You may not know it, but the world is winning the fight against poverty. In 1981, almost half the global population lived on $1.25 or less a day; today, the figure for those living in extreme poverty (on $1.90 or less) is only about 10%. This creates scope for even more ambitious plans on our part. We can eradicate the worst forms of poverty in our lifetime. That’s why the new global goals for sustainable development bear the motto “Leave no one behind”. If ever there was a slogan worth fighting for, this is it. But at the same time, it is the most daunting task in the history of humanity. How can we reach those most in need?
As the absolute number of poor people drops, our job gets tougher. Poverty will become more entrenched in places that are especially hard to reach. A growing share of the poorest people live in places dominated by violence and injustice.
According to the Overseas Development Institute, in 2025, four out of five poor people will live in fragile and conflict-affected states (pdf). In other words, in 10 years’ time, poverty and fragility will be even more clearly a part of the same challenge. If we really are to leave no one behind, we must prepare to confront fragility and violence in all its forms. We must do it together, starting now.
The sustainable development goals acknowledge that new reality. Together, they aim to establish crucial conditions for achieving peace and stability. And there is one goal that will only gain in relevance as time goes by: goal 16, which focuses explicitly on peace, justice and strong institutions. As a rallying cry, “strong institutions” may have little power; many of us are used to living in peaceful and prosperous societies with access to justice. It is the ground beneath our feet, which we rarely think about.
But imagine waking up to the thought, “How will I keep my children safe today?” Imagine the police being a threat unless you have enough money to bribe them. This brings to mind Mohammed Bouazizi, who set himself on fire, inspiring the Tunisian uprising during the Arab spring, in frustration at his treatment by the authorities.
And imagine being unable to appeal to the law when you are in a land dispute with your neighbours. Or, for that matter, imagine that there are no police, that there is no law whatsoever.
Such insecurity feels like a continuous earthquake. The ground beneath your feet shakes and you must constantly find your bearings. Insecurity leaves little time or resources for earning a living. Investing in tomorrow becomes impossible when you have to put all your efforts into protecting yourself and your family today.
The law ought to be a means for citizens to guarantee their rights and address grievances – but in many places, the law is absent or out of reach. Worse still, laws can be used to exclude many, for the benefit of a few. In too many places, leaders use the law in order to rule.
The rule of law is the bridge that connects development with peace, a point illustrated by a land dispute case in a village in Mali that was one of several justice cases brought to attention by the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (pdf).
According to the institute, villagers were trying to reclaim their land from a man whose father had been granted 200 hectares by the colonial authorities, but who was not satisfied and managed to take an extra 800 hectares thanks to his influence within the government and justice system. The institute says that after the civil war broke out in 2012, the landowner made sure that those standing in his way were jailed – it says that the entire village council was put behind bars.
The villagers’ livelihoods were in danger because they depend on agriculture, fishery and cattle breeding to earn a living. These days, they have to pay a steep price for using land that now belongs to one individual. If no solution is found, the dispute could end in more violence.
This week, the UN security council will discuss the links between development and conflict prevention (pdf). Their efforts to take a more active role in this realm deserve our full support. Some worry that talking about peace and conflict prevention in the context of development will put too much emphasis on security, but I believe the opposite: bringing a development perspective to issues of conflict prevention and peace will allow us to focus better, and earlier, on emerging conflict and instability.
As the UN security council concentrates more on prevention, it must pay much more attention to development. Issues such as inequality, poverty and unemployment have a huge impact on the risk of conflict. So when it comes to conflict, we should view development indicators as the canaries in the coalmine. At the same time, development cannot be truly sustainable without peace and justice. Sound, legitimate institutions and the rule of law help to protect countries from violence and from “development in reverse”.
With the adoption of the global goals, the world has turned the mutual importance of peace and development into an agenda for action. Let’s show that we are serious about leaving no one behind. We cannot allow fragile and conflict-affected areas to become the ghettoes of our world.
(Published by The Guardian - November 17, 2015)