talk and yawn

“Abolishing poverty from the face of the Earth” that has become the stock slogan for the politician.

Over the years, special summits held with the customary fanfare have taken the pledge to accomplish this noble objective. Diplomats and experts have wined and dined in exotic locations in between expressions of profound concern for the deprived of the world. The tragedy is that the paper promises and solutions thrown up at these special summits have gone the way of all similar pious platitudes. Thrown into the waste basket, sacrificed at the altar of economic reality. The rich nations of the world, after having made ‘solemn’ promises in international forums to ‘eradicate poverty’, actually take economic measures that are expressly directed towards undermining the economies of the poor nations around the world.

According to one study some years ago, if world cotton prices were not depressed as a result of subsidies, the number of people living in poverty in the African nation of Burkina Faso could be cut in half within six years. Subsidies accounted for about one third of the $35,000 average annual income of the US cotton farmer, the per capita income in Burkina Faso was less than $1 a day.

The World Trade Organization continues its merry-go-rounds of global trade talks. Meanwhile, the developed countries continue with their march aimed at their economic prosperity through means, fair or foul, and that at the expense of the world’s poor. The poor nations of the world are invariably left out in the cold

How about calling off the charade of global conferences and using the money to subsidise at least some of the poor for a change?

Adapted from here