real momentum in righting the wrongs of humanity?
Let us consider some simple facts. Did you know that according to World Bank, the countries with the highest poverty rates in the world are:
- South Sudan 82.30%
- Equatorial Guinea 76.80%
- Madagascar 70.70%
- Guinea-Bissau 69.30%
- Eritrea 69.00%
- Sao Tome and Principe 66.70%
- Burundi 64.90%
- Democratic Republic of the Congo 63.90%
- Central African Republic 62.00%
- Guatemala 59.30%
Who are the poorest (Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023 – UNDP)?
- 485 million poor people live in severe poverty across 110 countries, experiencing 50–100% of weighted deprivations.
- 99 million poor people experience deprivations in all three dimensions (70-100% of weighted deprivations).
- 10 million of the 12 million poor people with the highest deprivation scores (90-100%) live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Which groups are the poorest?
- Subnational regions are being left behind in two ways: where poverty is widespread, poverty is also most intense.
- Half of the 1.1 billion poor people (566 million) are children under 18 years of age.
- 84% of all poor people live in rural areas. Rural areas are poorer than urban areas in every world region.
Did you know that 25 000 children die EVERY DAY due to lack of shelter, safe water, medicine, or food? That is akin to losing the total population of a small town each and every day.
When did we lose our humanity?
Was it when empire builders felt they were God’s gift to humanity? Was it when rich nations decided that it was to their economic advantage to ensure that most of the world remained in abject poverty? Was it when those with weapons of mass destruction decided that they were above natural law and could act like Gods? Or was it when the people of the rich and powerful nations decided that holding a concert, or a comedy event, or a sports event was sufficient to whitewash their collective guilt?
Whilst we feed ourselves to proportions hitherto unknown (and I am guilty of this as the next person), did you know that some 2000 children die each day as a result of diarrhoea?
The World's GDP is USD 112.6 trillion in 2023 (USD 112600 000 000 000). The world spends 2.24 trillion U.S. dollars (2022) on military each year. To end poverty, it would cost the world only 10% of that military spend!
So who is to be blamed for this sorry state of affairs?The simple answer, we all are.
All too often we have allowed our own inadequacies to give way to excuses by saying, ‘what can I do?’. Some 70% of the world believes in a God like entity. Yet, we don’t ask the question, ‘which God has given us the commandment that we can exploit the poor, steal their resources, waste food, control water and medicine, and ultimately become the sole arbiters of who lives and who dies?’.
It seems the God of the 21st Century is money and might. If you have that, who needs God!
Mahatma Gandhi said, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty”.
I fear the few drops has now become a flood. The poison of greed and power can make even the ocean of our common humanity toxic.
The power and the resources to affect global change rests with humanity. It requires that we put the human back into humanity.
