I have to admit that I learned about last year's earthquake in Japan through a commercial on VH1. After a few weeks in the Malawian village where I lived with no radio, television, or newspaper, I came to the capital for a weekend off, and between Nicki Minaj videos and sips of beer, saw an ad for the Japanese Red Cross.
“What's with this ad?” I scoffed to my friends. “Like Japan really needs our aid.”
The bar's patrons stared at me, incredulous at my insensitivity, and after some light mockery, explained what had happened in Japan.
I joined the world in mourning Japan's tragedy, but despite its callousness, I think my original sentiment had some merit. Why does it take a well-publicized disaster for us to acknowledge a loss?
21,000 children die every day from preventable causes; that's 7.6 million per year. An estimated 316,000 people died in Haiti's 2010 earthquake. The world's governments pledged $2.1 billion in relief for Haiti in 2010, and in the same year private donations to the same cause reached $1.1 billion (whether those funds were actually spent effectively is another matter). By contrast, WHO estimates that GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, prevented 3.4 million child deaths between 2000 and 2008; their budget for 2010 was $1 billion.
We respond to disasters because they strike us as extraordinary, outside the natural scope of things; the death of a child from malaria or measles is sad, but only part of the world's inevitable march. The deluge of media coverage that follows a tsunami surrounds us with heart-wrenching photographs for a short time, but even the most compassionate among us cannot stand constant exposure to the world's quotidian tragedies.
This is not a critique of our generosity after disasters. I am proud to live in a nation, and a culture, of sympathy with the world's most vulnerable. I worry, however, that our sympathy is easily manipulated. Studies show that the probability of donating aid, and the amount donated, are heavily influenced by shared colonial history, shared language, media coverage, and distance. We don't send money to people we can't picture, who live far away.
The problem is that these people are precisely those who are most vulnerable in a disaster. The third of the world's population living in low-income countries is 90% more likely to die in the event of a natural disaster than those living in high-income countries. This disparity could be chance; it so happens that the world's recent deadliest disasters, like the 1984 drought in Ethiopia and Sudan and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, have happened in low-income countries. But it is also true that a lack of infrastructure, government corruption, and vulnerability to disease render low-income countries more susceptible to fatalities in disasters, and less able to recover afterwards.
This means that the best and most effective steps we can take to help people affected by calamity happen before, not after, disaster strikes. Writing of the current famine in the Horn of Africa, Suzanne Dvorak, chief executive of Save the Children, said, “We cannot forget that these children are wasting away in a disaster that we could - and should - have prevented.” Jane Cocking, Humanitarian Director of Oxfam, called the famine a “preventable disaster.” They say this because its terrible effects were the result of a human, not natural, problem. Patrick Webb, an expert in food security at Tufts University, said, “Actually, a lot of famine happens when there is food in the market. It's about people's inability to acquire that food. Famine represents a catastrophic failure of all the systems that people rely on to survive.”
Disasters give us impetus. But the problems that make natural events so, well, disastrous, are already here. The UN estimates that every $1 invested in preparedness strategies saves $7 in emergency relief; imagine the impact that long-term investment in development could have on disaster fatalities and damages.
And what does it take to qualify as a disaster, anyway? I'd argue that the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty are suffering from a disaster of the worst kind. Their calamities are small in scale but extreme in effect; their earthquakes are those of the heart. And the floods that inundate them are not of kindness and sympathy, but of indifference.
Before going on the 1.4 Billion Reasons tour, the New York City Global Poverty Project office did Live Below the Line together as a group. As you will see from the above video, it wasn’t always easy. We complained. We overcooked our rice at one point, leaving it mushy and almost inedible (we still ate it). We stared anxiously at our bananas, hoping they didn’t rot by the week otherwise we wouldn’t have breakfast. We were cranky.
Through all of this, though, we were also more aware of our privilege and inspired by the profound difficulties faced by the world’s poor. We lived on $1.50 for food and drink for a week, but it was for only a week. I can’t imagine living for longer than a week, or what it would be like to go to school or work on a farm with so little food in my belly. It also made me more conscious of what I, as an American, can do to champion these issues. The United States has historically participated and advocated some of the most important and influential aid projects (think the Marshall Plan) and it is possible to see a huge change in the span of a lifetime. Join us.
We are very excited to launch Live Below The Line 2012 today! Here is an inspiring story from our participant last year David Miah.
A confession. When I signed up to take part in Live Below The Line last year I didn’t think it was going to be that difficult. I’ve done the student thing. I lived off an intake of instant noodles and porridge for three years. How difficult could living on £1 a day actually be?
I learned rapidly that it is pretty darn difficult and for all of the whining that I’ve done in my life about having to budget or scrape money together, I’ve never come close to experiencing anything close to poverty, nor have I experienced the lack of choice, monotony, and plain hard work that is all part of having to live on such a meagre sum of money.
Let’s go back to May 2011 and the beginning of the challenge. Before I could even think about rustling up a thirty pence meal I had to figure out exactly what ingredients I could buy and where I could purchase them from. It sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? After all, unless we are extremely privileged, we all have to go shopping for our own food. This part of the challenge was in fact every bit as draining as the meals I consumed throughout the week were insubstantial. The hours I spent comparing the prices of lentils felt like the most ridiculous use of my time, and then once I had my shopping list prepared I had to trawl from shop to shop around Hackney in order to purchase my week’s ingredients at the lowest price. It was nothing short of exhausting, and my reward for all of this effort? A truly terrible and tasteless pot of carrot soup that had to last me for five lunches! It felt so unfair that all of my effort was met with so little reward, and joining the none too subtle dots, this is because a life lived in poverty is met with little reward and is unfair.
And this sense of unfairness came not only from having to eat my horrible carrot soup, but also from a sense that all of my choices were stripped of me. The food I bought was dictated by my financial means, where I bought it was dictated by my financial means, and even the choices I had over my social life were taken away. When friends asked me to join them in the pub, I couldn’t, and when colleagues asked me to join them for a work lunch I couldn’t do that either. In the context of my life as a single young man these choices really are ‘Pub or no pub?’, but in the context of real lived extreme poverty these choices are far more serious. Healthcare or no healthcare? Do I feed my child a decent meal, or send my child to school?
I’ve managed to make my Live Below The Line experience sound pretty meagre, and it certainly wasn’t easy, but I am 100% glad that I took part. Friends, family and colleagues of mine were very generous with donations and I was able to raise a decent amount of money for charity, but above and beyond this it was a campaign that truly engaged my sponsors. Everybody asked questions about Live Below The Line: why I was taking part in the challenge, and even how they could take part themselves. For those people that sponsored me, food consumption is completely taken for granted. They can eat whatever they like, whenever they like, in whichever quantity they desire. And it is taking food consumption out of the sphere of the taken for granted that makes Live Below The Line such a powerful campaign, and why it engaged so many of my own friends and colleagues.
I’m sure there are some of you who feel that living on £1 a day for five days can’t be that difficult just as I did, and I really want to encourage you to take part so you can experience for yourselves just how difficult it can be. And you might not feel that you need to change your eating habits to understand the trying nature of living in poverty, but true empathy does come from putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes, and if you can engage people in conversations about extreme poverty and raise money for charity along the way, I think that’s a pretty cool thing.
We invite you to join us in participating in Live Below The Line 2012 by signing up here to undertake this incredible challenge for The Global Poverty Project.
The abolition of slavery in the UK came about in 1833, through an act of UK Parliament seeking to protect those with less fortunate beginnings from the comparatively privileged souls of the UK. It was to provide protection from the pleasure-seeking arrogance that can become endemic in more developed countries.
With the passing of this act, slavery began to diminish and collapse throughout the world, forging a path for greater freedom, greater democracy and eventually the universal declaration of human rights, in 1948.
Yet there were factors unbeknown to Wilberforce and co that would mean slave labour would continue for almost 200 years after their act was passed in parliament.
With Rio+20 fast approaching, Ilaria Pasquinelli - board member and consultant at The Ethical Fashion Consultancy - recently brought attention to the often-denied, yet undoubtedly immense obligation of the fashion industry to catch up and play its part in creating sustainability through the eradication of poverty (a key theme in this years summit).
Image source: www.ecouterre.com
What is brilliant about Ilaria’s blog is how she clearly illustrates how we have arrived at the point we are at today, where every man, woman and child in the UK consumes a whapping 55kg of clothing per year.
“Until the late 80s, fashion retailers and brands would typically have two main collections a year: spring/summer and autumn/winter. Then, in the 90s things changed dramatically. Increased competition saw retailers incentivising customers to visit their stores more frequently. To do this they expanded their product ranges. The latest fashions seen on runways and celebrities began to rapidly populate high-street retailers' ranges. Designers and trend seekers would turn a garment around from drawing to shop floor in just two weeks. The era of super cheap and super fast took off.”
This has led to massive change in how fashion retailers buy and where they buy from, with almost 75% of world clothing exports now being produced in developing countries and lead times having dropped from 90 days to 30 days. The role that fashion retailers play has also changed.
“Over the course of decades, large fashion retailers have acquired significant power as they are in direct contact with the end customer and can therefore influence preference. Retailers are also at the root of globalisation of consumers' tastes. Wherever one goes, people dress very similarly.
The growing complexity of the supply chains and functions of large fashion retail chains has also meant that a company's activity is not restricted to the core business of retail distribution. As a result supply chains have become largely opaque and nearly impossibly to track.”
These factors combine to create much greater pressure on the suppliers. The fashion retailers dwarf their suppliers in bargaining power and market influence. This has led countries such as Bangladesh to keep the minimum wage light years away from an actual living wage. But this is completely non-sensical…
“…It is estimated that in cases where production is out sourced to a developing world country, workers' wages only account for between 0.5- 4% of the final retail cost of a garment.”
This is a well-known fact in the senior rankings of the fashion retailers, who often demand a 75% margin. This massive margin combined with ever increasing transport costs are where the real costs lie. These numbers render the cost of wages paid to workers as insignificant.
Gap, Next and Marks & Spencer have all launched their own inquiries into abuses of working regulations at their Indian suppliers, which have resulted in children such as six-year-old Bubli being left alone while her parents work. Source: The Guardian.
These enormous margins are also a major contributing factor to clothing now being cheaper, poorer quality, more disposable and more densely consumed than at any other time in history. Textile production has almost tripled in the last 30 years, with an estimated 1m tonnes of textiles being thrown away every year in the UK alone.
“In 1977 the total demand amounted to thirty one million tonnes of fibre. In 2007, this figure had risen to nearly eighty million tonnes.”
I agree with Ilaria that the key topic on the Rio agenda should be full-scale transparency. Unlike slavery in the early 1800s, a key obstacle we face is that the consumer is unseeing and disconnected from the misery and horror of living a life of servitude.
But petitioning the fashion industry seems to be akin to banging heads against walls. Paying wages that cannot be lived on, forcing overtime, banning union representation and workplace abuse are just some of the horrors going on every day so that we can satisfy our insatiable thirst for fashion. Why has such small progress been made since the discovery of these human right offences? Isn’t a fresh approach needed?
The worlds most respected and developed governments continue to dedicate huge sums of aid in the quest for an end to extreme poverty. Yet with 80% of some countries GDP coming from garment production alone, they would be better off bringing these bulging corporations to call.
“… With sustainability still not incorporated within the core strategy of most fashion retailers, change must happen,” warns Ilaria. But with legislation that criminalises companies that profit from slave labour, change would happen - and the fashion industry might just become a power for massive economic growth in some of the world’s poorest regions.
On December 17 2010, a young Tunisian man set himself on fire. This desperate act helped to spark a political revolution in the Arab world. Images of people revolting against notoriously oppressive regimes captivated onlookers worldwide. More than a year later, the world is indeed a different place – long-term dictators have been unseated, governments shuffled or disbanded altogether, and competitive political parties formed. Leaders of states like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Yemen have managed to retain a hold on power, but only with some combination of repression and concessions in the face of powerful collective civic action.
For the states whose citizens won political freedom, myriad challenges remain. Indeed, the shift to democratic elections has proved more difficult than anticipated. This should come as no surprise – for while revolutions are swift and dramatic by definition, democratic transitions can be, in contrast, painfully gradual and mundane.
Not so long ago, sub-Saharan Africa underwent the same sort of radical transformation sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. In the 1980s and 90s, what scholar Samuel Huntington called the “third wave of democracy” changed the continent, unseating long-term dictators like Uganda’s Idi Amin, Guinea’s Sekou Toure, and Zaire’s Mobutu Sese-Seko. Like the Arab Spring, Africa’s democratic phenomenon was the subject of intense international interest and optimism. Some twenty years later, however, the political situation is more often viewed with a mixture of cynicism and despair.
The truth is most countries in sub-Saharan Africa remain among the poorest in the world and too many are ridden with corruption and conflict. The United Nations Human Development Index – a comprehensive comparative measure that takes into consideration factors like poverty, security, equality, educational access, and political freedom – consistently ranks these countries in the lowest tier. In 2011, African states occupied three-quarters of the lowest 40 rankings. Even Ghana and Senegal – democratic standouts in relative terms – ranked 135 and 155 respectively. Dead last is the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The DRC has had a particularly difficult transition to democracy. After gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, the country – like so many others in sub-Saharan Africa –attempted its first democratic elections, only to undergo a period of armed conflict that brought a fierce military dictatorship into power. As a one-man political institution, Mobutu Sese-Seko employed harsh and exploitative tactics to maintain control for a remarkable 32 years, until internal opposition and neighbouring conflicts forged a successful armed resistance movement. However, despite victory – and the symbolic name change from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo – the new state looked much like the old. Within months, it slid back into a brutal civil war that only officially ended in 2003. In the years that followed, widespread violence remained prevalent, and a transitional government held only tenuous control.
In 2006, however, the DRC held its first multiparty elections in nearly 40 years. It did so with the monetary and administrative support of the international community, many of whom were present to oversee the process. Voter turn-out was around 80%, but the results were highly contentious and ignited violent clashes around the country. The results were postponed, and an extensive legal process ensued. Nevertheless, MONUC argued that they were broadly satisfied with the level of transparency and the overall results. In December, Joseph Kabila was declared President.
Similarly, the elections of 2011 have been widely condemned for allegations of violence and fraud. Although much of the criticism is merited –and I condemn absolutely voter intimidation and conflict incited by politicians– we must not forget the incredible difficulty involved in democratic transition, nor the DRC’s unique, brutal history. If we cannot expect Egypt, with its strong tradition of military neutrality, to transition without hiccups, we must also develop a set of reasonable expectations for the Congo. Its 15 years of “freedom” from dictatorship have been marred by civil war, mass migration, and a near-lack of decent self-governance. The simple fact that Congolese-led elections took place at all should be viewed as a significant step on the path toward democracy.
Democratisation is a process, not an event. It is a long, protracted, and difficult transition that involves a radical rehaul of political leadership, institutions, and culture, and a shift in societal views on political participation, deference and civic ownership. When this occurs in the wake of long-term violence and civil war, the process is even more complicated. In the same way that the Arab Spring has reignited international discourse on democracy’s value, I hope that the Congolese elections can spark a discourse on reasonable expectations for democratic progression. If we view these events in their own historical context, perhaps we can develop a better gauge of whether and how things have improved, and a deeper understanding of what remains to be done. And, if this can be achieved, we all stand to benefit.
