A/HRC/44/40 I. Introduction1 1. The world is at an existential crossroads involving a pandemic, a deep economic recession, devastating climate change, extreme inequality, and a movement challenging the prevalence of racism in many countries. A common thread running through all these challenges and exacerbating their consequences is the dramatic and longstanding neglect of extreme poverty and the systemic downplaying of the problem by many governments, economists, and human rights advocates. 2. COVID-19 is projected to push more than 70 million additional people into extreme poverty, and hundreds of millions more into unemployment and poverty. 2 More than 250 million people are at risk of acute hunger.3 Poor people and marginalized communities have been the hardest hit in almost every country, both in terms of vulnerability to the virus and its economic consequences. Climate change, temporarily eclipsed from the front pages, is also on target to exacerbate the phenomenon of ‘climate apartheid,’ ensuring that low-income people bear the brunt of unconscionable climate policies designed to protect the status quo. And governments continue to pour money into repressive practices and carceral systems, while depriving poor communities of basic rights such as decent healthcare, housing, and education. While there is no magic bullet, taking extreme poverty seriously would address one of the main causes and consequences of these problems. 3. The first part of this report criticizes the mainstream pre-pandemic triumphalist narrative that extreme poverty is nearing eradication. That claim is unjustified by the facts, generates inappropriate policy conclusions, and fosters complacency. It relies largely on the World Bank’s measure of extreme poverty, which has been misappropriated for a purpose for which it was never intended. More accurate measures show only a slight decline in the number of people living in poverty over the past thirty years. The reality is that billions face few opportunities, countless indignities, unnecessary hunger, and preventable death, and remain too poor to enjoy basic human rights. 4. The second part argues that the international community’s principal policy response to poverty, through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is inadequately framed, failing, and in need of revitalization. The third part calls for a radical rethinking of existing approaches to poverty eradication. II. Extreme poverty is not being eradicated 5. Huge progress has been made in improving the quality of life for billions of people over the past two centuries, but it does not follow that “extreme poverty is being eradicated.” 4 Many world leaders, economists, and pundits have enthusiastically promoted a selfcongratulatory message, proclaiming progress against poverty to be “one of the greatest human achievements of our time,”5 and characterizing “the decline [in poverty]… to less than 10 per cent, [as] a huge achievement.”6 Others have paid tribute to the role of economic growth and capitalism in lifting a billion people “out of dire poverty into something approaching a decent standard of living.”7 6. But these determinedly over-optimistic assessments generate many questions. What are the implications of serious challenges to the most prominent measure of global poverty 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bassam Khawaja and Rebecca Riddell undertook outstanding research and analysis for the present report, as did Victoria Adelmant. Martin Ravallion, Sanjay Reddy, and World Bank officials provided immensely valuable advice, but share no responsibility for the final content. International Labour Organization, “As job losses escalate, nearly half of global workforce at risk of losing livelihoods,” 29 April 2020; Daniel Mahler, et al., “Updated estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on global poverty,” World Bank Blogs, 8 June 2020. World Food Programme, “COVID-19 will double number of people facing food crises unless swift action is taken,” 21 April 2020. Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now (2018), p. 116. World Bank, “Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues but Has Slowed,” 19 September 2018. Martin Wolf, “The Case for Sane Globalism Remains Strong,” The Financial Times, 16 July 2019. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, “How Poverty Ends,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2020. 3