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G8 and G20: economic growth will improve lives of the poorest
28 June 2010
World leaders meeting in Canada for the G20 have touted growth as "the most important step towards improving the lives of all, including those in the poorest countries". The final communiqué, released yesterday, confirmed suspicions that the Gleneagles pledge on assistance to Africa would be quietly dropped, causing fury amongst anti-poverty campaigners.
Lawrence Haddad, Director of IDS, warned that "the focus of this G20 was always going to be on what the G8 countries should and should not do in order to reduce their deficits. The next G20 in Seoul later this year promises to be much more development focused due to its location, but also because by then we will have a sense of what austerity really means for commitments on aid, climate and trade."
Disproportionate impact of the global crisis on the poor and vulnerable
IDS research has shown that the burden of coping with the economic crisis has been borne disproportionately by poor and vulnerable people, in Africa and other parts of the world. Central to the G20 discussions has been the role of international financial institution, such as the IMF and multi-lateral development banks, in mitigating the impact of the global economic and financial crisis, through their billion dollar lending programmes.
Ahead of the meetings, the UN's Secretary General Ban Ki Moon launched his second report on the crises calling for a dedicated course of action to ensure that the world's poorest and most vulnerable are not excluded from global strategies for recovery.
Voices of the Vulnerable, whose research was led by IDS Research Fellows Allister McGregor and Naomi Hossain, provides accounts of lost employment, unaffordability of nutritious food, disproportionately high costs of coping for children, young adults and women, and growing tensions arising within families and communities as they try to make ends meet. In many places, the challenges of the food, fuel and financial crises are compounded by other crises, including political instability and environmental pressures.
While there is talk of a global recovery getting underway, there is still much left to play out in the lives of the worlds poorest. Just as households have borne much of the brunt of coping during the crisis, they now run the risk of being left behind. Future support must be dedicated not just to meeting short-term needs but also to developing new and innovative strategies for building sustainable community resilience to further crisis. Now is the time for major efforts by the international community to rebuild the resilience of the poor and vulnerable.
Image credit: Mark Henley / Panos
Read the report, Voices of the Vulnerable: Recovery from the ground up (pdf)
Read the message from the UN Secretary General
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