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On Monday, September 12, TakingITGlobal interviewed the chief of the Economic Analysis Division at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Dr. Fadhil Mahdi, who is presently a member of a UN task force on the MDGs. Mahdi’s rich and detailed input on the MDGs and the problems facing the Arab region is of great value to the youth of today.
TIG: It is a known fact that extreme poverty has remarkably decreased in the last 25 years; yet, as much as countries have managed to defeat the specter of poverty, others have become poorer and have suffered illiteracy, child mortality and disease on a daily basis. How do you explain this phenomenon?
F. Mahdi: The phenomenon of poverty increasing in some regions while declining in others is quite normal and economies that are based on market forces have better opportunities, and tend to grow faster than others. Such counties may attract capital, develop exports, raise their investment rates and GDPs, and by growing faster, they tend to employ more people. It is through the employment nexus that much of the poverty alleviation occurs; however, this is not sufficient to eradicate poverty because there are certain areas, even in dynamic economies, which tend not to be attractive enough to private investors and, therefore, remain poor. On a global level, this is also magnified; you have countries that are affected by conflict, civil wars, and tend to have increasing rates of poverty because of the destruction of productive powers. In such countries standards of living tend to plummet, such as in the Iraq case as a result of sanctions and war or in Palestine or Sudan or Zaire as a result of war and instability. No doubt stability encourages investors. In Lebanon for example, investment has risen since the 1990. Presently, however, with the turbulence, some investors are reluctant about investing.
TIG: In what ways would democratization help governments fight poverty and other problems and achieve the MDGs? And if democratization were a viable solution, how could countries with closed systems, such as, Yemen, for example, democratize?
F. Mahdi: Yemen is a country with a parliamentary system; yet, the economy is low and poverty is rampant. It is more complex than that in a country like Yemen. The country has problems related to institutions, tribalism and democracy. However, we have seen economies that are not democratic that have grown, but then they reach a point where they have to democratize or will lag behind such as countries in Eastern Europe or South Korea, who had to go through a democratic process in order to have stable investment. The issue of democracy is broader than the issue of poverty alleviation. We can talk of economic democracy, and the MDGs are really about the right to development which is a democratic right. You cannot continue living in a world of inequality, whether on a global or local level. The MDGs is an agreement that world leaders have arrived at stating the poor have the right to development and this is democratic right. Realizing this commitment requires a lot of partnership and developed countries will have to assist poor ones to develop.
TIG: Poor countries are often blamed for causing their own poverty due to corrupt government and administration. They are urged to democratize in order to achieve the MDGs; however, there are poor countries with honest governments but suffer endless cycles of destitution. How are the Goals achieved in such countries?
F. Mahdi: If we go to theories of development, we talk about the vicious circle of underdeveloped countries. [When] you’re poor you start from a low level of income and you don’t have enough savings to invest in order to grow. Many counties with low per capita income do not have sufficient savings to have lets say 20-25% rate of investment. They cannot do it because they are more or less tantamount consuming most of the production that they make and produce during a year. In those cases, I think even when you have honest governments, they seem to have no financing to grow and they need all the help they need. An honest government is useful of course because the money will not go to waste.
TIG: It has been recommended by the SG that developing countries with extreme poverty should, by 2006, adopt and implement a national development strategy to meet the MDG targets by 2015. This strategy should function on the basis of gender equality, environment protection, rural and urban development, health systems, education, science, technology and innovation. How would these strategies be monitored? To what extent are they obligatory? And how would closed totalitarian regimes in the Arab world implement such strategies?
F. Mahdi: Most of those countries that need help have international development institutions such as the UNDP, FAO, UNIDO. They are not on their own. But the act of developing those strategies should really be a national act because if you impose a strategy on a country the people of which will not own, the strategy cannot function. Normally, I would say it becomes a collaboration of effort between development institutions and national government and many of those strategies have poverty goals that governments will have to reach, let’s say reducing poverty by 15 to 20% over a period of time. In return, some of their debt would be waved. You surely know about the highly indebted poor countries initiative where the Bretton Woods institutions can wave some of the debt of those countries. Debt is a huge problem and servicing it consumes a good proportion of the budget.
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May Fawaz
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Comments
Poverty Reduction Patricia Sudi | Mar 7th, 2007
Its is apparent from this interview that tribalism does not only affect african countries.Thanks for that insight but what i would like to know is what is the way forward in fighting tribalism in countries affected by it?Its obvious that tribalism is directly linked to poverty.Is coming up with a common mode of communication and abolishing all other languages based on tribal lines a solution?
Updated? Ilan Tsekhman | Jun 19th, 2008
Thank you so much for this fascinating look at the MDGs. I'd be interested to hear what, if any, progress has been made towards accomplishing those goals since 2008.
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