Poverty, Development and Hunger

Chapter 20

Poverty, Development and Hunger

By Tony Evans and Caroline Thomas

Introduction

Poverty

Development

Hunger

Conclusion: looking to the future-globalization with a human face?

Reader's Guide 

This chapter explores and illustrates the contested nature of a number of important concepts in International Relations. It examines the orthodox mainstream understanding of poverty, development and hunger, and contrasts this with a critical alternative approach.

Introduction

Since 1945 we have witnessed nearly seventy years of unprecedented official development policies and impressive global economic growth. Yet global polar­ization continues to increase, with the economic gap between the richest and poorest states and people growing. While the richest twenty states increased their GDP per capita by nearly 300 per cent between the early 1960s and 2002, the poorest twenty achieved an increase of 20 per cent (World Bank 2009). Box 20.1 shows that, as a discipline, International Relations has been slow to engage with issues of development and poverty.

Poverty, hunger, and disease remain widespread, and women and girls continue to comprise the major­ity of the world’s poorest people. Moreover, this gen­eral situation is not confined to the part of the world that we have traditionally termed the ‘South’ or the Third World. Particularly since the 1980s and 1990s, the worldwide promotion of neo-liberal economic policies (the so-called Washington Consensus) by global governance institutions has been accompanied by high levels of inequality within and between states. During this period, many of the Second World, for­mer Eastern bloc countries, were incorporated into the Third World, as the transition to market econo­mies saw millions of people previously cushioned by the state thrown into poverty. At the same time, the post-2008 financial and economic crisis saw developed countries contributing 19 million to the global hungry (FAO 2012). In the Third World countries, the adverse impact of globalization was felt acutely (see Ch. 1), as countries were forced to adopt free market policies as a condition of debt rescheduling, in the hope of attracting new investment to spur develop­ment. Gendered outcomes of these neo-liberal eco­nomic policies have been noted, although the global picture is very mixed, with other factors such as class, race, and ethnicity contributing to local outcomes (Buvinic 1997: 39).

The enormity of the challenges was recognized by the UN in 2000 with the acceptance of the Millennium Development Goals (www.undp.org). These set time- limited, quantifiable targets across eight areas, ranging from poverty to health, gender (see Chs 10 and 18), education, environment, and development. The first goal was the eradication of extreme poverty and hun­ger, with the target of halving the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015. Table 20.1 shows the continuing incidence of poverty for selected countries.

The attempts of the majority of governments, inter­governmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations since 1945 to address global hunger and poverty can be categorized into two very broad types,  

depending on the explanations they provide for the existence of these problems and the respective solu­tions that they prescribe. These can be identified as the dominant mainstream or orthodox approach, which provides and values a particular body of developmen­tal knowledge, and a critical alternative approach, which incorporates other more marginalized under­standings of the development challenge and process. Most of this chapter will be devoted to an examina­tion of the differences between these two approaches in relation to the three related topics of poverty, devel­opment, and hunger, with particular emphasis on development. The chapter concludes with an assess­ment of whether the desperate conditions in which so many of the world’s citizens find themselves today are likely to improve. Again, two contrasting approaches are outlined.

Table 20.1 Percentage of population living in poverty measured by national standards

Country	% of population	Year
Central African Republic	62.0	2008
Mozambique	54.7	2008
Mexico	51.3	2010
South Sudan	50.6	2009
Burkina Faso	46.7	2009
Tajikistan	46.7	2009
Rwanda	44.9	2011
Cote d'Ivoire	42.7	2008
Bangladesh	31.5	2010
India	29.8	2010
Nepal	25.2	2011
Georgia	24.7	2009
Uganda	24.5	2009
Source: UNdata

Poverty

Different conceptions of poverty underpin the main­stream and alternative views of development. There is basic agreement on the material aspects of poverty, such as lack of food, clean water, and sanitation, but dis­agreement on the importance of non-material aspects, like culture and society. Also, key differences emerge in regard to how material needs should be met, and hence about the goal of development.

Most governments, international organizations, citizens in the West, and many elsewhere adhere to the orthodox conception of poverty. This refers to a situa­tion where people do not have the money to buy ade­quate food or satisfy other basic needs, and are often classified as unemployed or underemployed. This main­stream understanding of poverty, based on money, has arisen as a result of the globalization of Western cul­ture and the attendant expansion of the market. Thus, a community that provides for itself outside monetized cash transactions and wage labour, such as a hunter- gatherer group, is regarded as poor.

Since 1945, this meaning of poverty has been almost universalized. Poverty is seen as an economic condition dependent on cash transactions in the market-place for its eradication. These transactions in turn are depen­dent on development defined as economic growth. An

economic yardstick is used to measure and to judge all societies.

Poverty has been widely regarded as character­izing the Third World, and it has a gendered face. An approach has developed whereby it is seen as incum­bent upon the developed countries to ‘help’ the Third World eradicate ‘poverty’, and increasingly to address female poverty (see World Bank, Gender Action Plan, www.worldbank.org). The solution for overcoming global poverty was greater global economic integra­tion (Thomas 2000), including bringing women into the process (Pearson 2000; Weber 2002). Increasingly, however, as globalization has intensified, poverty defined in such economic terms has come to character­ize significant sectors of population in advanced devel­oped countries such as the USA (Pogge 2005).

Critical alternative views of poverty exist in other cul­tures where the emphasis is not simply on money but on spiritual values, community ties, and availability of com­mon resources. In traditional subsistence economies, a common strategy for survival is provision for oneself and one’s family via community-regulated access to com­mon water, land, and fodder. Western values that focus on individualism and consumerism are seen as destruc­tive of nature and morally inferior. For many people in the developing world, the ability to provide for oneself and one’s family, including the autonomy characteristic of traditional ways of life, is highly valued. Dependence on an unpredictable market and/or an unreliable govern­ment does not, therefore, offer an attractive alternative.

Some global institutions have been important in pro­moting a conception of poverty that extends beyond material indicators. The work of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since the early 1990s is significant here for distinguishing between income poverty (a material condition) and human poverty (encompassing human dignity, agency, opportunity, and choices).

The issue of poverty and the challenge of poverty alle­viation moved up the global political agenda at the close of the twentieth century, as evidenced in the UN’s first Millennium Development Goal (MDG), cited earlier. In 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that the target to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the pro­portion of those living on less than a dollar a day had been achieved three years early (Table 20.2; see also http:// mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=l). While on the surface this seems an impressive achieve­ment, understanding the claim is complex. In particu­lar, the post-2008 economic and financial crisis, shifts in economic power relations, and population growth, have meant that the number of those living in poverty remains at just under a billion.

Table 20.2 Number and percentage of undernourished persons

	Numbers in millions	Percentage of world population
2010	925	14%
2006-8	850	13%
2000-2	836	14%
1995-7	792	14%
1990-2	848	16%
1979-81	853	21%
1969-71	878	26%
Source: FAO

Having considered the orthodox and critical alterna­tive views of poverty, we now turn to an examination of the important topic of development. This examina­tion will be conducted in three main parts. The first part will examine the orthodox view of development, before proceeding to an assessment of its effect on post-war development in the Third World. The second part will examine the critical alternative view of development and its application to subjects such as empowerment and democracy. In the third part, consideration will be given to the ways in which the orthodox approach to development has responded to some of the criticisms made of it by the critical alternative approach.

Key Points

The monetary-based conception of poverty has been almost universalized among governments and international organizations since 1945.

Poverty is interpreted as a condition suffered by people-the majority of whom are female-who do not earn enough money to satisfy their basic material requirements in the market-place.

Developed countries have regarded poverty as being something external to them and a defining feature of the Third World. This view has provided justification for the former to help 'develop' the latter by promoting further integration into the global market.

However, such poverty is increasingly endured by significan: sectors of the population in the North, hence rendering traditional categories less useful.

A critical alternative view of poverty places more emphasis on lack of access to community-regulated common resources, community ties, and spiritual values.

Poverty moved up the global political agenda at the start of the twenty-first century, but the post-2008 economic and financial crisis may threaten further progress.

Development

When we consider the topic of development, it is important to realize that all conceptions of development necessarily reflect a particular set of social and political values. Indeed, we can say that ‘Development can be conceived only within an ideological framework’ (Roberts 1984: 7).

Since the Second World War the dominant view, favoured by the majority of governments and multi­lateral agencies, has seen development as synonymous with economic growth in the context of a free market international economy. Economic growth is identi­fied as necessary for combating poverty, defined as the inability of people to meet their basic material needs through cash transactions. This is seen in the influential reports of the World Bank, where countries are catego­rized according to their income. Those countries that have the lower national incomes per head of population are regarded as being less developed than those with higher incomes, and they are perceived as being in need of increased integration into the global market-place.

An alternative view of development has, however, emerged from a few governments, UN agencies, grass­roots movements, NGOs, and some academics. Their concerns have centred broadly on entitlement and dis­tribution, often expressed in the language of human rights (see Ch. 24). Poverty is identified as the inabil­ity to provide for one’s own and one’s family’s material needs by subsistence or cash transactions, and by the absence of an environment conducive to human well­being, broadly conceived in spiritual and community terms. These voices of opposition are growing signifi­cantly louder, as ideas polarize following the apparent universal triumph of economic liberalism. The lan­guage of opposition is changing to incorporate matters of democracy such as political empowerment, partici­pation, meaningful self-determination for the major­ity, protection of the commons, and an emphasis on pro-poor growth. The fundamental differences between the orthodox and the alternative views of development are summarized in Box 20.2, and supplemented by Case Study 1, illustrating alternative ideas for develop­ment that take account of social and cultural values. We shall now move on to examine how the orthodox view of development has been applied at a global level and assess what measure of success it has achieved.

Economic liberalism and the post-1945 international economic order: seven decades of orthodox development

During the Second World War there was a strong belief among the Allied powers that the protectionist trade policies of the 1930s had contributed significantly to the outbreak of the war. Plans were drawn up by the USA and the UK for the creation of a stable post-war international order with the United Nations (UN), its affiliates the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group, plus the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) providing the institu­tional spine. The latter three provided the founda­tions of a liberal international economic order based on the pursuit of free trade, but allowing an appropri­ate role for state intervention in the market in support of national security and national and global stability (Rapley 1996). This has been called embedded liberal­ism. The decision-making procedures of these interna­tional economic institutions favoured a small group of developed Western states. Their relationship with the UN, which in the General Assembly has more demo­cratic procedures, has not always been an easy one.

In the immediate post-war years, attention focused on reconstructing Western Europe through the Marshall plan. As the cold war emerged, and both East and West sought to gain allies in the less developed and recently decolonized states, both sides offered economic support for development. The USA believed that the path of liberal economic growth would result in devel­opment, and that development would result in hostility to socialist ideals. The USSR, by contrast, attempted to sell its economic system as the most rapid means for the newly independent states to achieve industrializa­tion and development. The process of industrializa­tion underpinned conceptions of development in both East and West, but whereas in the capitalist sphere the market was seen as the engine of growth, in the social­ist sphere central planning by the state was the pre­ferred method.

In the early post-war and postcolonial decades, all states—whether in the West, East, or Third World — favoured an important role for the state in develop­ment. Many Third World countries pursued a strategy of import substitution industrialization in order to try to break out of their dependent position in the world economy as peripheral producers of primary commod­ities for the core developed countries.

This approach, which recognized the important role of the state in development, suffered a major setback in the early 1980s. The developing countries had bor­rowed heavily in the 1970s in response to the rise in oil prices. The rich countries’ strategy for dealing with the second oil price hike in 1979 resulted in massive rises in interest rates and steep falls in commodity prices in the early 1980s. As a result, the developing countries were unable to repay spiralling debts. Mexico threat­ened to default in 1982. The Group of Seven (G7) lead­ing developed Western countries decided to deal with the debt problem on a country-by-country basis, with the goal of avoiding the collapse of the international banking system by ensuring continued repayment of debt. In this regard, the IMF and the World Bank pur­sued a vigorous policy of structural adjustment lend­ing throughout the developing world. In applying this policy, the Fund and the Bank worked together in an unprecedented fashion to encourage developing coun­tries to pursue market-oriented strategies based on rolling back the power of the state and opening Third World economies to foreign investment. Exports were promoted so that these countries would earn the for­eign exchange necessary to keep up with their debt repayments.

With the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Eastern bloc after 1989, this neo-liberal economic and political philosophy came to dominate development thinking across the globe. The championing of unadul­terated liberal economic values played an important role in accelerating the globalization process. This rep­resented an important ideological shift. The ‘embedded liberalism’ of the early post-war decades gave way to the unadulterated neoclassical economic policies that favoured a minimalist state and an enhanced role for the market: the so-called Washington Consensus. The belief was that global welfare would be maximized by the liberalization of trade, finance, and invest­ment, and by the restructuring of national economies to provide an enabling environment for capital. Such policies would also ensure the repayment of debt. The former Eastern bloc countries were now seen as being in transition from centrally planned to market econo­mies. Throughout the Third World the state was rolled back and the market given the role of major engine of growth and associated development, an approach that informed the strategies of the IMF, the World Bank, and, through the Uruguay Round of trade discussions carried out under the auspices of GATT, the World Trade Organization (WTO).

By the end of the 1990s the G7 (later the G8) and associated international financial institutions were championing a slightly modified version of the neo-lib­eral economic orthodoxy, labelled the post-Washington Consensus, which stressed pro-poor growth and poverty reduction based on continued domestic policy reform and growth through trade liberalization. Henceforth, locally owned national poverty reduction strategy (PRS) papers would be the focus for funding (Cammack 2002). These papers quickly became the litmus test for funding from an increasingly integrated line-up of global finan­cial institutions and donors.

The development achievement of the post-war international economic order: orthodox and alternative evaluations

There have been some gains for developing countries during the post-war period, as measured by the ortho­dox criteria for economic growth, GDP per capita, and industrialization. Between 1990 and 2012, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day declined from 43.1 per cent to 22.2 per cent of global population (World Bank 2012a). However, these gains have not been uniformly spread across all developing countries, with much of the reduction attributable to economic gains in China and India (see Fig. 20.1 and Fig. 20.2). Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and some parts of Latin America continue to record high levels of poverty, although some small gains have been achieved (see Fig. 20.3 and Table 20.3). It is estimated that the global economic crisis dating from 2008 will reverse some of these gains (United Nations 2009b).

The orthodox liberal assessment of development suggests that states that have integrated most deeply into the global economy through trade liberalization have grown the fastest, and it praises these ‘new global­izes’. It acknowledges that neo-liberal economic policy has resulted in greater inequalities within and between states, but regards inequality positively as a spur to competition and the entrepreneurial spirit.

It was clear at least from the late 1970s that ‘trickle- down’ (the idea that overall economic growth as measured by increases in GDP would automatically bring benefits for the poorer classes) had not worked. Despite impressive rates of growth in GDP per cap­ita enjoyed by developing countries, this success was not reflected in their societies at large, and while a minority became substantially wealthier, the mass of the population saw little significant change. The even greater polarization in wealth evident in recent decades is not regarded as a problem, so long as the social and political discontent that inequality foments is not so extensive as to derail implementation of the liberalization project itself. According to the orthodox view, discontent can be mitigated by offering what Cox has termed ‘famine relief’ through aid and pov­erty reduction schemes. ‘Riot control’, the use of the police and the military, remains a second option when ‘famine relief’ fails to quell the threat of social unrest (Cox 1997).

Advocates of a critical alternative approach empha­size the pattern of distribution of gains in global society and in individual states, rather than growth. They believe that the economic liberalism that under­pins the process of globalization has resulted, and continues to result, in increasing economic differen­tiation between and within countries, and that this is problematic. Moreover, they note that this trend has been evident over the very period when key global actors have been committed to promoting development worldwide, and indeed during periods of continuous world economic growth and positive rates of GDP per capita (Brown and Kane 1995). But, as Glyn Roberts notes, ‘GNP growth statistics might mean a good deal to an economist or to a maharajah, but they do not tell us a thing about the quality of life in a Third World fish­ing village’ (Roberts 1984: 6).

Table 20.3 Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals: progress

	North Africa	Sub- Saharan Africa	East Asia	South East Asia	South Asia	West Asia	Oceania	Latin America and Caribbean	Caucasus and Central Asia
Reduce	Low	Very high	Moderate	High	Very high	Low	Very high	Moderate	Low
extreme	poverty	poverty	poverty	poverty	poverty	poverty	poverty	poverty	poverty
poverty by half Work	Large	Very large	Large	Large	Very large	Large	Very large	Moderate	Moderate
	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in	deficit in
	decent	decent	decent	decent	decent	decent	decent	decent	decent
	work	work	work	work	work	work	work	work	work
Reduce	Low	Very high	Moderate	Moderate	High	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate
hunger by half	hunger	hunger	hunger	hunger	hunger	hunger	hunger	hunger	hunger

Source: UNDP 2012

A critical alternative view of development

Since the early 1970s, there have been numerous efforts to stimulate debate about development and to highlight its contested nature. Critical alternative ideas have been put forward that we can synthesize into an alternative approach. These have originated with various NGOs, grass-roots development organizations, individuals, UN organizations, and private foundations. Disparate social movements not directly related to the develop­ment agenda have contributed to the flourishing of the alternative viewpoints: for example, the women’s move­ment, the peace movement, movements for democracy, and green movements (Thomas 2000). Noteworthy was the publication in 1975 by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation of What Now? Another Development? This alternative conception of development (see Ekins 1992: 99) argued that the process of development should be (1) need-oriented (material and non-material), (2) endogenous (coming from within a society), (3) self-reliant (in terms of human, natural, and cultural resources), (4) ecologically sound, and (5) based on structural transformations (of economy, society, gen­der, power relations).

Since then, various NGOs, such as the World Development Movement, have campaigned for a form of development that takes aspects of this alternative approach on board. Grass-roots movements have often grown up around specific issues, such as dams (Narmada in India) or access to common resources (the rub­ber tappers of the Brazilian Amazon). Such campaigns received a great impetus in the 1980s with the growth of the green movement worldwide. The two-year prepara­tory process before the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio in June 1992 gave indigenous groups, women, children, and other previ­ously voiceless groups a chance to express their views. This momentum marks the beginning of a norm to hold alternative NGO forums, parallel to all major UN con­ferences—the 2012 Rio+20 being a recent example.

Resistance, empowerment, and development

Democracy is at the heart of the alternative concep­tion of development. Grass-roots movements are

playing an important role in challenging entrenches structures of power in formal democratic societies. In the face of increasing globalization, with the further erosion of local community control over daily life and the further extension of the power of the mar­ket and transnational corporations, people express their resistance through the language of human rights (Evans 2005: Stammers 2009). They are mak­ing a case for local control and local empowerment as the heart of development. They are protecting what they identify as the immediate source of their sur­vival—water, forest, and land. They are rejecting the dominant agenda of private and public (government- controlled) spheres and setting an alternative one Well-known examples include the Chiapas’ upris­ing in Mexico and protests at the annual meetings of the WTO. More recently, the ‘Occupy movement- begun to highlight the social and economic unfair­ness of power relations in society, has achieved a global reach, with protests in nearly 100 major cit­ies located in every continent (Wolff and Barsamian 2012). Discontent over inequality also inspired the Arab Spring’ which has swept across North Africa and parts of the Middle East (Dabashi 2012). Rather than accepting the Western model of development and its associated values placidly, these protests sym­bolize the struggle for substantive democracy that communities across the world crave. This alternative conception of development therefore values diversity above universality, and is based on a different concep­tion of rights (Evans 2011).

The Alternative Declaration produced by the NGO Forum at the Copenhagen Summit enshrines principles of community participation, empowerment, equity, self-reliance, and sustainability. The role of women and youth was singled out. The Declaration rejects the eco­nomic liberalism accepted by governments of North and South, seeing it as a path to aggravation rather than alleviation of the global social crisis. It calls for the immediate cancellation of all debt, improved terms of trade, transparency and accountability of the IMF and World Bank, and the regulation of multination­als. An alternative view of democracy was central to its conception of development. Similar ideas continue to emanate from all parallel NGO forums that accom­pany UN global conferences.

Now that we have looked at the critical alternative view of development, we shall look at the way in which the orthodox view has attempted to respond to the crit­icisms of the alternative view.

The orthodoxy incorporates criticisms

In the mainstream debate, the focus has shifted from growth to sustainable development. The concept was championed in the late 1980s by the influential Brundtland Commission (World Commission on Environment and Development—see Brundtland et al. 1987), and continues to provide a focus for UN devel­opment conferences, Rio+20 for example. Central to the concept of sustainable development is the idea that the pursuit of development by the present generation should not be at the expense of future generations. In other words, it stressed intergenerational equity as well as intragenerational equity. The importance of main­taining the environmental resource base was high­lighted, and with this comes the idea that there are natural limits to growth. The Brundtland Report made clear, however, that further growth was essential; but it needed to be made environment-friendly. The Report did not address the belief, widespread among a sector of the NGO community, that the emphasis on growth had caused the environmental crisis in the first place. The World Bank accepted the concerns of the Report to some degree. When faced with an NGO spotlight on the adverse environmental implications of its projects, the Bank moved to introduce more rigorous environmen­tal assessments of its funding activities. Similarly, con­cerning gender, when faced with critical NGO voices, the World Bank eventually came up with its Operational Policy 4.20 on gender (1994). The latter aimed to reduce gender disparities and enhance women particularly in the economic development of their countries by inte­grating gender considerations in its country assistance programmes’ (www.worldbank.org) (see Ch. 18).

With the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992, the idea that the environment and develop­ment were inextricably interlinked was taken further. However, what came out of the official inter-state pro­cess was legitimation of market-based development policies to further sustainable development, with self­regulation for transnational corporations. Official out­put from Rio, such as Agenda 21, however, recognized the huge importance of the sub-state level for address­ing sustainability issues, and supported the involve­ment of marginalized groups.

The process of incorporation has continued ever since (Sheppard and Leitner 2010). This has been seen most recently in the language of poverty reduction being incorporated into World Bank and IMF policies: ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’ are the buzzwords (Cornwall and Brock 2005). Yet underlying macro- economic policy remains unchanged. An examina­tion of the contribution of the development orthodoxy to increasing global inequality is not on the agenda. The gendered outcomes of macroeconomic policies are largely ignored. Despite promises of new funding at the UN Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in 2002, new transfers of finance from developed to developing countries have been slow in coming. The promises made at the G8 summit of 2006 are expressed as a percentage of the donor’s GDP, which, following the global downturn of 2009, will be substan­tially less than expected (see Fig. 20.4). In addition to new finance, that Summit saw commitments to write off $40 billion of debt owed by the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). However, the commitment was not implemented with immediate effect, didn’t cover all needy countries, and received a lukewarm reception in some G8 countries.

Despite the aim of Rio+20 to continue the struggle to reduce poverty without causing further environmental degradation, critics argued that the strategy had been drained of ambition by national interests. Friends of the Earth argued that the ‘only people dancing in Rio tonight will be those who continue to benefit from a broken eco­nomic model that puts profit ahead of people and the planet’ (Agence France-Presse: http://www.afp.com/en). For NGOs, the only outcome was justifiable anger that the scale of the problem remained unacknowledged, a failure that was made more urgent in the context of the post-2008 global economic downturn.

An appraisal of the responses of the orthodox approach to its critics

The central tool in international programmes for reducing global poverty remains the large UN confer­ence. These are often followed by ‘+5’ mini-conferences intended to assess current progress and to further pro­mote and refine agreements made earlier. Whether these conferences provide a genuine opportunity for progress is, however, often questioned. The 2009 Copenhagen conference on climate change, for exam­ple, ended in disarray, producing only the weakest of accords as a political ‘fix’ rather than achieving the aim of a legally binding treaty. The World Bank has taken some steps to integrate women into the prevail­ing economic order following the fourth conference on women, held in Beijing during 1995. Two central planks in this programme are to improve access to economic opportunities for women and increase women’s voice and agency in the household and soci­ety. The Bank accepts that improvements in the lives of women are patchy. Most importantly, to achieve such goals within the existing economic order would require systematically mainstreaming gender in all development projects, rather than regarding it as an ‘add-on’, which critics argue has not been achieved.

Voices of criticism are growing in number and range, even among supporters of the mainstream approach. This disquiet focuses on the maldistribution of the ben­efits of economic liberalism, which is increasingly seen as a threat to local, national, regional, and even global order. Moreover, the social protest that accompanies economic globalization is regarded by some as a poten­tial threat to the neo-liberal project. Thus, supporters of globalization are keen to temper its most unpopular effects by modification of neo-liberal policies. Small but nevertheless important changes are taking place. For example, the World Bank has guidelines on the treat­ment of indigenous peoples, resettlement, the environ­mental impact of its projects, gender, and on disclosure of information. It is implementing social safety nets when pursuing structural adjustment policies, and it is promoting microcredit as a way to empower women. With the IMF, it developed a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative to reduce the debt burden of the poorest states. Whether these guidelines and concerns really inform policy, and whether these new policies and facilities result in practical outcomes that impact on the fundamental causes of poverty, particu­larly in the wake of the post-2008 global economic cri­sis, remains unclear, however. (See Case Study 2.)

There is a tremendously long way to go in terms of gaining credence for the core values of the alternative model of development in the corridors of power, nation­ally and internationally. Nevertheless, the alternative view, marginal though it is, has had some noteworthy successes in modifying orthodox development. These may not be insignificant for those whose destinies have up till now been largely determined by the attempted universal application of a selective set of local, essen­tially Western, values.

Key Points

Development is a contested concept. The orthodox or mainstream approach and the alternative approach reflect different values.

Development policies over the last sixty years have been dominated by the mainstream approach-embedded liberalism and, more recently, neo-liberalism-with a focus on growth.

The last two decades of the twentieth century saw the flourishing of alternative conceptions of development based on equity, participation, empowerment, sustainability, etc., with input especially from NGOs and grass-roots movements, and some parts of the UN.

The mainstream approach has been modified slightly and has incorporated the language of its critics (e.g. pro-poor growth).

Gains made during the last two decades may be reversed as the full consequences of the post-2008 global economic and financial crisis emerge.

Hunger

Although ‘the production of food to meet the needs of a burgeoning population has been one of the outstanding global achievements of the post-war period’ (ICPF 1994: 104, 106), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that nearly 1 billion people remained hungry in 2010 (http://www.fao.org). The current depth of hunger across different world regions is shown in Fig. 20.5. While famines may be exceptional phenom­ena, hunger is on-going. Why is this so?

Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought with regard to hunger: the orthodox, nature-focused approach, which identifies the problem largely as one of overpopulation, and the entitlement, society-focused approach, which sees the problem more in terms of dis­tribution. Let us consider each of these two approaches in turn.

The orthodox, nature-focused explanation of hunger

The orthodox explanation of hunger, first mapped out by Thomas Robert Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, focuses on the rela­tionship between human population growth and the food supply. It asserts that population growth natu­rally outstrips the growth in food production, so that a decrease in the per capita availability of food is inevitable, until eventually a point is reached at which starvation, or some other disaster, drastically reduces the human population to a level that can be sustained by the available food supply. This approach therefore places great stress on human overpopula­tion as the cause of the problem, and seeks ways to reduce the fertility of the human race—or rather, that part of the human race that seems to breed faster than the rest, the poor of the ‘Third World’. Supporters of this approach argue that there are natural limits to population growth—principally that of the carrying capacity of the land—and that when these limits are exceeded disaster is inevitable.

The available data on the growth of the global human population indicate that it has quintupled since the early 1800s, was nearly 7 billion in 2011, and is projected to reach 10 billion in 2100. While most countries are expected to achieve a population increase, the greatest increase is expected in just a few countries: Congo, India, Tanzania, Philippines, and Nigeria, for example. However, although China is projected a 30 per cent decrease in its population by 2100 from 2011 numbers, this conceals an increase to 1.5 billion by 2050, before falling back. Table 20.4 shows estimates for the most populated countries for 2011, and projected population for 2100. Table 20.5 shows figures for 2011 and 2100 by region. It is figures such as these that have convinced many adherents of the orthodox approach to hunger that it is essential that Third World countries adhere to strict family- planning policies that one way or another limit their population growth rates.

Table 20.4 Estimated population of top ten countries for 2011 and projected top ten for 2100

Rank 2011	Country	Population (millions)	Rank 2100	Country	Population (millions)	% change 2011-2100
1	China	1,347,565	1	India	1,550,899	24.92
2	India	1,241,492	2	China	941,042	-30.17
3	USA	313,085	3	Nigeria	729,885	349.24
4	Indonesia	242,326	4	USA	478,026	52.68
5	Brazil	196,655	5	Tanzania	316,338	584.44
6	Pakistan	176,745	6	Pakistan	261,271	47.82
7	Nigeria	162,471	7	Indonesia	254,178	4.89
8	Bangladesh	150,494	8	Congo	212,113	213.05
9	Russia	142,836	9	Philippines	177,803	87.45
19	Japan	126,497	10	Brazil	177,349	-9.82

Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division

Table 20.5 Estimated population by region for 2011 and projected for 2100

Region                      Population 2011 (millions)  Population 2100 (millions)   %change

Africa	1,045,923	3,574,141	241.72
Asia	4,207,448	4,596,224	9.24
Europe	739,299	674,796	-8.72
Latin America and Caribbean	596,629	687,517	15.23
North America	347,563	526,428	51.46
Oceania	37,175	65,819	77.05
World	6,974,037	10,124,925	45.18

Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division

The entitlement, society-focused explanation of hunger

Critics of the orthodox approach to hunger argue that it is too simplistic in its analysis and ignores the vital factor of food distribution. They point out that it fails to account for the paradox we observed at the beginning of this discussion on hunger: that despite the enormous increase in food production per capita that has occurred over the post-war period (largely due to the develop­ment of high-yielding seeds and industrial agricultural techniques), the number of those experiencing chronic hunger remains unacceptably high (see Table 20.4). For example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that although there is enough grain alone to provide everyone in the world with 3,600 calo­ries a day, even taking account of increases in population growth (i.e. 1,200 more than the UN’s recommended minimum daily intake), the number of people living in hunger persists.

Furthermore, critics note that the Third World, where the majority of malnourished people live, produces much of the world’s food, while those who consume most of it are located in the Western world. Meat consumption tends to rise with house­hold wealth, and a third of the world’s grain is used to fatten animals. This trend is seen in countries that have experienced rapid economic growth during the last two decades, most notably China and India. A further recent trend is the switch in land use from food production to crops for the biofuel industry (see UNCTAD 2009). The effect of this is to reduce sur­pluses produced by developed countries that can be sold on global markets, and to take fertile land out of food production for local markets. Such evidence leads opponents of the orthodox approach to argue that we need to look much more closely at the social, political, and economic factors that determine how food is distributed and why access to it is achieved by some and denied to others.

A convincing alternative to the orthodox expla­nation of hunger was put forward in Amartya Sen’s pioneering book, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, which was first pub­lished in 1981 (Sen 1981, 1983). He argues that fam­ines have often occurred when there has been no significant reduction in the level of per capita food availability and, furthermore, that some famines have occurred during years of peak food availability. Thus hunger is due to people not having enough to eat, rather than there not being enough to eat. Put another way, whether a person starves or eats depends not so much on the amount of food available, but whether or not they can establish an entitlement to that food. If there is plenty of food available in the shops, but a family does not have the money to purchase that food, and does not have the means of growing their own food, then they are likely to starve. For example, while in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa agricultural

land was traditionally used to provide food for local markets, the creation of global markets has meant that more and more land is devoted to export crops to feed wealthy nations. With access to land for local production limited, little opportunity to find alter­native work, and weak social security arrangements in place following the austerity policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF of the 1980s (SAPs), land­less rural labourers and pastoralists could not assert their entitlement to food, even as global production increased. In short, the conditions for hunger prevail, even in a world of plenty.

Globalization and hunger

It is possible to explain the contemporary occurrence of hunger by reference to the process of globalization. Globalization means that events occurring in one part of the globe can affect, and be affected by, events occurring in other, distant parts of the globe. Often, as individuals, we remain unaware of our role in this process and its ramifications. When we in the devel­oped countries drink a cup of tea or coffee, or eat imported fruit and vegetables, we tend not to reflect on the changes experienced at the site of production of these cash crops in the developing world. However, it is possible to look at the effect of the establish­ment of a global, as opposed to a local, national, or regional, system of food production. This has been done by David Goodman and Michael Redclift in their book, Refashioning Nature: Food, Ecology and Culture (1991).

Goodman and Redclift argue that we are wit­nessing an increasingly global organization of food provision and access to food, with transnational cor­porations playing the major role. This has been based on the incorporation of local systems of food produc­tion into a global system of food production. In other words, local subsistence producers, who have tradi­tionally produced to meet the needs of their family and community, may now be involved in cash-crop production for distant markets. Alternatively, they may have left the land and become involved in the process of industrialization, making them net con­sumers rather than producers of food in the move to urbanization.

The most important actor in the development and expansion of this global food regime has been the USA, which, at the end of the Second World War, was producing large food surpluses. These surpluses were welcomed by many developing countries, for the orthodox model of development depended on the creation of a pool of cheap wage labour to serve the industrialization process. Hence, in order to encour­age people off the land and away from subsistence pro­duction, the incentive to produce for oneself and one’s family had to be removed. Cheap imported food pro­vided this incentive, while the resulting low prices paid for domestic subsistence crops made them unattractive to grow; indeed, for those who continued to produce for the local market, such as in Sudan, the consequence has been the production of food at a loss (Bennett and George 1987: 78).

Not surprisingly, therefore, the production of sub­sistence crops for local consumption in the develop­ing world has drastically declined in the post-war period. Domestic production of food staples in devel­oping countries has declined, consumer tastes have been altered by the availability of cheap imports, and the introduction of agricultural technology has dis­placed millions of peasants from traditional lands. Furthermore, the creation of global agri-businesses has encouraged speculative investments, adding further to price volatility. For critics, the global organization of food production has turned the South into a ‘world farm’ to satisfy consumers in developed regions, at

the expense of scarcity and permanent hunger in less- developed regions.

The increasing number of people who suffer food insecurity is often recognized by the leaders of wealthy states. It is these same leaders who also promote free market principles that create the contemporary con­text for hunger. However, as the 2009 World Summ­on Food Security demonstrated, concern does not necessarily turn into action (http://www.fao.org/wsfs world-summit/en).

Key Points       

In recent decades global food production has burgeoned, but, paradoxically, hunger and malnourishment remain widespread.

The orthodox explanation for the continued existence of hunger is that population growth outstrips food production.

An alternative explanation for the continuation of hunger focuses on lack of access or entitlement to available food. Access and entitlement are affected by factors such as the North-South global divide, particular national policies, rural-urban divides, class, gender, and race.

Globalization can simultaneously contribute to increased food production and increased hunger.

Conclusion: looking to the future-globalization with a human face?

It is clear when we consider the competing concep­tions of poverty, development, and hunger explored in this chapter that there is no consensus on definitions, causes, or solutions.

We are faced with an awesome development challenge. Although the UN has claimed that the Millennium Development Goals on poverty and hun­ger have been achieved, the global population increase means that the number of those suffering poverty has declined very little, and the number suffering from hunger has not declined at all. The consequences of the post-2008 economic and financial crisis have not yet impacted fully, but with a deepening global recession, rising unemployment, and volatile commodity prices, past progress on poverty reduction may be reversed, ‘throwing millions into extreme poverty’ (http:// www.worldbank.org/). Recognizing this prospect, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, writing in the 2012 MDG Report, argued that the ‘developing world must not be allowed to decelerate or reverse the progress that has been made’ in spite of the current economic crisis (UN 2012).

The orthodox model of development is being held up for closer scrutiny as we become more aware of the risks as well as the opportunities that globalization and the Washington Consensus bring in their wake. The key question is: can globalization develop a human face?

The current development orthodoxy is following the reformist pathway. History will reveal whether this pathway bears the seeds of its own destruction by deliv­ering too little, too late, to too few people. As students of International Relations, we must bring these issues in from the margins of our discipline and pursue them as central to our study.

Box 20.1

International Relations theory and the marginalization of priority

Traditionally, the discipline focused on issues relating to inter­state conflict, and regarded human security and development as separate areas.

Mainstream realist and liberal scholars neglected the challenges presented to human well-being by the existence of global underdevelopment.

Dependency theorists were interested in persistent and deepening inequality and relations between North and South, but they received little attention in the discipline.

During the 1990s debate flourished, and several subfields developed or emerged that touched on matters of poverty, development, and hunger, albeit tangentially (e.g. global environmental politics, gender, international political economy).

More significant in the 1990s, in raising within the discipline the concerns of the majority of humanity and states, were the contributions from postcolonial theorists, Marxist theorists (Hardt and Negri), scholars adopting a human security approach (Nef, Thomas), and the few concerned directly w r development (Saurin, Weber).

Interest in poverty, development, and hunger has increased with the advent of globalization.

Most recently, social unrest in many parts of the world and the fear of terrorism have acted as a spur for greater diplomatic activity.

Box 20.2

Development: a contested concept

The orthodox view

Poverty: a situation suffered by people who do not have the money to buy food and satisfy other basic material needs.

Solution: transformation of traditional subsistence economies defined as 'backward' into industrial, commodified economies defined as 'modern'. Production for profit. Individuals sell their labour for money, rather than producing to meet their family's needs.

Core ideas and assumptions: the possibility of unlimited economic growth in a free market system. Economies eventually become self-sustaining ('take-off' point). Wealth is said to trickle down to those at the bottom. All layers of society benefit through a 'trickle-down' mechanism when the superior'Western' model is adopted.

Measurement: economic growth; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita: industrialization, including agriculture.

Process: top-down; reliance on external 'expert knowledge', usually Western. Large capital investments in large projects; advanced technology; expansion of the private sphere.

The alternative view

Poverty: a situation suffered by people who are not able to meet their material and non-material needs through their own effort.

Solution: creation of human well-being through sustainable societies in social, cultural, political, and economic terms.

Core ideas and assumptions: sufficiency. The inherent value of nature, cultural diversity, and the community- controlled commons (water, land, air, forest). Human activity in balance with nature. Self-reliance and local control through democratic inclusion, participation, and giving a voice to marginalized groups, such as women, indigenous groups.

Measurement: fulfilment of basic material and non-material human needs of everyone; condition of the natural environment. Political empowerment of marginalized.

Process: bottom-up; participatory; reliance on appropriate (often local) knowledge and technology; small investments in small-scale projects; protection of the commons.

Case Study 1

Taking jobs to Bangladesh's poor

The case of Hathay Bunano Proshikhan Society (HBPS) offers a good example of an alternative development model. For most Bangladeshi women living in rural districts the opportunity to give their families a bit of extra money in the struggle against rural poverty means moving to large cities, leaving their children and families for many months. The move from rural to city life strains traditional social relations and places women in a urban environment that is unfamiliar and threatening.

In 2004 the founders of HBPS asked themselves several ques­tions: (1) how do you create sustainable employment free of debt, (2) without changes in the lifestyle of rural women, and (3) while generating returns comparable with the enterprises modelled on mainstream economic lines? The answer was to create flexible employment opportunities for women in rural Bangladesh through a social business model producing knitted and crocheted children's toys.

Although working conditions are simple, work is undertaken in a social setting alongside friends and neighbours. Women often bring their children to the workplace to be cared for during the day. Newly recruited workers are given training in core skills as well as basic mathematics and life skills. In this way women work­ers can contribute to the family economy without breaking fam­ily and village ties.

Today, HBPS employs over 5,000 artisans at fifty-four sites in rural locations, producing items that are exported to developed countries in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australasia. HBPS is anon- profit organization, marketing its products through Pebblechild Bangladesh, a for profit organization. Bringing work to the village also means that earnings are spent within the village economy rather than in distant cities, bringing benefits to the wider village community. (www.hathaybunano.com)

Case Study 2:

Famine in the Sahel region of West Africa

More than 17 million people are facing starvation in West Africa's Sahel region. The reasons for this are many and varied. Conflicts in Mali and Niger have seen over 300,000 refugees seek safety in neighbouring countries, putting even more strain on an already difficult situation. These conflicts have cut off traditional grazing routes and disrupted local markets, making it difficult even for those who can afford food. Rising global prices for many staple foods have made matters worse. Changing climate conditions also affect prospects for local food supplies. On top of all these difficulties, poor rainfall since 2011 has brought failed harvests and threatened the survival of livestock. Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Somalia are experiencing the worst of the crisis.

Although many agencies and NGOs are working to alleviate the situation, including the World Bank, Save the Children, and Oxfam, 'a culture of risk aversion caused a six-month delay in the large-scale aid effort because ... many donors wanted proof of humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent one'. (Hiller and Dempsey 2012)

Questions

What does poverty mean?

Explain the orthodox approach to development and outline the criteria by which it measures development.

Assess the critical alternative model of development.

How effectively has the orthodox model of development neutralized the critical alternative view?

Compare and contrast the orthodox and alternative explanations of hunger.

What are the pros and cons of the global food regime established since the Second World War?

Critically explore the gendered nature of poverty.

Is the recent World Bank focus on poverty reduction evidence of a change of direction by the Bank?

Why has the discipline of International Relations been slow to engage with issues of poverty and development?

10 Given the post-2008 global economic crisis, together with continued increases in the global population, can the Millennium Development Goal to reduce poverty and hunger be sustained?

Further Reading

General

Collier, P. (2007), The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Collier asks why, when many are reaping the benefits of globalization, there remains a billion who remain in poverty. He identifies four issues that prevent the move to development: civil war, unstable economies that rely on natural resources, being landlocked, and ineffective governance.

Kiely, R. (2006), The New Political Economy of Development: Globalization, Imperialism and Hegemony (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). An important text that examines development in a historic and political-economic context. This is a book for ambitious students who want to take their understanding of development to a deeper level.

Rapley.J. (1996), Understanding Development (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Analyses the theory and practice of development in the Third World since the Second World War in a straightforward, succinct manner. It provides the reader with a firm grasp of changing development policies at the international level and their take-up over time in different states.

Thomas, C. (2000), Global Governance, Development and Human Security (London: Pluto). Examines the global development policies pursued by global governance institutions, especially the IMF and the World Bank, in the 1980s and 1990s. It assesses the impact of these policies on human security, and analyses different paths towards the achievement of human security for the twenty-first century.

Development

Rahnema, M., with Bawtree, V. (eds) (1997), The Post Development Reader (Dhaka: University Press, and London: Zed). Challenges the reader to think critically about the nature of development and assumptions about meanings. This is an extremely stimulating interdisciplinary reader.

Sen, A. (1999), Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sen asks why, in a world that has seen spectacular growth, many in the less-developed countries remain unfree.

Hunger

Dreze, J., Sen, A., and Hussain, A. (eds) (1995), The Political Economy of Hunger (Oxford: Clarendon Press). An excellent collection on the political economy of hunger.

Sen, A. (1981), Poverty and Famines (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Provides a ground-breaking analysis of the causes of hunger that incorporates detailed studies of a number of famines and convincingly challenges the orthodox view of the causes of hunger.

Yohannes, Y., et al. (2010), Global Hunger Index 2010: The Challenge of Hunger: Focus on the Crisis of Child Undernutrition (Washington, DC: IFPRI). This edition of the Global Hunger Index (GHI) focuses on child malnutrition. The GHI is published by the International Food Policy Research Institute, and was first published in 2006 to increase attention on the hunger problem and to mobilize the political will to address it.

Online Resource Centre

Visit the Online Resource Centre that accompanies this book to access more learning resources on this chapter topic at www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/orc/baylis6exe/