By Covid-19 and International Development
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By Christiane Kliemann
Posted on The absence of serious measures to protect citizens from the COVID-19 virus in countries such as India and Brazil, as well as vaccine grabbing by countries in the Global North, ...
By Peter van Bergeijk
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The most important lesson that we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic is that inequalities are the Achilles heel of a society that has been hit by a pandemic. Based on selected insights from his new book, Pandemic Economics, Peter van Bergeijk argues that relatively small interventions in the Global South and the adjustment of the SDGs to include combating pandemics can go a long way in preventing future pandemics.
You learn a lot about humanity during a pandemic. Pandemics reveal imbalances, contradictions and inequalities that we can no longer ignore at the peril of succumbing under the pressure of the next pandemic (Meskoub 2021). Here are some of the most important lessons we have learned so far:
We have learned… I sincerely hope that we have learned.
A business proposition
The fact that COVID-19 is a pandemic amplifies our current problems, but even for new contagious diseases that do not reach all continents, inequalities are the breeding ground for the spreading of disease and the suffering that may follow. Reducing epidemic vulnerabilities requires reducing the inequalities above.
But fighting the next pandemic implies that we cannot limit our attention to inequalities at home, because the equalities around the world – within and between countries – provide breeding grounds and disease pools from which new variants, viruses and other contagious diseases emerge. The implication is that reducing inequalities in other countries and continents becomes a business proposition: an investment project with a high rate of return.
‘Wash your hands!’ and the SDGs
One of the least intrusive and most effective measures against any contagious disease is washing your hands thoroughly. It is extremely important that handwashing is taught at home and at school and that this discipline is maintained. What we have learned from COVID-19 is that every Earthling is at risk, so we cannot afford the luxury of focusing on groups that are particularly vulnerable to infections only. Handwashing for example is only possible if clean water, ablution facilities and soap are available to everyone.
Since a pandemic is global, the approach needs to be global. Handwashing facilities in developing countries are a cheap, significant and necessary precaution. Therefore SDG 6 – ‘Ensure access to clean water and sanitation for all’– is an excellent business proposal that reduces pandemic vulnerability. Investing in clean water and sanitation is a very cost effective measure to reduce global pandemic vulnerability.
The realisation moreover that poverty is a breeding ground for pandemics implies that income inequality between and within countries is much more important than the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seem to acknowledge (van der Hoeven and van Bergeijk, 2018). From this perspective, a reformulation of SDGs may be necessary.
It is the planet, stupid!
The emergence of contagious virus should have come as no surprise, yet ‘preparedness’ to deal with the emergency was below standard. (Sathyamala, 2021). How can we increase pandemic preparedness? The scale of preparations cannot be international (that is, involving many countries), but needs to be global – so involving all countries. This obviously to some extent had already been recognised before the corona crisis by the move from ‘international health’ to ‘global health’.
Pandemics, however, have not yet received the explicit attention they need in the SDGs. The SDGs (and in particular the SDG 3 – ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages’) do not mention prevention of pandemics per se. Health target 3.3 – ‘By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases’ – could be easily adjusted. Target 3.d – ‘Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks’ – seems satisfactory at first glance, but misses the point that the ‘in particular’ is equally relevant for the advanced countries. The SDGs are targets for every country independent of its level of development.
Perhaps this is the most important lesson for the Global North. The advanced economies are not invulnerable and were ill prepared. The Global North needs to take inequalities seriously in order to survive. Fighting inequalities around the globe and domestically is the best business proposition that we have for the Global North.
References
Bergeijk, Peter A.G. van, 2021, Pandemic Economics, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/pandemic-economics-9781800379961.html
Hoeven. Rolph van der and Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, Inclusiveness and the SDGs: Can income inequality be reduced? https://issblog.nl/2018/01/12/inclusiveness-and-the-sdgs-can-income-inequality-be-reduced-by-rolph-van-der-hoeven-and-peter-van-bergeijk/
Meskoub, M, 2021, How exclusionary social protection systems in the MENA are making the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects worse, https://issblog.nl/2021/03/03/covid-19-how-exclusionary-social-protection-systems-in-the-mena-are-making-the-covid-19-pandemics-effects-worse/
Sathyamala, Christina, 2020, COVID-19: a biopolitical odyssey. ISS Working Paper No. 667, Erasmus University ISS: The Hague
Opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the ISS or members of the Bliss team.
About the author:
Peter van Bergeijk is professor of international economics and macroeconomics at the ISS.
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By Rolph van der Hoeven
Posted on The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated income inequality all over the world. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of reducing inequality (SDG 10) is getting more and more off track. How are ...
By Melissa Leach
Posted on Inequality is growing in most countries and deep-seated injustices continue to pervade our world—from the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority ethnic groups and the tragic death of George Floyd in the ...
The COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil stretches beyond the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The inaction of the government over the past year to counter the effects of the pandemic has worsened living conditions for millions of Brazilians and ultimately resulted in the loss of lives. We argue that the intentional disaster resulting from the mismanagement of the pandemic was caused by the direct (in)action of the federal government as gross negligence rooted in apathy clashed with historically constructed conditions.
“The famous ‘stay home’ idea does not work for us here; it is not our reality […] quarantine in the favelas is the biggest fake news invented.” (Gilson Rodrigues, communitarian leader)
“The domestic worker already has a lot against her. If the boss gets sick, he uses his private healthcare system and is treated and cured. Domestic workers use the public system, stand in a large queue, and most of them die. This is the case not only for the domestic worker, but for all poor workers.” (Cleide Pinto, domestic workers union)
The above quotes provide just a glimpse of life during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, painting a picture of gross negligence, mismanagement, and death. These stories are not exceptions. Millions of Brazilians have had to navigate the pandemic, suffering as much from the inaction of the federal government as they did in fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The pandemic became a crisis as the virus entered the country via elites and as existing inequities were compounded as the government stalled. The failure to act to save lives through imposing crucial pandemic measures is why we call it an intentional disaster.
To understand how this intentional disaster came to pass, we performed desk research and a qualitative comparative analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews[1] conducted with members of three civil society groups in Brazil: residents of favelas (informal settlements), domestic workers, and indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Interviews took place in July 2020, at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in Brazil. The struggles of the three groups to survive the pandemic represent an ongoing fight, but also show their capacity to be organized, innovative, and quick in resistance. The common threat to the studied groups, besides the virus, was and remains the inaction of the government.
Inequalities in Brazilian society were dramatically exposed by the posture of president Jair Bolsonaro, who relativized deaths and disregarded the importance of the disease by claiming it was “just a simple flu”. Bolsonaro’s government attempted to obscure the official number of lives lost to COVID-19[2] and created obstacles for governors and mayors who felt compelled to implement measures to fight the virus[3]. Initially, governors rejected the directions of the president and implemented lockdown measures. It came to a point where the Supreme Court had to intervene, clarifying that the governors indeed had the responsibility to intervene and were permitted to do so. This provided a shimmer of hope in the face of the absence of larger, national measures.
Moreover, after the resignation of the Minister of Health in May this year, no other minister has been proclaimed; the ministry has since been run by a military general. It is notable that the country is facing the worst pandemic in a century without an official health minister. A lack of leadership, lack of planning, and lack of care for the dying population became the norm.
The devastation this level of inaction caused should not go unnoticed. The number of deaths from COVID-19 in Brazil surpassed 175,000 by beginning December – as a country of continental numbers, Brazil is now the third country in the world in terms of numbers of lives lost to the virus and confirmed cases. Similar to the US, a populist government openly denied scientific findings showing that COVID-19 was real and potentially lethal. A difference between the two countries, however, is that in the United States, Donald Trump eventually realized the need to take measures to contain the pandemic (even if due to electoral motivations). In Brazil, Bolsonaro seems to continue to ignore that responsibility.
What can now be witnessed is that Bolsonaro did not seem to learn, with all the lives lost, nor with Trump’s defeat, how crucial the imposition of measures are. The president continues to appear in pictures without wearing a mask and without adhering to social distancing measures. He now behaves as if the pandemic was over, plans to cut the emergency cash support to the population, and incites the population not to trust a vaccine originating from China. The year has gone from bad to worse.
How is this failure to act felt on the ground? What studies revealed in the Brazilian case is that a virus that arrived through elites when returning from vacation in Europe had a bigger impact in the most vulnerable spaces. People on the peripheries, residents of favelas, informal workers, the black population, and indigenous groups are hit hardest. The highest number of deaths seems also to be among the poorest. In a study of infections in São Paulo, almost 66% of the victims lived in neighbourhoods with average salaries of below R$3,000 reais (around 200 euros) per month, and 21% in places with an income of up to R$6,500 reais (around 1.000 euros) per month. Within regions where the average income was above R$19,000 (around 3,167 euros) per month, only just over 1% of deaths were registered.
This pattern found in São Paulo is likely to be repeated in other parts of the country. Populations with a higher socioeconomic status are those who can afford to be in isolation or lockdown and can work from home. A large part of the population cannot afford to do that. In the State of Rio de Janeiro, the first death due to COVID-19 was of a black domestic worker infected in the house where she worked after her employers had returned from a trip to Italy and were tested positive. COVID-19 in Brazil brings to the fore historic inequalities that follow the country’s development. Additionally, these inequalities are aggravated by an intentional policy of negligence by the federal government.
The failure of the Brazilian government to deal with the pandemic seems to be a combination of: (1) the obscure discourse of the president; (2) the lack of specific policies and proper communication with different groups; (3) the cover-up of official information, especially regarding the number of deaths; (4) the deliberate weakening of public services by the current government; and (5) a lack of strategy and planning. In summary, it is an act of complete neglect by the federal government, which in times of pandemic can be perceived as an intentional strategy to decimate the population, especially the most vulnerable, which is known in the literature as necropolitics[4].
In the words of indigenous leader Anderson Tapuia,
“here in Brazil we have a government that sends the message that if corona arrives at the villages, it should continue there, doing its work, which means exterminating indigenous peoples”.
[1] This is the first out of three posts to be published on Bliss presenting the main findings of the research work about COVID-19 in Brazil for the project ‘When Disaster Meets Conflict’.
[2] https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/08/veiculos-de-comunicacao-formam-parceria-para-dar-transparencia-a-dados-de-covid-19.ghtml
[3] https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/08/veiculos-de-comunicacao-formam-parceria-para-dar-transparencia-a-dados-de-covid-19.ghtml
[4] Necropolitics is a process in which the state uses political power – by its discourses, actions and omissions – to put specific groups into a more marginalised and vulnerable position (Mbembe, 2019).
References:
MBEMBE, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Durham, London : Duke University Press.
About the authors:
Fiorella Macchiavello is an economist and holds an MA degree in Urban and Regional Development from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. Currently, she is a PhD researcher in the third year of a Joint Degree between the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam and UnB, University of Brasilia, Brazil.
Renata Cavalcanti Muniz is a full time PhD researcher at ISS in the last year of her research. Her PhD research was funded by CNPQ-Brasil, and she is part of two research groups at ISS, DEC and CI.
Lee Pegler spent his early career working as an economist with the Australian Labour Movement. More recent times have seen him researching the labour implications of “new” management strategies of TNCs in Brazil/ Latin America. This interest expanded to a focus on the implications of value chain insertion on labour, both for formal and informal workers. Trained as an economist and sociologist (PhD – LSE), he currently works as Assistant Professor (Work, Organisation and Labour Rights) at the ISS.
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By Shradha Parashari and Lize Swartz
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By Kattia Liz Talla Cornejo and Andrew M. Fischer
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By María Gabriela Palacio
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The COVID-19 crisis has brought to the fore gendered and racialised aspects of precarity that were steeping in academia long before the virus emerged. The increased burden of unpaid care work, still mostly borne by female academics, has skewed research output. Casualised staff, many of them early-career and/or international researchers, are expected to withstand the worst of the crisis, with their job security under threat. What action can academics take to challenge these negative developments? We need a post-pandemic vision, writes María Gabriela Palacio.
COVID-19 has illuminated deep-seated inequalities overlooked during ‘normal’ times. As we grapple with the extent and severity of the outbreak, we have been required to isolate and contemplate the cessation of economic activities. The fragility of our systems has been thrown into sharp relief, evincing that it is not necessarily the virus, but the lack of regulation and protection that amplifies inequalities among us.
What is work? What is essential?
COVID-19 gave us a new grammar to talk about what we do and how it is valued: essential and non-essential work. What we now consider essential work is the kind of work that our economies have systematically devalued. Health workers have been at the forefront of the response, with many women and minority ethnic communities at the lower tier of the healthcare system, working in underfunded systems without the necessary compensation and protective equipment. Many do work that is neither considered essential nor ‘work’.
Women’s unpaid work has increased as lockdown measures disrupted childcare provision and increased other care obligations. School and daycare closures have created new forms of stress and anxieties among caregivers (predominantly women), with a sizeable social gradient in the extent to which families feel able to support their children and provide home schooling. Within the academe, the drop in the number of papers submitted by female academics and the skewed distribution of research grants illustrate the increased burden of unpaid care work that women shoulder.
What work is valued? What is disposable?
This crisis intersects not only with gendered but also with racialised aspects of precarity in academia. As the pandemic rages across diverse geographies and international students defer entry for a year, higher-education centres face operational challenges, resulting in recruitment freezes, contracts not being extended, or the scrapping of research projects. Early-career academics on temporary contracts—many scheduled to expire this year—are anxious about their job security. International staff members are more likely to participate in casual employment, often unable to make any long-term commitments as their residency is attached to their work status. The experiences of international and ethnic minorities often go unheard in academia as they are less likely to participate in decision-making: non-white female academics are heavily under-represented in professorial positions across the Netherlands.
These elements show that diversity in higher education has not been accompanied by a change in normativity, with tangible consequences in terms of career prospects. Academics of diverse backgrounds encounter themselves having to working harder to be accommodated in their work environment (to fit in), for example by doing more service work and being less protective of their research time (if any), thus hindering their chances in the labour market. One could consider this a sign of an increasingly fragmented and market-driven academia that fails to recognise differences.
Doing what you love is still work
Most jobs that involve ‘doing what you love’ make it more difficult to assert one’s position and demand better conditions. It is often expected of academics to be intrinsically motivated and concerned about the wellbeing of students—and the vast majority indeed are. Yet, this expectation makes it difficult for us to demand better work conditions, particularly during a crisis like the one we face today. Support and care for students have become central to our online teaching. It is assumed that in the next academic year, most teaching will continue online, supplemented with some on-campus activities.
Though new forms of work are highly welcomed, they need to be accompanied by a reflection on how these new forms of work would be valued and compensated. We need a post-pandemic vision of our institutional setting while we respond to the immediate challenges of online education, casualised employment, and intensified work demands. This is a crucial moment to reflect and raise awareness about how our experience in academia is affected by who we are (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship) and the challenges to measure and capture the value we create. What can we do to take action and tackle the privileges and systemic inequalities that this pandemic has illuminated? A first step would be to openly appreciate academics, as an online campaign at Leiden University using the hashtags #staffshouldstay and #koesterdedocent (‘treasure the lecturer’) is doing.
Another thing you can do is to engage in discussions within your faculty and/or programme to discuss how new forms of work derived from the COVID-19 crisis, e.g. mentor programmes, will be valued and compensated. Inclusion is central to such discussions: where would this work come from? Who will be asked? How would they be compensated? Because we as academics genuinely care for students, the conditions of and compensation for this type of work tend to become afterthoughts—and they shouldn’t.
This article was originally published on the Leiden Inclusion Blog and has been written by the author in her capacity of Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Chair of LUDEN: Leiden University Diversity and Equality Network. This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.
María Gabriela Palacio holds a PhD in Development Studies by the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Her research contributes to interdisciplinary work on critical social policy and it seeks to understand how state interventions shape social and political identities. Increasingly, her research interests have expanded to include the study of processes of exclusion within academia. She is the chair of the network LUDEN, tackling racism and other forms of exclusion at Leiden University’s working and learning environment.
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Posted on By Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón and María Gabriela Palacio Since late November, Colombia has seen unprecedented mass protests, the longest since 1977. These protests illustrate the awakening of a muffled civil society. ...
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Posted on By Rogelio Madrueño Aguilar, José María Larrú and David Castells-Quintana Inequality is above all a multidimensional problem. Yet, the key question is whether it is possible to reduce inequality and to ...
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The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has been at the forefront of the critiques for his dismissive attitude towards the fires in the Amazon. Although a significant portion of the rainforest (40%) is contained in Brazil, it is key to consider that eight more countries share the Amazon and are responsible for its preservation. What are these other states doing to preserve the largest rainforest on the planet? This article analyzes how the policies promoted by Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, are insufficient to protect the rights of the Amazon[1] and its inhabitants.
Colombia’s share of the Amazon covers 41% of its territory and constitutes 10% of the Amazon rainforest. According to official numbers[1], in 2018 the annual deforested area in Colombian Amazonia amounted to 1381 km2 (almost twice the size of New York City)[2]. Moreover, according to data from the World Resources Institute, the country ranked 4th in the list of states losing the most tropical primary rainforest in 2018[3].
Paradoxically, this peak in deforestation in the Colombian Amazon is closely linked to the signature of the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the FARC-EP[4]. The demobilization of the guerillas and the persistent absence of official institutions allowed land grabbers to take advantage of this sovereignty gap[5]. People from different areas of the country are paying peasants to cut down trees from the Amazon to create new pastures for cattle production and palm oil plantations[6]. Furthermore, other key drivers of deforestation in the country are the expansion of the agricultural frontier in protected areas, illicit crops, extraction of natural resources, non-planned infrastructure, and illegal logging[7].
So, what is the Colombian government doing to address the factors triggering deforestation? Duque’s stance to this issue is to understand nature as one of the main assets of the country and to implement an approach of environmental security[8]. Under this logic, the military forces and the police play the central role in the protection of natural resources, while socio-political policies are undermined.
Accordingly, ‘Operación Artemisa’[9] which is the main program to stop deforestation, follows a hard hand approach: military interventions and criminalization. So far this year, at least 64 military operations had taken place, and 117 people were captured for committing environmental crimes[10]. However, many civil organizations have criticized these procedures because during their implementation authorities have disregarded the rights of peasants and local communities, while the identity of the culprits who are financing the process of deforestation remains unknown[11].
By focusing policy responses to environmental problems on military actions, the government neglects that deforestation in the Amazon is a manifestation of structural issues like inequality and political exclusion. Historically, the Colombian state has ignored the peripheric regions of the country, and this legacy of marginalization has created precarious living conditions and minimal economic opportunities for the inhabitants of the Amazon region.
Furthermore, as mentioned in a previous post, the current Colombian government neglects the multidimensional character of the rural problem in Colombia. Hence, the enforcement of laws with the potential of delivering real change in periphery areas such as the Land Restitution Law enacted in 2011 and the Rural Reform agreed within the context of the peace accord in 2016, is being obstructed[12].
All in all, policies for protecting the rights of the Amazon and the Amazonian people should not focus primarily on strengthening the military force. A real effort to halt deforestation implies, on the one hand, recognizing the holistic nature of the problem, and on the other, applying existing distributive policies and proposing alternatives aligned with the rights and needs of the communities. Also, it is vital to acknowledge that industries such as cattle and palm oil are playing a leading role in the destruction of Amazonia. Thus, it is necessary to rethink ideas about development in the region.
The increasing awareness of the importance of Amazonia is a timely opportunity to push forward effective policies to protect the lungs of the world and to empower local communities. However, the extent to which this opening would contribute to transformational change and improved governance is still unclear and will depend significantly on the political will to do so.
Image Credit: Efraín Herrera – Presidency of Colombia
About the author:
Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo is a lawyer, specialist in Environmental Law and holds an Erasmus Mundus Master in Public Policy. She works as a researcher for PID Amazonia, a civic society platform to address deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. Her research interests are the political economy of extractivist industries, environmental conflicts, and rural development.
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About the authors:
Rolph van der Hoeven is Emeritus Professor of Employment and Development Economics at the ISS. He is also member of the Committee on Development Cooperation of the Dutch Government and of several other Dutch development organizations. Earlier he was Director Policy Coherence and Manager of the Technical Secretariat of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization at ILO Geneva. Other positions included Chief Economist of UNICEF in New York and policy analyst for the ILO in Ethiopia and Zambia. His work concentrates on issues of employment, inequality and globalization.
Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS and co-editor (with Rolph van der Hoeven) of The Financial Crisis and Developing Countries: A Global Multidisciplinary Perspective.
Our recently published edited volume Sustainable Development Goals and Income Inequality1 can be considered a milestone for the ISS research agenda of Global Development and Social Justice, illustrating how social impact and academic rigour can go hand in hand. Contributors to this volume argue that the economic debate in the policy institutions and leading development studies institutions should definitely be informed by but not exclusively based on current statistics of GDP and other economic phenomena. A broader set of indicators including alternative measures of development such as the Human Development Index and greening economic progress is available to inform this debate2.
Toward inclusive development
Income inequality remains an important and highly relevant subject, as illustrated by the findings of the recently published World Inequality Report 20183, which shows that income inequality has increased globally and in nearly all world regions in recent decades, and highlights the important roles of governments in mitigating inequality. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one of the major instruments of global governance and development in the period 2000 to 2015, did not consider inequality at all. Indeed, this was a great omission in an era of increasing inequality.
While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as successors to the MDGs contain a goal to reduce inequality (Goal 10), the target related to this goal is insufficient, as it relates only to progress at the very bottom of the income distribution scale4. As a consequence, the SDGs do not pay sufficient attention to income inequality, because there is no sensible indicator to attest the growing importance of the growing cleavages between income of work, income of capital, the income of the extremely wealthy (the top 1% of the population in terms of income), and the average income level of the population.
This gap manifests itself in a much more visible form in emerging and in developed countries. Yet it is important to give attention to the behaviour of the rich, as ignoring their ascendency through ever-increasing wealth to the very top of the income pyramid will put the social fabric under strain, as is already evident in some Latin American, Asian and African developing countries, as well as in many developed countries. This is thus a highly significant weakness of the SDGs, because inequality in the end co-determines success and failure on many, if not most, of the SDG targets. The new publication Sustainable Development Goals and Income Inequality provides an in-depth analysis of the link between SDGs and measuring income inequality informed by different development studies perspectives (policy-making, econometric analyses, and discourses) and covers global trends with particular attention for Africa, Asia and Latin America. The focus is on the international community and its role in making development more inclusive.
The SDGs: Critiques and commentary
In the volume, a number of authors provide interesting discussions of the SDGs and income inequality. Richard Jolly analyses the SDGs from the perspective of five fundamental objectives – universalism, sustainability, human development, inequality and human rights – linking these objectives to teaching and research in the field of development studies. Jan Vandemoortele provides a critical reflection on the SDGs. He points out the strengths of the SDGs in getting the message across to the public at large and is positive about the consultation process informing the development and selection of SDGs. However, Vandemoortele is critical about the inclusiveness of the SDGs, particularly due to their formulation in absolute numbers that reduces their universality and inclusiveness. Rob Vos focuses on financing the transformation process required to achieve the SDGs. Trillions of dollars are needed, he argues, as well as new modes of finance. Clearly this cannot be achieved with traditional instruments such as Official Development Assistance. However, it seems possible to leverage the large amounts of international reserves, which have great potential.
Rethinking income inequality measures
The issue of inequality on the other hand requires both a discussion of measurement (within countries and between countries) and of developments for specific regions and country groupings. Andy Sumner points out that the World Bank’s new poverty line and accompanying narrative on the successes of reduced poverty misses the point. He argues that income levels below US$10 per head do not provide sufficient certainty against a fall back into poverty. Furthermore, scenarios for future numbers and the location of the global poor point to many problems and uncertainties. Andrea Cornia, by focusing on developments in Latin America and using a political economy perspective, challenges the idea that recession by definition increases inequality. Tony Addison critically reflects on the African experience where structural reform did lead to increased growth, albeit such grown was unequal. He points out the futility of quick ideological answers to the continent’s problems related to inclusive development. Malte Luebker, citing experiences in Asia, argues that focussing only on employment and productivity results in growing functional income inequality and that strong labour institutions are needed to counter this trend. Focusing on the Next-14 (the top-14 non OECD countries, including the BRICS countries), Deepak Nayyar formulates two interlinked hypotheses that sum up one of the main threads of the book: Economic growth (catch-up) is essential to reduce inequality, but, at the same time, such growth will be unsustainable lest inequality is reduced.
Piecing together the puzzle
The volume does not provide a panacea to tackle all of the income inequality problems that increasingly emerge, but brings together the pieces of a coherent puzzle. Importantly, the contributors propose innovative ideas that may strengthen the SDG approach. These ideas comprise of proposed new and better measures of inequality, new evidence-based policies, demand measures stretching beyond the design of some of the vaguely formulated goals and targets, and the active involvement of civil society in order to call governments in the Global North and Global South, as well as in the UN system, to task on growing national and international income inequalities. Indeed, (thus strengthened) SDGs could form the basis of a global social contract for an effective development partnership.
Elements of such a global social contract should include, firstly, the right to development, especially the economic, social and cultural rights and the basic elements thereof in the form of non-discrimination, participation and accountability. Secondly, the contract should include the introduction of a global social floor, which is financially possible, provided that the international financial system is reformed. Importantly, SDGs offer an opportunity to strengthen the coherence, at the national and international level, between social, economic and environmentally sustainable policies.