Rights Based International Indicators: Poverty and the Rights of the Child

1. Rights Based International Indicators: Poverty and the Rights of the Child David Gordon & Peter Townsend Metagora Forum, OECD 24-25 May 2005, Paris

2. Child Poverty: The Rhetoric Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address Friday, January 20, 1961 Every blow we inflict against poverty will be a blow against its dark allies of oppression and war. Ronald Reagan Second Inaugural Address Monday, January 21, 1985 In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault. George W. Bush Inaugural Address January 20, 2001

3. Child Poverty: The Reality Age at death by age group, 1990-1995 Source: The State of the World Population 1998

4. “The world's biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill healthand suffering across the globe is listed almost at the end ofthe International Classification of Diseases.It is given codeZ59.5 -- extreme poverty. World Health Organisation (1995) Seven out of 10 childhood deaths in developing countries can be attributed to just five main causes - or a combination of them: pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, malaria and malnutrition.Around the world, three out of four children seen by health services are suffering from at least one of these conditions. World Health Organisation (1996; 1998).

5. Children’s Rights & Child Poverty The framework provided by international human rights conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a helpful instrument for poverty measurement. Firstly, these conventions have been signed by every country in the World and so can be considered to embody universal values and aspirations. Secondly as Mary Robinson (former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) has argued “a human rights approach adds value because it provides a normative framework of obligations that has the legal power to render governments accountable”. Finally, a human rights approach shifts the emphasis in debates about poverty away from personal failure to a focus on the failure of macro-economic structures and policies created by nation states and international bodies (WTO, World Bank, IMF etc.). Hence, poverty in this context is no longer described as a ‘social problem’ but a ‘violation’.

6. The relationship between the rights of the child and child poverty • Two Problems • The UNCRC does not contain an explicit human right to freedom from poverty • Many of the rights in the UNCRC are ambiguous or imprecise and require judicial judgements to determine if they have been met

7. Absolute and Overall Poverty After the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, 117 countries adopted a declaration and programme of action which included commitments to eradicate “absolute” and reduce “overall” poverty. Absolute poverty was defined as "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services." Overall poverty takes various forms, including "lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterised by lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life. It occurs in all countries: as mass poverty in many developing countries, pockets of poverty amid wealth in developed countries, loss of livelihoods as a result of economic recession, sudden poverty as a result of disaster or conflict, the poverty of low-wage workers, and the utter destitution of people who fall outside family support systems, social institutions and safety nets. (UN, 1995)

8. Deprivation can be conceptualised as a continuum which ranges from no deprivation through mild, moderate and severe deprivation to extreme deprivation. Continuum of deprivation In order to measure absolute poverty amongst children, it is necessary to define the threshold measures of severe deprivation of basic human need for: • food • safe drinking water • sanitation facilities • health • shelter • education • information • access to services

9. Child Poverty in the World Over one billion children – half the children in the world- suffer from severe deprivation of basic human need and 30% (650 million)suffer from absolute poverty (two or more severe deprivations). ‘severe deprivation of basic human need’ are those circumstances that are highly likely to have serious adverse consequences for the health, well-being and development of children. Severe deprivations are causally related to ‘poor’ developmental outcomes both long and short term.

10. Severe Deprivation of Basic Human Need • Almost a third of the world’s children live in dwellings with more than five people per room or which have a mud floor. • Over half a billion children (27%) have no toilet facilities whatsoever. • Over 400 million children (19%) are using unsafe (open) water sources or have more than a 15-minute walk to water. • About one child in five, aged 3 to 18, lacks access to radio, television, telephone or newspapers at home. • Sixteen percent of children under five years in the world are severely malnourished, almost half of whom are in South Asia. • 275 million children (13%) have not been immunised against any diseases or have had a recent illness causing diarrhoea and have not received any medical advice or treatment. • One child in nine aged between 7 and 18 (over 140 million) are severely educationally deprived - they have never been to school.

11. Percent of the world’s children severely deprived of basic human needs

12. Absolute Poverty of Children: Rural and Urban Distribution

13. Severe Deprivation of Children by Region

14. Child Poverty - Conclusions (1) Anti-poverty strategies need to respond to local conditions - blanket solutions for the eradication of child poverty are likely to be unsuccessful given the differences in the extent and nature of severe deprivation between and within developing countries. This research indicates that considerably more emphasis needs to be placed on improving basic infrastructure and social services for families with children, particularly with regards to shelter and sanitation in rural areas. An international investment fund for payment towards national schemes of child benefit in cash or kind would help to provide the impetus for rapid fulfilment of children's fundamental rights to social security and an adequate standard of living.

15. Child Poverty - Conclusions (2) Our results for children show that severe deprivation of basic human need for physical capital (e.g. clean water, sanitation, housing) is a more prevalent problem than severe human capital deprivation (e.g. education, health services and malnutrition). This finding has significant policy implications as tackling physical capital problems may be a pre-requisite for successful human capital interventions, e.g. feeding programmes and health and education service interventions will only have limited success if malnutrition and disease is being caused by a lack of sanitation, clean water and squalid housing conditions. Most anti-poverty programmes are currently putting greater resources into tackling human capital problems than physical capital problems – the focus of these efforts may need to be rethought in many parts of the developing world? It may be more effective to improve children’s health and education by building new toilets, better water supplies and housing than by building new hospitals and schools!

16. Table Population Living Below $1.08 per day at 1993 PPP Source:Chen and Ravallion, World Bank (2001), “How did the World’s Poor fare in the 1990s?” Review of Income and Wealth, pp 1-33.

17. 2.History of Approaches to the Definition and Measurement of Poverty Scientifically “objective” – evidence can be collected of conditions associated with level of income • Subsistence – Income of a household or family is “insufficient to obtain the minimum necessaries for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency” (Rowntree, 1901, p.86) • Basic needs – Income is insufficient for both subsistence and “essential services provided by and for the community at large, such as safe drinking water, sanitation, public transport and health, education and cultural facilities” (ILO, 1976, pp,24-25) • Relative deprivation – Income is “insufficient” to “obtain the conditions of life, that is, the diets, amenities, standards, and services, which allow people to play the roles, participate in the relationships, and follow the customary behaviour which is expected of them by virtue of their membership of society” (Townsend, 1993, p.36)

18. Word Bank Strategy to Defeat Poverty • 1.Broad-based economic growth • 2.Development of human capital (education) • 3.Safety-nets(or targeting) for vulnerable groups • (source: World Bank-1996 and 1997 especially) • Conclusion from evidence of trends over 30 years- • Unsuccessful: Among reasons: “trickle-up” growth; • Conditionality policies for loans; cost-recovery policies in basic social services; cuts in public expenditure; excessive privatisation; unregulated globalisation and unequal terms of trade; enhancement of the “triumvirate” of power(G8,TNC’s and IFA’s)

19. Alternative International Strategy to Defeat Poverty • 1.Equitable tax and incomes policies • 2.An employment creation programme • 3.”Universal” social security and public social services (satisfying fundamental human rights-e.g. Articies 21,25 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 24.26.27 and 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child) • 4. Social /democratic control of transnational corporations and international agencies, and the development of international company law (source: A manifesto of international action to defeat poverty, in Townsend P.and Gordon D.eds 2002 World Poverty: New Policies to Defeat an Old Enemy) • Potentiality: The only realistic possibility of satisfying the principal UN millennium goal of eliminating poverty, and especially runaway social polarisation; a start in the necessary reconciliation of market globalisation and the demand for human rights; and the only feasible way of internationalising development

20. The Tobin TaxSummary of new proposal • During the last decade there have been increasingly frequent references to the possibility of raising huge sums for the poorest countries by means of a tiny percentage tax on financial transactions across the world - given the difficulties of raising sufficient resources from overseas development assistance. James Tobin put forward the idea of a tax varying from 0.1 to 0.5 per cent of international financial transactions. A tax of only 0.1 per cent has been estimated to raise $400 billions a year.

21. What is the Tobin Tax? • It is a tax levied on every currency exchange, set at a level low enough not to hinder any transactions needed to finance real trade in goods and services or long term capital investment, but high enough to discourage the bulk of destabilising speculative money movements. James Tobin put forward the proposal in 1972, and re-introduced it in summary form in the UNDP Human Development report for 1994 • Useful book: Patomaki, H. (2001), Democratising Globalisation: The Leverage of the Tobin Tax, London, Zed Books.

22. Advantages of International Child Benefit • Not indirect. Current forms of international aid are indirect, and unrelated to locations and categories of need among children are greatest. • More immediate in reducing child poverty. Direct aid in cash or kind has more immediate effects. Such continuing aid necessarily involves the creation and management of an administrative infrastructure throughout each country, so that aid can reach the appropriate destinations. • Institutional and social stability. Such infrastructure contributes to other forms of national, and international social stability.

23. UN Child Investment Fund • ·   An international children's investment fund should be established under the auspices of the UN. Half its annual resources should be devoted to countries with extensive child poverty, where schemes of child benefit in cash or kind exist or are introduced. All countries with large numbers of children who are below an internationally recognised poverty line and also with comparatively low GDP should be entitled to participate. Such participation would require dependable information that the benefits are reaching children for whom they are intended. The remaining annual resources of the fund would be made available to countries for investment in public education, health and other schemes of direct benefit to children.

24. New Tax proposal to UN • ·        An international financial transactions tax should be introduced by the UN, sanctioned by international law. In the first instance a tax at a rate of 0.2% would be payable on all currency exchanges at banks and currency exchange offices. Half the gross revenue would be administered by the UN to subsidise the establishment of child benefit in developing countries. This makes the proposal somewhat different from that earlier of James Tobin.[1] • [1] Raffer K. (1998), "The Tobin Tax: Reviving a Discussion," World Development, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 529-38.

25. International Funding Options • New Sources of development Finance • 1.Global environment taxes • 2. Tax in Currency flows (e.g Tobin) • 3. New “special drawing rights • 4. International Finance Facility (UK Govt.) • 5. Private development donations • 6. Global lottery or premium bonds • 7. Increased remittances from emigrants • Atkinson A.B. (2004) New Sources of Development Finance, UNU-WIDER, OUP.