by George Lorimer

Created on: October 04, 2008   Last Updated: October 05, 2008

Sadly, most do not. Since 1970, the United Nations has called for donor countries to allocate 0.7 percent of their gross national product (GNP) to official development assistance. This target has been affirmed over the years in numerous international agreements, yet in 2005, only five (Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden) of the 22 richest countries in the world had reached this goal.

The blame for the failure to eradicate global poverty, however, should not fall entirely on rich countries' shoulders. Governments in poor countries are often corrupt, seeking to enrich themselves and maintain power by forming alliances with the military elite and powerful business leaders while the rest of the country goes to hell in a handbasket. Take Zimbabwe, for example. Once known as the "breadbasket of Africa," Harvard professor Samantha Power compared the country's most historically productive region "a refugee camp that has been hit by a hurricane" (The Atlantic, December 2003). Since then, the situation there has worsened, as President Robert Mugabe has refused to relinquish power despite being almost universally condemned for rigging elections in June 2008. The Cato Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank, reported on September 26, 2008 that annual inflation in Zimbabwe was 531 billion percent, making the currency completely worthless.

Zimbabwe is an extreme case, but the poor continue to get the raw end of the deal in countries throughout the world. Why? Because the poor are often unorganized, unlikely to participate in the political process, and unaware of their political, economic, and civil rights. Even when they do exercise the right to vote or raise awareness about their plight, their concerns are ignored by the political class. In developed and developing countries throughout the world, populist leaders effectively "buy" poor votes by making unattainable promises or through direct patronage in the forms of jobs, gifts, and money to community leaders who can mobilize voters in impoverished neighborhoods.

In 2000, the United Nations General Assembly established the Millennium Development Goals, the first of which is to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day between 1990 and 2015. Granted, spiraling food prices and a global economic crisis have exacerbated the problem, but the United Nations has also signaled that governments have failed in their commitment to end poverty.

Almost a year ago, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged governments: "Let us demonstrate the political will required to end the scourge of poverty once and for all." Unfortunately for the world's poor, he will be forced to make a similar plea this year.

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