Capitalism Failed the Poor

Almost half the world, 46%, lives on less than $5.50 a day according to the World Bank.  3.4 billion people struggle to meet their basic needs. But world's attention has turned away from poverty.  Many people in North America or Europe see fighting poverty as hopeless.

Jubilee 2000. Many idealistic people jumped onboard the movement to “Make poverty history” by forgiving the IMF debts of 35 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries hoping monies would be redirected to health and education. They didn't. It was not the promised panacea. Many of those countries are now in debt once more and the call has gone out again to forgive their debts. Autocrats live like kings while their subjects starve.

Muhammad Yunus who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in microfinance inspired business schools to teach microfinance and MFI’s (microfinance institutions) were launched. But it did not work.  Micro-loans failed to help people move out of poverty. About half the MFI directors said they struggled with staying solvent if their micro-entrepreneurs did not pay back their loans.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, released early this week, estimates that almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019: up by 10 million from 2018, and by nearly 60 million in five years.

COVID-19 is the final straw for millions of people already struggling with the impacts of conflict, inequality, and climate change.  Economies large and small, all over the world, are taking a hit because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as in all other crises, it’s the poorest and most marginalized communities and women and girls who will suffer the worst impacts. An estimated 71 million people are expected to be pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020 and by the year 2030, more than 100 million people would have relapsed into poverty.  

Oxfam estimated that between six and eight percent of the global population – half a billion people – could be forced into poverty by the pandemic, setting back the fight against poverty by a decade, and as much as 30 years in some regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. And it could mean that more than half of the global population could be living in poverty in the aftermath of this pandemic.

“Worse yet, in a new report last week, we estimated that 121 million more people could be pushed to the brink of starvation this year as a result of the social and economic fallout from the pandemic – mass unemployment, disruption to food production and supplies, and dwindling aid.”

As many as 12,000 people could die every day from COVID-linked hunger, which is more than those dying daily from the virus itself.