A/HRC/44/40 indicators, can be re-shaped and supplemented in order to achieve the key goals which otherwise look destined to fail. Business as usual should not be an option. IV. Steps towards ending poverty 58. Continued large-scale global poverty is incompatible with the human right to an adequate standard of living, and the right to life alongside the right to live in dignity. The failure to take the necessary steps to eliminate it is a political choice and one that leaves firmly in place discriminatory practices based on gender, status, race, and religion, designed to privilege certain groups over others.93 59. In recalibrating the SDGs and launching a sustained campaign to really end poverty in all its forms, the following steps are crucial. A. Reconceive the relationship between growth and poverty elimination 60. Economic growth is at the core of the SDGs, the engine relied upon to lift people out of poverty. Despite compelling critiques 94 of the simplistic orthodox formulation that “growth is good for the poor,” 95 mainstream economists and leading international organizations have been reluctant to adopt more balanced approaches.96 61. In too many cases, the promised benefits of growth either don’t materialize or aren’t shared. Countries that experience resource booms often don’t see benefits outside that sector.97 Natural resource extraction employs relatively few people and can actually decrease the poverty reducing impact of other sectors. 98 Poverty gaps have increased in major hydropower states compared to non-hydropower states.99 Commercial agriculture, mining, and other land-intensive industries have contributed to significant displacement of communities around the world, 100 separating people from land they depend on for food, shelter and livelihoods, and resulting in impoverishment. 101 Industrial mining by multinationals often substantially decreases food security102 and displaces jobs in artisanal mining.103 62. The argument that pro-market policies automatically benefit the poor is likewise at odds with the evidence. Traditional pro-growth polices, such as lower corporate tax rates, labor ‘reforms,’ deregulation, austerity-driven cuts to services, and privatization can have devastating effects on the well-being of poor people and the state’s capacity to reduce poverty. Unless they are carefully calibrated, shrinking public services, liberalizing trade, 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 14 Thomas Piketty, Capital and Ideology (2020), p. 2. Joseph Stiglitz, et al., Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being (2019); Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis, “Is Green Growth Possible,” New Political Economy, vol. 25 (2019); Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics (2017). David Dollar, et al., “Growth Still is Good for the Poor,” World Bank Working Paper 6568, 1 August 2013. For tentative steps, see UN, Financing for Sustainable Development, pp. 179-80. Andrew Warner, “Natural Resource Booms in the Modern Era: Is the curse still alive?,” IMF Working Paper WP/15/237, 2015, pp. 32-33. Luc Christiaensen, et al., “The (Evolving) Role of Agriculture in Poverty Reduction: An Empirical Perspective,” Journal of Development Economics, vol. 96 (2011), p. 252. Benjamin K. Sovacool and Götz Walter, “Internationalizing the Political Economy of Hydroelectricity: Security, Development and Sustainability in Hydropower States,” Review of International Political Economy, vol. 26 (2019), p. 49. See, e.g. Oxfam, Common Ground: Securing land rights and safeguarding the earth (2016). See, e.g. Christophe Gironde and Gilda Senties Portilla, “From Lagging Behind to Losing Ground: Cambodian and Laotian Household Economy and Large-Scale Land Acquisitions,” in C. Gironde, et al., (eds.), Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: Focus on South-East Asia (2015), pp. 189-90. Tim Wegenast and Jule Beck “Mining, Rural Livelihoods and Food Security: A Disaggregated Analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa,” World Development, vol. 130 (2020), p. 7. Ben Radley, “A Distributional Analysis of Artisanal and Industrial Wage Levels and Expenditure in the Congolese Mining Sector,” The Journal of Development Studies (2020), p. 1.