The UN Special Rapporteur participated in a side-event to the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), on the 2020 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) data and publication « Charting pathways out of multidimensional poverty: Achieving the SDGs », which was released on July 16, 2020 by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at the University of Oxford and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme.
Some remarks by the Special Rapporteur
« GDP growth can only help human development if it is combined with an anti-poverty strategy that allows for growth to be captured by the bottom of income earners and if it serves to finance public services to the population, in areas such as education, healthcare, and housing. »
« By looking at political disempowerment and anti-poor discrimination we can better understand how services for the poor are often poor services. »
« We should focus on the hidden dimensions of poverty, such as anguish, disempowerment, lack of recognition of the contributions of people in poverty, and the institutional and social abuse to which they are subjected. People in poverty are not only victims of deprivation but are indeed entitled to services and goods from governments, which allows them to overcome the sense of powerlessness they otherwise experience. Human rights also oblige us to consider the question of inequality as a source of disempowerment. We must tackle inequality more seriously. »
Speakers included:
- Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme
- Sabina Alkire, Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
- HE M.A. Mannan, Minister of Planning, Bangladesh
- Isabel Saint Malo, Former Vice President, Panama
- Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
- Theadora Swift Koller, Senior Technical Advisor, Equity, World Health Organization
- Dean Joliffe, Lead Economist, Development Data Group, World Bank