THE CHALLENGE TO REACH THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPING GOALS
Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán - Bolivia*
To talk about the Millennium Developing Goals drives us to numbers, numbers and the sorrow in confirm that despite there are some advances in the fight against poverty, before 5 years of the death line established we are still far to achieve the main goals to eradicate poverty in the world.
Just remember that about 1-billon persons do not accede to clean water and 2.4 billon people lack the access to sanitation. Women in the poor countries take more than 4 hours per day to bring water for their families. And 24,000 children die every day in developing countries from preventable causes like diarrhea contracted from unclean water.
The Millenium Developing Goals are quite far to reach. And probably it happens because we only talk about poverty, but not inequality. We do not talk really about the distances that separate human beings one to each other; leaders do not face the discussion about the real causes.
The 500 richest families in the world have more than the poorest 500 millions of people together in the world. The most powerful 20 economies include not only countries but also big transnational economies. Gaps between rich and poor people break the essence of humanity; gaps between rich and poor countries denounce the big historical debt to the poorest in the world. Even inside the rich countries there are also too many poor people and the gaps are broadening with the deepening of this capitalist and consuming society.
And poverty do not come alone, it is joined to vulnerability.
We can see it thru the impacts of climate change that are getting worst every day. Just in eight months in 2010, after the Copenhagen frustrating Summit, too many climate events all over the world affected the poorest: Russia, Pakistan, Central America, South America just to quote some. And those tragedies increased the numbers of poverty and vulnerability. It is undeniable.
Those events are recalling us that the risks we are facing now are different than 10 years ago, the risks are too strong and will impact on the MDGs severely if rich and developed countries do not reduce substantially their greenhouse emissions, honor their historical debt transferring substantial financial and clean technologies support to the developing cointries and give back the planet the ¨space” to breath again.
Coming from La Paz Bolivia I can tell you that we are loosing our glaciers faster than we thought and it will affect millions of peoples in our access to water and in the access to food, because hundreds of rural communities depend on the ecological balances given by the ice caped mountains. In the Andean Region millions of persons will be affected by the glaciers melting. Scientists say that our glaciers have no more than 50 years left. And we did not cause the climate crisis. 80% of the greenhouse gases in the air is produced by the 20% of the world population concentrated in developed countries. The richest countries, and the richest people in the world are eating this planet conceiving that it is just a Resource meanwhile common sense cries that it is our Home.
So we are convinced that we can not fight against poverty if we not face the necessity to restore the equilibrium with nature and if we do not propose ourselves to change the bases of the mercantile society overpassing the deep distances between human beings to avoid the danger of self-destruction. We need a real change of the system.
It seems to be nice feed ideals of richness and success but not everybody at the same time can reach the wealthy that is sell every day thru the TV or the media. We cannot keep on fostering dreams of individual success and richness without thinking in the global community in the common wealth, and without the consciousness that we cannot grow “forever”. We already know that if everybody in this world would live at the same level of consumption of the medium current average in the rich countries, we would need far more than three planets to survive.
That is why in Bolivia the people is beginning to build a new concept that promotes the principle of the SUMA QAMAÑA the words in Quechua that mean LIVING WELL. It is now inside our new Constitution. With that concept we prevail the idea that we have to expect to live well, not better; because the word “better” suggest the un-endless growing, the unlimited enrichment that for us do not exist. It is not possible simply because it would consume all the biodiversity and the life in the planet and would deepening the distances between people. We have to begin conceiving development and wealth in a different way: as equilibrium and equality, as harmony with nature, as empathy between people.
If words could change the world we could have living in a real different world decades ago. People have the will to change but we need to convince our governors to really be committed with the claim of the planet and to be coherent at every moment with these efforts. We cannot fight poverty investing in wars and more weapons than in people. One cannot talk about the MDGs and increasing at the same time racial intolerance and marginalization. The world leaders have now the decisions on their side, we ask them to do it correctly.
Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán is Director of the Solon Foundation, a recognized institution in Bolivia for its work on human rights, integration and culture. Is the author of some books, various reports, articles and videos about social, economic and cultural rights and as water and gender activist took part in international campaigns linked to the World Social Forum. Between 1999 and 2003 was the National Coordinator of the Solidarity Committee on Domestic Workers Rights in Bolivia promoting the approval of an specific law to protect their rights. Since 2006 coordinates the “Blue October” Campaign in Bolivia, a big social yearly mobilization for the right to Water as a common good and human right. She is a Board Member of Food and Water Watch in the USA. belongs the Women's Net Transforming the Economy in Latin America and is part of the LA Committee for an International Tribunal on Climate Justice.