World Poverty still on the agenda

Apr 19 2010 by Kevin Rowan, The Journal

AMID the fuss and furore around the General Election, with consideration focusing on local and national issues, not to mention the air traffic shutdown, the actions and events for World Poverty Day yesterday will not have featured on many radars.

Yet many of the challenges we face in the North East and throughout the UK are inextricably linked to what happens in other parts of the world. Immense levels of poverty in the developing world are a major cause of the displacement of communities, an issue that does register very clearly as of concern to people here.

There are different choices regarding how the UK seeks to play a role in international development. They include choices between the ‘charity box’ aid interventions or seeking to support more sustainable development; the level of responsibility that the relatively rich countries have in supporting much poorer countries in tackling fundamental challenges, education and health infrastructure and climate change, as well as economic development.

The UK economy and broader society can only operate in a truly internationalist way, because that is how the modern world operates. The response to the causes of the recession demonstrate the need for international co-operation on issues like finance and trade. Increasingly it is obvious that the propensity of labour to operate trans-nationally requires improved international labour regulation to avoid social dumping and the tensions caused by employers bringing in cheaper labour and undercutting existing agreements, while excluding a skilled and available workforce.

These tensions, in trade, finance and labour protections are fuelled by global inequality. Poverty is a great motivator for workers to move, to accept poorer terms and conditions. Governments have a choice, to collectively determine an approach to international development that seeks to bring all countries up to standards that provide all citizens with a decent quality of life, or seek to compete, cutting regulation and costs for already profitable private capital in a race to the bottom which ultimately undermines all aspects of prosperity, health, wellbeing and public services, that economic growth should be designed to improve.

A key opportunity here would be a ‘Robin Hood Tax’, a tiny tax on unproductive financial transactions that could generate billions to solve some of these global (and domestic) challenges of poverty and inequality. That’s a policy that really would make a huge difference.

Kevin Rowan, regional secretary, Northern TUC