Alleviation Of Poverty In The Context Of "A
New Global Human Order" As Adumbrated By Dr. Cheddi Jagan Former President
Of Guyana
Presentation at a Panel
Discussion organized by the Embassy of Guyana and The Circle of Friends
by Dr. Joseph Edsel
Edmunds OBE* Director of the Office of the General Secretariat of the OAS
in Suriname March 22, 2000
*Former Ambassador of Saint Lucia to the OAS, UN and US.
The book entitled "A New Global Human Order"
by Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the former President of the Cooperative Republic of
Guyana, is a scholarly and passionate appeal to the world community to
address the plight of the less developed countries, while at the same time
providing well defined solutions to the many problems which they face.
I have been asked to direct my presentation on the all important issue
of the alleviation of poverty as adumbrated by the author and, as Director
of the General Secretariat of the OAS in Suriname, to summarize the work
of the OAS in this regard.
I am pleased with the prescribed nature of my assignment, for, Dr.
Jagan embraced many issues which adversely impact on developing countries,
each of them of fundamental importance, requiring detailed consideration.
I will quote extensively from his book to being into sharp focus the
substance of his message.
In his letter addressed to world leaders of May 1, 1994 he stated
We must resolve to reverse the gap which has been developing
between the richest and the poorest countries. The divisions between
the rich and the poor in the industrialized societies in the North and
in the developing and underprivileged societies in the South, as well
as the distance in attainment between the North and the South have
been widening considerably since the early 1980s.
In the North, the consequences of these disparities have been
unemployment, homelessness, urban disorder, increase in crime
especially among the youths, the rise of ultra-right movements,
strident nationalism and fragmentation accompanied by racism and
ethnic tensions.
In the South, the consequences of these divisions have been the
increase in crime and disease, hopelessness, emigration, environmental
degradation, and the illegal traffic and use of narcotic drugs.
Taken together, there is a situation of despair, alienation and
indifference.
More alarming, however, is the incidence of increasing poverty
across the globe. Poverty atrophies the vigor and initiative of the
individual and deprives the society of incalculable human resources at
a critical time. Its elimination will enrich our community and release
a harvest of energy and skills. If left unattended, the expansion of
poverty, with hunger, will undermine the fabric and security of the
democratic state.
This passionate appeal to world leaders could not be more forceful. In
addition to dramatizing the issues he warned about the consequences, if
left unattended. At the same time, he outlines what can be gained if the
world community were to resolve some of the burning problems.
This spirit of commitment and concern pervades his book as a constant
reminder of the responsibility of our world leaders and the international
community to work towards the alleviation of poverty.
At the Caricom Intercessional Meeting in St. Vincent, March 11 - 12,
1994 in addressing the question of poverty alleviation he asked for a
review of the thesis of Sir Arthur Lewis as it relates to democracy,
development and poverty alleviation.
Sir Arthur's thesis needs to be re-examined. In this regard, Guyana
can play a key role in its implementation not only for poverty
alleviation and movement away from the production, use and export of
narcotics and emigration, legal and illegal, but also for political
stability so necessary for the inducement of private investment and
the maintenance of democracy.
In his paper for the UN - sponsored World Hearings on Development, June
6 - 10, 1994 he expressed disappointment at the lack of concrete programs
and actions which accompany many resolutions and declarations as follows:
But declarations and resolutions are not enough. They must be
implemented by concrete programs and actions. Regrettably, the UN
Development Decades and the development strategies and models - Puerto
Rican "industrialization-by-invitation," President John F. Kennedy's
Alliance for Progress, President Lyndon Johnson's regional integration
("ideological frontiers" replacing "geographical frontiers"), ECLA's
import substitution, President Richard Nixon's Equal Partnership,
President Ronald Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), President
George Bush's Enterprise for the Americas - have not solved the basic
problems of national and personal security, poverty and hunger. But
these problems now pertain not only to the South, the developing
countries, but also the industrial countries of the North and the East
(the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe).
He showed the resolve of his commitments to combat poverty and hunger
by tabling Resolution 37 to the Sixth Parliament of Guyana, First Session,
which was passed on June 27, 1994. The ultimate two passages of the
resolution are noteworthy.
WHEREAS the President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Dr.
Cheddi Jagan, has written to a number of Heads of State advancing
proposals for a development strategy for the eradication of poverty,
which took account of certain recommendations of the Human Development
Program, and seeking the support of Heads of State for a global
response to these global problems;
RESOLVED that this National Assembly support the call for a global
strategy to combat poverty and hunger as a priority in the New Global
Humanitarian Order.
By doing so he manifested that the problems transcend national
boundaries and must be the concern of all nations with the commitment of
all.
His paper to the European Commission of September 1994 in his home
country, very much like his letter to world leaders, forcefully highlights
the nexus between poverty, human development and economic growth.
Massive poverty is hindering the path to sustainable human
development. Because poverty is so widespread and social inequity is
so extensive, we need structural adjustment with a human face - a
philosophy of humanism and a humane social order. It is necessary to
have a redistributive social policy to bring about the needed changes
through a heavy investment in human resources. Economic adjustment
must be combined with social adjustment; economic growth and human
development are interlinked and interacting - economic growth is
necessary for human development as much as human development is
essential for economic growth.
He further stated that
We have today within our grasp through the advancement :end
application of science and technology, the opportunity not only to
halve the level of poverty world-wide by the end of this century, but
also to guarantee a generally high material standard of living.
At the special commemorative meeting of the United Nations General
Assembly to mark the 50th anniversary of the world body, Dr. Jagan
presented his tribute on October 24, 1995. Once again he made the point
that " … we are still hostage to many threats to our peace and security"
and that this critical time is characterized inter alia by "Increasing
poverty and widening gaps in developed and developing countries, between
the "haves" and the "have-nots", the "included" and the "excluded" and
between the rich North and the poor South".
At the heads of Government Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand on November
9, 1995 he issued a challenge to the Commonwealth
The Commonwealth as an institution is uniquely placed to bridge the
gar between the rich and poor nations, between the
"haves" and the "have-nots."
He reiterated that;
There is increasing poverty and widening gaps in the developed and
developing countries, between the rich and the poor, the "haves" and
the "have-rots," the "included" and the "excluded"; and the
ever-growing gap between the North and the South.
Presently there is unacceptable high unemployment and
under-employment even in the period of economic growth, referred to as
"jobless growth" and "jobless recovery."
His letter to the President of the World Bank Mr. James Wolfensohn of
February 1996 demonstrated his burning preoccupation.
Regrettably, the continuing and deepening crisis in the North
(widening gap between the rich and poor; unacceptably high
unemployment even in the period of economic recovery; social,
including family disintegration), cuts in aid to the South, and
globalization and liberalization are generally impacting adversely on
the economies of the developing countries, including those in the
Commonwealth Caribbean (Caricom).
He ended as follows
I look forward to your meeting with the Caricom Heads of Government
and your solidarity and support for the world's door, marginalized,
oppressed and suppressed.
In his paper presented to the Global Development Initiative (GDI)
Advisory Group Meeting held at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia on
June 6, 1996 he stated that
The specter of unemployment, poverty and social disorder is
haunting the world. And at the political level, there is the dangerous
and growing ascendancy of the far right, ultranationalists,
fundamentalists, xenophobists and neo-facists, reminiscent of
Hitlerism
In his address to the Conference on a New Global Human Order in
Georgetown, Guyana August 2 - 4, 1996 he adumbrated his concept and I
include here extracts of the text of this address under the headings of
Poverty and Disintegration
Poverty
The gap in living standards between the rich and the poor in both
the North and the South is getting wider: the rich, "the included,"
"the haves," are getting richer at the expense of the poor, "the
excluded," "the havenots."
According to the United Nations, 1.2 billion people in the
Developing World live in absolute poverty, almost double 1984 figures,
and hunger (over half of sub-Saharan African children are starving or
malnourished and diseased). UNICEF and UNDP figures show that over six
million children under the age of five had died each year since 1982
in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The late World Bank President, Lewis T Preston, told the UN
Conference on Population and Development that two billion people were
without clean water, and three million children died each year from
malnutrition.
Note these alarming facts:
Each year 13 million children under five
worldwide, still die from easily preventable diseases and
malnutrition.
There are nearly 200 million moderately
to severely malnourished children under five in developing
countries - 36 per cent of all children in this age group. Some 69
million are severely malnourished.
In developing countries, 130 million children, almost two thirds of
them girls, lack access to primary education.
"In a world where we now talk about gross domestic product of tens
of billions of dollars," observed James P. Grant, the late Executive
Director of the United Nations Children's Fund, "to have children
deprived of basic education, health care and minimal amounts of food
is increasingly obscene. Morality must change with capacity."
In Latin America, there is economic growth but persistent poverty.
In a letter to The York Times ( December 5, 1993) it was
pointed out that Juan de Dias Parra, leader of the Latin American
Association for Human Rights, summarized the recent trends at a
meeting in Quito, Ecuador, noting that "in Latin America today,
there are 70 million more hungry, 30 million more illiterate, 10
million more families without homes and 40 million more unemployed
persons than there were 20 years ago... There are 240 million human
beings who lack the necessities of life and this when the region is
richer and more stable titan ever, according to the way the world sees
it."
Poverty is even likely to increase. As of 1986, 37 per cent of the
region's families were living in poverty: by 2000, the UN Economic
Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that
between 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the population would be below
the poverty line!
"The coming years will be quite difficult for these countries,"
said Peter Jenson, ECLAC Coordinator for Human Settlements. "Growth
has been really on only one end of the spectrum, the wealthy. The rich
are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And this will
generate social conflict."
In Africa, the number of the most critical least-developed
countries has increased.
Sir Neville Nicholls, President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB),
estimates that one-third of the population of the Commonwealth
Caribbean is living in ' poverty.
Meanwhile, the gap in living standards between the highly
industrialized North and the undeveloped South is ever-widening.
The North has roughly one-fifth of the world's population and
four-.fifths of its income, and it consumes 70% of the world's energy,
75% of its metals and 85% of its wood.
Disintegration
Unemployment is not only degrading. It is also linked to poverty,
hunger, social disintegration, family dislocation, environmental
degradation, desertification, narcotrafficking, urbanization,
migration, crime and conflict.
East/West confrontation, based on ideology, has given way to
conflicts rooted in racial/ethnic, religious and cultural/historical
differences both between and within states.
Coupled with population growth and mass migration, poverty and
insecurity are posing the dangers of an equally terrifying political
explosion, as seen in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, the former Yugoslavia,
the Middle East and elsewhere.
As a result of global poverty, convulsions and conflicts, more than
100 million migrants are living outside their countries of origin.
Some 19 to 23 million of these are refugees or in refugee-like
situations - up from 3.5 million in 1985. In addition, about 26
million people are internally displaced within their own countries.
These figures show no sign of abating but rather are growing!
The Georgetown Declaration of August 2 - 4, 1996 was an encapsulation
of his espousals on a New Global Human Order and it contained a well
defined framework for the region within the fabric of regional and
multi-national institutions.
In his address to the World Food Summit in Rome, November 13-17, 1996
one sensed a bit of frustration by the nature of his presentation. He
reminded the Summit that
The 1974 World Food Conference proclaimed that "every man, woman
and child has !he inalienable right !o be free from hunger and
malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties."
This was to have been achieved "within a decade," but we have failed,
despite improvements in science and technology. Today, hunger, poverty
and social disintegration stalk the globe, not just in the South but
also in the North, and the gap in living standards between the North
and the South continues to widen.
and further stated that:
In an increasingly globalized environment of disorder and
confusion, there is little room for concepts of development which
place prime emphasis on the promotion of narrow national interests
above the common good of humanity. A stop must be put to an unjust
global economic order; an order which robs the South of about US$500
billion annually in unjust, nonequivalent international trade; an
order where the poor South finances the North with South to North
capital outflows of US$418 billion in the 1982-90 period as debt
payments - a sum equal to six Marshall Plans which provided aid for
the rehabilitation of Europe after World War II. Those payments did
not even include outflows from royalties, dividends, repatriated
profits and underpaid raw material.
In this decade, for the eradication of poverty, we need an Agenda
for Development, with the right of nations to development, and, as His
Holiness the Pope said, the right of the individual to food. Democracy
must mean not just civil and political rights, but also economic,
social and cultural rights. We must eliminate under-development, which
threatens to undermine the very foundations of the global economy and
society.
At his last official public speaking engagement on February 13, 1998
when he addressed the Sixth Meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas
Working Group on Smaller Economies one suspects that he was losing hope.
He solemnly said.
I have never been associated with "Prophets of Doom." Rather, I
have always been and will always be a supreme optimist. I must say,
however, that given recent and current social and political upheavals
in several countries in our hemisphere, I am convinced that time is
running out. We have to move quickly to solve the mounting social and
economic problems occurring in our countries.
At the Summit of the Americas Meeting in Miami in . December 1994,
I reiterated the urgent need for a New Global Human Order within the
framework of a "New Agenda for Development." I expressed the view that
while, we embrace the practice of good governance and participatory
democracy in the hemisphere, there is also a need to give full
attention to the gaps between the rich and the poor, the
techno-skilled and the techno-skilled, and between the North and the
South.
This was his last public appeal addressing the noble cause of
alleviation of poverty but one must also be aware of the fact that his
private appeals to leaders of the world and international institutions
were unflinching and he was constantly consulted on this subject.
His appeals were not without sound recommendation, which will be
covered by other speakers. I will only touch on one of these
recommendations, that of debt relief. He expounded for example, that debt
relief as an absolute precondition for poverty alleviation. He lamented
that "Because of the debt trap, we, are unable to urgently address and
find solutions to help alleviate the suffering of the working people and
to provide them with the basic needs for their survival". Although he
said that he has never been associated with "Prophets of Doom", from his
observation of "recent and current social and political upheavals in
several countries ...I am convinced the time is running out".
Unfortunately, time ran out on him.
The above quotations are all taken from Dr. Jagan's book entitled "A
New Global Human Order" dedicated "To all those who are struggling
against poverty, for peace and for a better world"
I was asked to cover the subject on the role of the OAS in Overcoming
Poverty in the hemisphere. The paper entitled "The OAS and Overcoming
Poverty", which was produced by the Organization of American States, Unit
for Social Development and Education (OAS Copyright 1999), should be read
as an undiluted version of the activities of the Organization in this
area.
I am aware that other international institutions and organizations have
written on this subject. I nevertheless wish to refer to the Human
Development Report of 1999 published by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) which quotes the following from the Forbes Magazine of
1998
They could do a lot for world poverty:
The assets of the 3 richest people are more than the combined
GNP of all least developed countries.
The assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined
income of 41 % of the world's people.
A yearly contribution of 1 % of the wealth of the 200 richest
people could provide universal access to primary education for all
($7-8 billion).
This is a vivid and startling statistic which should shock the world as
it was always a burning preoccupation for Dr. Jagan.
This prompts me to quote from my address at the Graduation Ceremony at
the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of
Pittsburgh of April 26,1997 entitled "Global Humanism in Public Policy and
International Affairs" as follows:
"Unfortunately, a plethora of prescriptions have, been expounded
upon to alleviate poverty in our Hemisphere, but the definition of the
cause is hardly touched upon. I contend that this is why some
countries, in spite of their level of resources, size or economic
growth have shown no poverty alleviation. In some countries and inner
cities, the situation has worsened over the years. We must ask
ourselves, is poverty due to a lack of education of the poor or a poor
educational system in a country or state? Is it due to accepted social
or economic stratification, or political oppression, or a poor
distribution of land and other productive opportunities, or is it due
to the absence of a policy direction or a combination of all or some
of these factors? It should be evident that the problem would vary
from situation to situation, from country to country and that the
solutions would also vary according to the definition of the cause.
The question is, do countries wish to define the problem when the
cause is inherent in the system in which certain powerful influences
prevail? Furthermore, shouldn't we engage the rich in dialogue in
dealing with the alleviation of poverty?
There is also the question of prevention. How can we prevent
sectors of our societies and countries from getting poorer? In this
regard there are considerations internal to communities and countries,
but there are also external considerations, i.e. the impact of foreign
policy of one nation on another. In this case, shouldn't we seek to
ensure that our local and external policies do not adversely affect
our quest to resolve the poverty syndrome. I quote from our OAS
Charter which says that: "Member States should refrain from
practicing policies and adopting actions or measures that have serious
adverse effects on the development of other Member States"
I think that if we are honest in defining our problems while
sharing our experiences, we will find that we possess enormous
commonalities in spite of the fact that there are inherent and induced
differences among us. We can achieve a common goal to improve
humanity, global harmony economic and social upliftment of our people,
by strengthening our commonalities and narrowing our differences. In
order to do thus we must first define what these commonalties and
differences are.
We must view the earth of ours as our common patrimony where civil
coexistence, peace, equal rights and human freedoms are preserved at
all times in keeping with the United Nations Charter. We must also
embrace global humanism as fundamental to man's spiritual coexistence.
If we accept global humanism or the brotherhood of man, then, we
must break the barriers which separate and divide us and instead look
beyond our self interest towards a community, a regional and a global
perspective.'
Let us therefore define the problem as it relates to different
circumstances and situations. Only then can we find the solutions for
there is no one solution for all situations. By assuming an unselfish
global responsibility, we can, working together under the rubric of global
humanism, alleviate poverty.
Such was the resolve of Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
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