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Justice in the world, where are we ?
Letter n°38, March 2007

In its World Development Report 2005, the United Nations Programme for Development (UNPD) outlines a contrasting portrait of international cooperation. Behind this portrait of massive human suffering a number of issues can be found that will not leave the defenders of human rights indifferent.

The advances in human development should not be over-estimated, the UNPD informs us. With regard to this, since 1990 life expectancy in developing countries has increased by two years; there are three million fewer cases of infant mortality annually and also 30 million fewer children out of school. More than 130 million fewer people have escaped extreme poverty.

However the UNPD adds that these advances should not be exaggerated. Thus, in 2003, 18 countries with a combined population of 460 million inhabitants registered lower scores on the Human Development Index (HDI) than in 1990 – an unprecedented reversal.

If some progress has been recorded here and there, the chasm between rich and poor is far from being reduced. The inequalities that result from this can be illustrated by the following rough statistics cited by the UNPD itself:

in the midst of an increasingly prosperous global economy, each year 10.7 million children do not live to see their fifth birthday;
one fifth of the world’s population lives in countries where a large number of inhabitants think nothing of spending two dollars a day for a cappuccino;
another fifth of humanity survives on less than one dollar a day in countries where children die for want of a mosquito net;
the difference in life expectancy figures amongst the most fundamental inequalities. Today, someone living in Zambia has less chance of reaching the age of 30 than someone born in England in 1840, and the gap is widening;
sub-Saharan Africa accounts for a rising share of child deaths, and if it represents only 20% of births worldwide, it registers 44% of infant deaths;
the world’s richest 500 individuals have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million. Beyond these extremes, the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day – 40% of the world’s population – account for 5% of global income. The richest 10%, almost all of whom live in high income countries, account for 54%.
In India, the death rate for children ages 1 – 5 is 50% higher for girls than for boys. 130,000 young lives are lost each year because of the disadvantage associated with carrying two X chromosomes. In Pakistan, gender equality in school attendance would give 2 million more girls the chance of an education.
etc.

The UNPD acknowledges that the majority of countries are behind in the majority of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Human development is unsteady in some key areas, and inequalities continue to widen. Various polite and diplomatic formulae can be found to describe the divergence between the progress in human development and the goals outlined in the Millennium Declaration. Nevertheless none of them can mask a simple truth, UNPD informs us: the promise made to poor people has not been kept. However it adds that without a renewed engagement, with cooperation supported by practical action, the MDG’s will not be met and history will regard the Millennium Declaration as yet another unkept promise.

Three factors explaining these inequalities are at the heart of the UNPD’s reasoning. Firstly, development aid suffers from two problems: the chronic under-funding of poor countries and the poor quality of aid. Secondly, the business practices of rich countries continue to deny to poor countries and to their citizens an equitable part of global prosperity and this, in disregard of the Millennium Declaration. The third factor is safety. Violent conflict affects hundreds of millions of people. For the UNPD, these conflicts constitute a cause of systematic violations of human rights and a barrier to progress towards the MDG’s.

The world is divided and the extent of the gap, which seems to widen before our eyes, raises numerous questions and brings to mind the ethical and moral weakness of this “international community” of egotistic States, such that one ends up growing tired of unkept promises.

Reference:

UNPD (2005) “World Development Report”- published in 11 languages

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/

Image : de Pino Zac, tiré de l'album e-moi un droit de l'homme, p. 25

Justice in the world, where are we ? Letter n°38, March 2007

Justice in the world, where are we ?
Letter n°38, March 2007