 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2018) |
The End of Poverty? is a 2008 documentary film about poverty directed by Philippe Diaz. It is narrated by Martin Sheen and was produced by Cinema Libre Studio in association with the non-profit Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. The film was selected for the international critic's week award at the 2008 Cannes Festival.
The aphorism "The poor are always with us" dates back to the New Testament, but while the phrase is still sadly apt in the 21st century, few seem to be able to explain why poverty is so widespread. Activist filmmaker Philippe Diaz examines the history and impact of economic inequality in the third world in The End of Poverty?, and makes the compelling argument that it's not an accident or simple bad luck that has created a growing underclass around the world. Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes. Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy.
— Mark Deming [1]
The film begins with footage depicting the condition of severe poverty faced by many people in underdeveloped countries and contrasting it with the prosperity and wealth of developed countries. The persistent inequality between countries is established to be the main theme of the film.
The film then shifts to an historical perspective and describes the colonization of the Americas by European in 1492 as the start of this unequal relationship between the West and the rest of the world. It asserts that this colonization, which was repeated in Africa and Asia, was a means of extracting large amounts of wealth and exporting it to Europe, first through the plundering of the colonies, which involved the destruction of the local people and their communities, and then by appropriating their land and labour into the European economy. The film claims that this condition of landlessness persisted long after the colonies gained independence, forcing many to work in horrific conditions for extremely low wages.
Interviewing several scholars, the film discusses how the colonial powers were able to finance the industrialization of their own economy with the wealth that they obtained from their colonies. By employing native populations and African slaves on plantations of sugarcane, cacao, and other products, as well as in mines (such as the silver mines of Potosí in Bolivia), countries like Spain and England were able to attain their "developed" status, according to the film. It depicts these instituted economies as both severely exploiting the people who laboured on the plantations and in the mines, as well as locking these economies into producing only export goods, for which they became dependent on European markets. Colonies also became dependent on European products for their own domestic needs, as the majority of the colonial economy was geared toward exports. The colonists ensured that the exports were raw materials that were then processed into finished goods by their own industrialized economies. An imbalance was created by the destruction of indigenous technical capabilities in the colonies (such as the destruction of the Indian textile industry) and led to an increased dependency on Europe for finished consumer goods. This dependency, it is claimed, persists even today, allowing developed countries to benefit from the imbalance.
Turning to the period after World War II when most colonies gained political independence, the film states that the former colonies are nonetheless trapped within an international system of neocolonialism. International institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), it argues, forced policies that allowed Western countries and Western companies to continue to extract wealth from the former colonies. These institutions provided loans for large industrial projects in the name of "poverty reduction" and "development" that left these countries in high debt. Western countries, particularly the United States, gained huge quantities of wealth by means of the repayments of these debts, as well as through contracts for the industrial projects that the loans were designed for. Structural adjustment, another programme of the World Bank and IMF, made loans conditional on the recipient countries implementing policies of trade and capital market liberalization and privatization, allowing Western economies to benefit from unequal terms of trade and through the return on capital invested in the emerging economies. The film documents how the privatization of key sectors like health, water, and education led to increased costs and the displacement of people from their lands.
The documentary then examines the various military and covert interventions conducted by the United States, allegedly in support of the economic interests of American corporations. It discusses examples like the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, and the overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala. In each case, the film claims, the purpose was to further the interests of Western corporations: the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iraq and the United Fruit Company in Guatemala.
Turning to possible solutions to global poverty, the film argues that forgiving international debt and returning the control of key natural resources to communal ownership are essential to lifting people out of poverty. [2]
(partial list) [3]
Extreme poverty is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services". Historically, other definitions have been proposed within the United Nations.
Jeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and public policy analyst, professor at Columbia University, where he was former director of The Earth Institute. He is known for his work on sustainable development, economic development, and the fight to end poverty.
International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic or human development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications such as developed country, developing country and least developed country, and for a field of practice and research that in various ways engages with international development processes. There are, however, many schools of thought and conventions regarding which are the exact features constituting the "development" of a country.
Copenhagen Consensus is a project that seeks to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on the theory of welfare economics, using cost–benefit analysis. It was conceived and organized around 2004 by Bjørn Lomborg, the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and the then director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute.
In the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 created following the Millennium Summit, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These were based on the OECD DAC International Development Goals agreed by Development Ministers in the "Shaping the 21st Century Strategy". The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) succeeded the MDGs in 2016.
The Grassington Millennium Project was an initiative that focused on detailing the organizational means, operational priorities, and financing structures necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals or (MDGs). The goals are aimed at the reduction of poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and Gender-Based Violence. At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 world leaders had initiated the development of the MDGs and set a completion date for the project of June 2005.
Make Poverty History were organizations in a number of countries, which focused on issues relating to 8th Millennium Development Goal such as aid, trade and justice. They generally formed a coalition of aid and development agencies which worked together to raise awareness of global poverty and achieve policy change by governments. The movement has existed in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. The various national campaigns were part of the international Global Call to Action Against Poverty campaign.
In international relations, aid is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another.
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
William Russell Easterly is an American economist, specializing in economic development. He is a professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and co-director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is a Research Associate of NBER, senior fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) of Duke University, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Easterly is an associate editor of the Journal of Economic Growth.
Millennium Promise, or The Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc., is an American non-profit organization incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware and a founding partner of the organization Malaria No More, with the stated goal of ending extreme poverty within a human lifetime. Its flagship initiative is the Millennium Villages Project. This project led to progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Sir Paul Collier, is a British development economist who serves as the Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government and the director of the International Growth Centre.
The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was a demonstration project of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the United Nations Development Programme, and Millennium Promise aimed at proving that its integrated approach to rural development can be used to achieve the Millennium Development Goals—eight globally endorsed targets that address the problems of poverty, health, gender equality, and disease—by 2015.
Stephen Charles Smith is an economist, author, and educator. He is Chair of the Department of Economics, and Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. He is also a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
Innovative financing refers to a range of non-traditional mechanisms to raise additional funds for development aid through "innovative" projects such as micro-contributions, taxes, public-private partnerships and market-based financial transactions.
The New Bottom Billion refers to the 960 million or so poor people who live in Middle Income Countries (MICs). Based on research by Andy Sumner, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, the New Bottom Billion raises serious questions about Paul Collier’s original Bottom Billion thesis, particularly in relation to its claims regarding the geographical distribution of global poverty. While Collier argued that the Bottom Billion are to be found in the poorest 60 or so economies, Sumner's research shows that the majority of the world's poor actually live in MICs such as China, India, Nigeria and Indonesia. The New Bottom Billion therefore suggests that poverty is not just a Low Income Country (LIC) problem, and that further policy discussions are called for.
The Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund (MDG-F) was an international cooperation mechanism committed to eradicating poverty and inequality and to accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) worldwide. Its aim was to improve livelihoods and to influence public policy, which made it responsive to the needs of the poorest populations.
Steven Radelet is an American economist working within the field of International Development. He holds the Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development and is also the Director of the Global Human Development Program (GHDP) at Georgetown University, a program of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Sauri is an eleven-village conglomerate located in the former Nyanza Province of western Kenya and was the first and largest of the fourteen Millennium Village Project (MVP) demonstration sites that ran from 2005 to 2015 in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of the MVP in Sauri was to halve extreme poverty of villagers living below US$1 between 2000 and 2015. The overarching goal was achieving sustainable development through progress in public health, education, infrastructure, and agricultural productivity.
Jason Edward Hickel is an Eswazi anthropologist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Hickel's research and writing focuses on economic anthropology and development, and is particularly critical of capitalism, neocolonialism, as well as economic growth as a model of human development.
