The enemy is poverty

While world leaders are busy fighting wars, no one is paying attention to an important cause: alleviating poverty to advance the cause of human development.

We need governments to come together to fight against poverty, hunger, famine, starvation and lawlessness instead of fighting against each other. The competition among nations should be in the fields of economy, health, education, science, technology, climate change and digital economy, fighting against poverty and hunger

According to some estimates, about eight per cent of the global population is living below the poverty line – almost 648 million people. And while they suffer and wait for world leaders to initiate programmes for their wellbeing, the developed world prioritizes wars over the issues of the poor.

The world needs a full-fledged response from the UN to help advance the cause of fighting against poverty, hunger, food shortages, debt burden and lawlessness for the prosperity and security of the world’s eight billion people. The prime responsibility lies with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to pay attention to the most urgent and pressing needs of the world.

Famine, hunger and poverty can better be tackled through education and skill development, which is key to empowering individuals and communities for development and growth. The agriculture sector, which is the backbone of the economy and generates almost 60 per cent employment for our people living in rural areas, needs to be prioritized.

The agriculture sector and the education sector along with skill development can better address the issues of food shortages ensuring food security and prosperity while opening up opportunities at the same time for people. About 25,000 people including 10,000 children die on a daily basis due to hunger, malnourishment and food shortages in the world.

Pakistan faces funding issues owing to budgetary constraints in almost all sectors of the economy, especially in the field of education, where 25 million children are out of school. The country needs an education emergency to enable children and youngsters to get skill development for the redressal of chronic issues of unemployment and poverty.

The health sector also needs urgent attention for a healthy society. If resources from the war economy are diverted to the health and education sectors, the world can do wonders in addressing the real issues of the people. The war industry or the defence industry is a $2 trillion industry of the world, which shows that all world resources are being diverted towards chaos and destruction.

Advancements in science and technology should have been utilized for the welfare of humanity, but what we see is that the scientific and technological revolution has been utilized for the defence needs of countries, resulting in a war economy that keeps flourishing at the cost of the welfare of the people of poor nations.

Trillions of dollars are annually allocated and spent on defence, which is a non-developmental side of the budget. This money should have been spent on the eradication of hunger and the alleviation of poverty in developing countries.

The largest economy in the world is the war economy, ravaging and destroying the lives of innocent people. Wars are a by-product of the defence industry. But the question is: why? The only result of such wars is the deaths of thousands of people. This non-development budget eats up the development budget, affecting the poor.

The same applies to all developing countries spending a lot of their budgets over their defence needs. As a result, people face poverty and poor health services as their governments are left with no money to sponsor welfare programmes.

COP28 in the United Arab Emirates highlights the worst effects of climatic changes in the world. Climate change is a new threat to the world economy. We saw in the past how countries like Pakistan were badly hit due to extreme weather conditions.

In Pakistan, poverty increased due to the destruction caused by extreme weather incidents in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The poverty problem needs to be addressed at the earliest for the obvious reason that it may affect and disrupt human progress in the near future, adding to the plight and woes of people and pushing them further down the poverty line.

The resources needed to tackle this issue are in abundance. All we need is to divert them from the defence industry to efforts at combatting carbon-ridden climate change. World leaders need to address this issue at the earliest and must be given high importance to save people from hunger, starvation, deaths and destruction. Otherwise, our carelessness will lead to more people getting killed, passing the total death count of world wars in the past.

What is the way forward? We need to use the UN General Assembly forum with support from the permanent members of the Security Council to decide on major issues being faced by people. The war economy should be diverted to the welfare economy to eradicate poverty.

All resources right from AI to the digital economy should be given the right direction to help save people from war threats to access good health services and better education facilities. This will ensure food security and save the ‘global village’ from the wrath and destruction of climate change.

It is better to fight against the viruses playing havoc with the economy and humanity than fighting wars. The war threat is staring humanity right in the face. Let’s fight against poverty to address these issues being faced by people instead of fighting wars like the one in Gaza.

The writer is a former additional secretary and can be reached at: hassanbaig2009@gmail.com