OECD Development Co-operation Report 2024, 17 July 2024
The global economy, fuelled by the pursuit of growth, is hurtling us towards climate collapse. Yet even with the fires, floods and other environmental alarm bells, our approach to poverty eradication remains much the same: grow the economy first, then redistribute the wealth through social policies at home, or official development assistance overseas.
This is the time-honoured approach, despite the fact that while the world has never been wealthier, about 700 million people are still living in extreme poverty (World Bank Group, 2024). Billions more lack access to the most basic of human needs such as food, water, sanitation and healthcare. In a world that is on track to have its first trillionaire within a decade but to not eradicate poverty for another two centuries, something clearly isn’t working (ILO, 2021; Oxfam, 2024).
And this is a horrible irony that while the conventional recipe for combating poverty is increasing economic growth, people in poverty are hardest hit by the ensuing environmental destruction this growth brings about. People living in poverty are the first victims of air pollution, landslides and flooding because they are forced to live wherever they can afford housing, and they are overrepresented in the 1.2 billion jobs (40% of the world’s total) that depend on healthy ecosystems (United Nations, 2020; ILO, 2018). How credible are poverty eradication strategies that destroy the very foundations of the livelihoods of people in poverty?
