NOT ENOUGH
   Date :12-Jul-2019
 
IT IS not difficult to understand the sense of sadness in the tone of Mr. Antanio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), when he says that the world is still not putting in enough efforts to promote sustainable development by combating poverty, hunger and climate change. He has cited a recently launched UN Report on Sustainable Development Goals to make the point, in effect stating that the efforts of world’s governments are not “ambitious enough” and that a faster response is required to achieve the 2030 development agenda. Even as the world grapples with the behind-the-curtain politics surrounding the Paris Climate Pact, the sad comment by the UN Secretary General assumes much importance. The comment actually is aimed at catalysing global action in the collective fight against poverty, hunger and adverse impact of development on climate.
 
All these issues are dangerously alive even after a lot of efforts to combat those is because the world’s development and economic planners are still stuck in old definitions of and only statistical responses to poverty and hunger as well as environmental degradation. They are yet to realise fully the importance of not just money-supply to the poor to meet their needs but also ensuring affordability of basic provisions for a livable life. They do not realise that eradication of poverty is not possible only by stepping up wages or offering direct-benefit-transfer to the poor, but also by creating an overall economic ecosystem in which the rich do not form the nucleus of the exercise of wealth generation for the handful few occupying the top layers of the social pyramid.
 
No matter the political tall talk by leaders of almost all countries, the economic disparities can be fought only if the imbalance in distribution of collective wealth is removed with a sense of ruthless finality. Once that imbalance is removed, hunger will be taken care of more easily, and environmental degradation would be avoided since developmental goals, too, would change. This is not just a theorisation; this is the crux of a genuinely democratic economic policy as an extension of the global developmental goal. Most unfortunately, this collective goal has been lost sight of as the world’s governments are going back on their commitment to the concept of globalisation.
 
Seen in retrospect, it appears that the idea of globalisation was not motivated by the urge of comprehensive development, but triggered by political ambitions of a few countries to develop access to global resources under the guise of open market. And when they realised about five to seven years ago that changing political winds the world over were not allowing them to exploit common global resources, their commitment to globalisation also started waning. It was this changing mood that Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi had referred to in his address at the World Economic Forum two years ago. He said it clearly that for India, globalisation was not a political need but a spiritual motivation because she believed in the upanishadic philosophy of Tyena Tyaktena Bhunjitha (sacrifice for sharing).
 
The current problem of the world not doing enough to combat poverty, hunger and climate change stems from the massive mix up of various philosophical pushes and political pulls. The sad observation by Mr. Antanio Guterres has to be viewed from such an angle. His grief has an immense and profound awareness of what is actually happening the world over on the critical front. The world does not seem to realise that poverty, hunger, and climate change are not nationally-bound issues but are actual global problems that cannot be sorted out on narrow geographical segments. Obviously, much work needs to be done to raise the level of such an awareness.