Rights Based International Indicators:
Poverty and the Rights of the Child
David Gordon & Peter Townsend
Metagora Forum, OECD
24-25 May 2005, Paris
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
Child Poverty: The Reality
Age at death by age group, 1990-1995
Source: The State of the World Population 1998
“The
world's biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill
health and suffering across the globe is listed almost at the
end of the International Classification of Diseases. It is
given code Z59.5 -- 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).
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 macroeconomic 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’.
The relationship between the rights of the child and child poverty
Two Problems
1) The UNCRC does not contain an explicit human right to freedom from
poverty
2) Many of the rights in the UNCRC are ambiguous or imprecise and
require judicial judgements to determine if they have been met
Judicial
threshold
Complete
fulfilment
of rights
Rights met
Rights violated
Extreme
violation
of rights
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 decisionmaking 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)
Deprivation can be conceptualised as a continuum which ranges from no deprivation
through mild, moderate and severe deprivation to extreme deprivation.
Continuum of deprivation
Mild
Moderate
Severe
No Deprivation
Extreme 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:
1.
2.
3.
4.
food
safe drinking water
sanitation facilities
health
5.
6.
7.
8.
shelter
education
information
access to services
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.
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.
Percent of the world’s children severely deprived of basic human needs
Absolute Poverty of Children: Rural and Urban Distribution
Severe Deprivation of Children by Region
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.
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!
Table Population Living Below $1.08 per day at 1993 PPP
Region
Percent of population in
Number of poor (millions)
households consuming less than
the poverty line
1987
1998
1987
1998
East Asia(incl.China)
East Asia(excl.China)
26.6
23.9
15.3
11.3
418
114
278
65
Eastern Europe and
Central Asia
0.2
5.1
1
24
Latin America and
Caribbean
15.3
15.6
64
78
Middle East and
North Africa
4.3
1.9
9
6
South Asia
44.9
40.0
474
522
Sun-Saharan Africa
46.6
46.3
217
291
Total(incl.China)
28.3
24.0
1183
1199
Total(excl.China)
28.5
26.2
880
986
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.
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)
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)
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
The Tobin Tax
Summary 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.