05) YES: WE CAN ERADICATE POVERTY

 

People's Voice Editorial

 

            October 17 is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, but sadly, this goal is far from being achieved. The United Nations' food agencies estimate that during the years 2011-13, 842 million people were suffering chronic hunger. That is a staggering 12 per cent of the world's population, or nearly one human being out of eight.

 

            These figures are said by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to represent some progress over the past twenty years. But the same organizations say that many countries will not meet the UN's Millennium Development Goal to halve the extent of hunger by 2015. They report that the countries which face the biggest challenges are those which have experienced civil conflicts and wars, as well as landlocked countries and those with weak economic and social infrastructure. In Africa, more than one in five people are undernourished.

 

            But this is not just a "global south" problem. Here in "wealthy" capitalist Canada, hunger and poverty are persistent, especially for Aboriginal peoples on reserves and in many impoverished inner-city neighbourhoods. Brutal cuts to social assistance rates have left many impoverished Canadians with little or nothing to eat near the end of each month.

 

            On a global scale, the real problem is an economic system based on maximizing private profits for the shareholders of transnational corporations, rather than meeting the real needs of human beings and the environment. Greed and war are highly profitable enterprises, while efforts to reduce economic inequality only cut into the huge share of global wealth and income held by the "one percent". It's time to turn things around. Poverty can only be wiped out as part of a wider struggle to put people before profits - and to dump the right-wing politicians who favour the interests of corporations.

 

(The above article is from the October 16-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)