Poverty eradication. “A cultural change is needed”

BOLOGNA - “A cultural change is needed to eradicate poverty across the world”. According to Paolo Figini, professor of economic policy at the University of Bologna, “too much importance has been given to official development assistance, which has too often ended up in the hands of antidemocratic or semi-dictatorial governments. “If it was just a question of economic transfers to the poorer countries - professor Figini goes on to explain – it wouldn’t cost that much to attain the first of the Millenium Objectives”, that is to reduce by half the proportion of people who live on less than a dollar a day. “400 billion dollars per year would be enough, which is one fourth of Italy’s GDP and the equivalent of the U.S. military expenditure”.

The UN 2007 report stated it, it was confirmed by the OECD 2008 report and the NGOs keep reminding it: the Millennium Objectives are still far away. Why don’t governments commit themselves enough? What does it depend on?

“To begin with, these objectives are so revolutionary that they could call the entire Western development model into question. And I do not mean the economic model only: think, for example, of gender equality as one of the eight objectives to attain. Second, the United Nations do not have the power to impose their will on the decisions of each government: it did not happen with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, let alone with the Millennium Objectives. And then there is too little consideration of local peculiarities: poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is different from that in Southeast Asia. It is not easy to put a whole series of national and international policies together to meet goals with such a broad scope in just 15 years”.

Is the economic crisis that is affecting the Western world nowadays responsible for the poor commitment of governments to the Millennium Declaration?

“Yes. The Millennium Objectives are certainly not at the top of the agenda in western countries. Consider, for example, the latest election programmes of the Italian parties. And these objectives are not included among the requirements of citizens. Issues like ‘international co-operation’ and ‘development aid’ are the first to be sacrificed when it comes to redressing the public balance of a state, which is never accomplished”.

So what do we need to try meeting the Millennium Objectives and improving the economies of the poorer countries?

“A heavy educational and cultural investment is needed, besides a heavy public investment of course. Official development assistance and the opening up to international trade have not brought the results we hoped. So it is much better to turn to microcredits, decentralised co-operation, fair trade, responsible tourism and sustainable consumption models: money gets directly in the hands of local populations and gives rise to a change in customs and lifestyles that involves both the inhabitants of small villages in the developing countries and those of the largest cities in the industrialized world”.