Over a billion people will continue to face desperate poverty and starvation in 2015 as a result of governments’ failure to crack down on corporate abuses and eradicate global poverty.
This warning came today from global justice charity War on Want as British prime minister Gordon Brown joined other international leaders at the UN summit in New York on the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals.
New World Bank figures show over 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty in the developing world – 400 million more than previous estimates. With rising food and fuel prices adding to those numbers daily, even the most optimistic projections still predict over a billion people living in desperate want in 2015.
War on Want executive director John Hilary said: “The global poverty epidemic remains a scar on the conscience of the world. It is unacceptable for government leaders to continue with business as usual when one in four of the world’s people are condemned to crushing poverty. All we have seen is tinkering around the edges, not the radical change needed to confront such a desperate situation.”
Hilary continued: “Governments seem to have bottomless pockets when it comes to saving banks from their own failings. Yet there is no such action to protect the poorest from the ravages of finance capital. Leaders at the UN summit should examine their consciences and put the needs of the poor before the interests of the banking elite.”
War on Want notes that the developing world loses £250 billion each year through business tax dodges alone – enough to reach the UN’s anti-poverty targets several times over. Tax dodging and capital flight costs Africa an estimated £75 billion each year – five times what the continent receives in aid.
The charity urged Gordon Brown to take action against British tax havens – including Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands and Bermuda – used by multinational corporations to rob poor countries of revenues which could finance essential public services such as health, education and clean water supply.
War on Want also pressed Mr Brown to drop his opposition to a stamp duty on sterling currency transactions, which could raise billions for anti-poverty programmes.
The charity attacked the premier for claiming that support for the summit from UK companies including mining giant Anglo American and Wal-Mart, including its British subsidiary Asda, can help achieve the development goals.
War on Want research has revealed that Anglo American operations abroad are fuelling conflict and human rights abuse in developing countries. And in addition to Wal-Mart’s notorious anti-union practices, War on Want has found workers still paid less than half a living wage producing clothes for Asda in Bangladesh.
The charity says Britain must share the blame alongside other rich nations for these grim facts:
* Around one in four children in developing countries are considered underweight and at risk of having their future blighted by malnourishment.
* Some 2.5 billion people, almost half the developing world’s population, lack decent sanitation.
* More than one third of the growing urban population in developing countries live in slums.
* Over 500,000 prospective mothers in developing countries die each year in childbirth or of complications from pregnancy.