UN International Forum on the Eradication of
Poverty – 15-16 November 2006
International Child Benefit as a Priority
Peter Townsend
Percent of the world’s children severely deprived of
basic human needs
The Current Anti-Poverty Strategy
for the Developing Countries
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1.Broad-based economic growth
2. Overseas aid
3. Human capital/ education
4 Minimal social safety nets
5. Debt relief (more recent)
Outcome of Strategy after 3 decades:Relatively unsuccessful: The primary reason is that for the poor the policies have
proved to be of indirect, and small, help: for example, the results for the poor of high
or low growth have not been closely monitored and the advantages of growth
unambiguously demonstrated.
Contributory reasons include 1) evidence of “trickle-up” growth and persistence of
extreme poverty; 2) conditionality policies for loans and debt relief; 3) cost-recovery
policies in basic social services; 4) cuts in public expenditure; 5) excessive or
misplaced privatisation; 5) unregulated globalisation and unequal terms of trade; 6)
the disproportionate powers of the global “triumvirate” (G8,TNC’s and IFA’s)
Widely accepted World Bank advocacy of investment in human capital (education)
has the problem of indirect outcomes: poverty eradication is postponed until a
generation is better educated. The Bank’s advocacy of targeted welfare has not been
accepted because of meagre allocation of resources, problems of making meanstested schemes work, and lack of relationship to universal or tax-financed group
social security schemes.
Rights to Social Security and an Adequate
Standard of Living
• Two human rights that were re-inforced in
successive human rights instruments
• Two human rights that during 1948-2004
attracted comparatively little attention
• Two human rights that may prove to be a
basic means of reducing world poverty
International Covenant on Social, Economic
and Cultural Rights 1966, coming into force
1976
• Article 11 (1) - The States
• Article 9 - The States
Parties to the present
Parties to the present
Covenant recognise the
Covenant recognise the
right of everyone to an
right of everyone to
adequate standard of living
for himself and his family,
social security, including
including adequate food,
social insurance.
clothing and housing, and to
the continuous
improvement of living
conditions.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948
• Article 22 - Everyone, as a
member of society, has the
right to social security and is
entitled to realisation, through
national effort and international
co-operation and in
accordance with the
organisation and resources of
each state, of the economic,
social and cultural rights
indispensable for their dignity
and the free development of
their personality.
• Article 25(1) – Everyone has
the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and
well-being of their family,
including food, clothing,
housing and medical care and
necessary social services, and
the right to security in the
event of unemployment,
sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other
lack of livelihood in
circumstances beyond their
control.
Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989
• Article 26(I) - States
parties shall recognise for
every child the right to
benefit from social
security, including
social insurance, and
shall take the necessary
measures to achieve the
full realisation of this right
in accordance with their
national law.
• Article 27 (I) - States parties
recognise the right of every
child to a standard of living
adequate for the child's
physical, mental, spiritual,
moral and social development.
• Article 27 (3) - …and shall in
case of need provide material
assistance and support
programmes, particularly with
regard to nutrition, clothing and
housing.
Cardinal features of the Human Rights Framework of Analysis:
Multidisciplinarity – consequences for each discipline as well
as interconnections
Universal – all states parties/ international agencies, and entire
wealth/ income distribution
Equal – rich and poor; non-discriminatory; redistributive;
reciprocity
Provides for basic needs – income; services; facilities
Enforcement – role of international and national law;
international relations; international organisations and TNCs;
the dynamics of democracy
Preventive – structural; organisational; procedural
Collective – society; community; multicultural; intergenerational
Thoroughgoing internationalism – standardisation;
measurement; analysis of globalisation
Potentialities of the Human Rights framework of analysis
for children: Three propositions
• 1. Continuing and even deepening violations of child rights demand
a new framework of thinking and a new international strategy to
reconstruct economic and social organisation and relationships
through the re-prioritisation of policies and action.
• 2. The major concepts of human rights, development, social
exclusion and poverty have to be clarified – and exactly how they
have to be related to each other - and measured.
• 3. International social policy, as devised and implemented by
international agencies, TNCs and groups of states, has become the
key instrument of economic and social change in the world
The universality of human rights, and support for these rights, makes
these propositions acceptable and viable.
Advantages of International Child benefit
• gives direct aid. Current forms of international aid (economic growth,
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overseas aid, debt relief, trading subsidies) are indirect, and unrelated to
locations and categories of severe, and most urgent, need.
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•More immediately effective in reducing child poverty. Direct aid in cash or
kind has more immediate effects. And when such aid is sustained beyond days
and months the creation and management of an administrative infrastructure each
country
becomes necessary.
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•Institutional and social stability. Such infrastructure contributes to other
forms of national, and international social stability and cohesion.
UN Child Investment Fund
An international children's investment fund established under
the auspices of the UN is a practicable possibility. A considerable
part of its annual resources, say half, could be devoted to
countries with extensive child poverty, and where schemes of
child benefit in cash or kind can be introduced or extended. All
countries with large numbers of children who are below an
internationally recognised poverty line and also with comparatively
low GDP might be entitled to participate. Such participation would
require dependable information that the benefits are reaching
children for whom they are intended. There would have to be new
and extended administrative infrastructure – with general benefit
for the national organisation of communications and services. The
remaining annual resources of this UN fund could be made
available to countries for investment in primary education, health
and other schemes of direct benefit to children.
Raising Revenue Internationally for Children
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New Sources of Development Finance
1. Global environment taxes
2. Taxes 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 migrant remittances
• Source: Atkinson A.B. (2004), New Sources of development
Finance, UNU-WIDER, Oxford, OUP.
Restoring the Primacy of Universal
Benefits in the OECD Countries
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Some countries, like the UK, are cutting back on universal or group
benefits and expanding selective means-tested benefits and taxcredits.
This is creating problems of coverage, administrative cost and
management, incentives to seek better paid employment,
malfunctioning, public understanding and acceptability and social
cohesion, with the objective of reducing costs becoming arguable.
It also creates problems of the fulfilment of human rights in the
increasingly linked spheres of domestic and international social
policy.
Acceptance that there can be a new future for social protection, or
social security, within the context of human rights, will be a big
contribution to the delivery of the MDGs, and the reduction child
poverty in particular.