Thomas Pogge

By Rachel Payne

ASAP President Thomas Pogge has an original prescription for the post-MDG agenda, according to The Guardian.

Pogge argues that the post-2015 global development framework must be fundamentally different than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) it is replacing. According to Mark Tran’s post on The Guardian’s development blog, Poverty Matters, Pogge sees two major failings in the MDGs: lack of ambition and lack of accountability for developed countries. With the MDGs, deeply unambitious poverty alleviation goals were masked by shifting methodology for poverty measurement. The framework also failed to put clear demands on developed countries to contribute to poverty alleviation. MDG 8, the only goal that applies to the developed world, is entirely devoid of measurable targets.

Pogge argues that the persistence of poverty can to a large extent be attributed to global practices, like trade protectionism, corporate tax dodging, and arms export, that can only be stopped by developing countries. In his view, a truly effective post-MDG agenda must target these practices through global reform goals, coupled with precise and consistent goals and indicators for poverty alleviation.

To read the full post on Poverty Matters, click here.

Indian economist Sukhadeo Thorat.

The project will feature a free online series of articles, interviews, background reports, and how-tos on promoting impact. It will be both theoretical, exploring ways to conceptualize positive impact and effectively pursue it, and practical, offering compelling narratives about academics who have achieved positive impact through policy consultations, civil society campaigns, and on-the-ground interventions.

See the ASAP web site for an Impact: Global Poverty profile on:

• Indian economist Sukhadeo Thorat, who has had enormous influence on policy and academic initiatives focused on the dalit (former untouchable) communities.
• Canadian research-evaluation director Fred Carden, who led a study focused on poverty policy impact in 23 developing countries.
• UK medical researcher Alan Fenwick, whose Schistosomiasis Control Initiative has improved the lives of millions of children in sub-Saharan Africa.

How you can contribute:

1. Write. Write for Impact: Global Poverty, by contributing a piece for Impact Stories, a feature on academics whose work has strengthened poverty policy or development practice and benefited people living in poverty, or a practical piece, offering advice about specific means of impact, public outreach, or education. For example, one might write a “how-to” on grant writing or interacting with the media.
2. Nominate. Offer nominations for academics to be profiled in Impact Stories, an ongoing feature on academics whose work has strengthened poverty policy or development practice and benefited people living in poverty or for the Impact: Global Poverty advisory board.
3. Blog. Identify and get permission to post content from salient blogs.

If you are interested in contributing to Impact: Global Poverty, e-mail Luis Cabrera at a.l.cabrera@bham.ac.uk

By Sumaiyah Moolla

Articles in the Impact: Global Poverty Series have thus far focused on researchers seeking to have a more direct impact on aspects of poverty alleviation policy or practice. This article focuses on teaching as well as research contributions by a group of Canadian academics working with teachers and students in Haiti.

In 2010 Haiti was devastated by an earthquake of epic proportions. More than 300,000 people lost their lives, countless more were injured and an estimated 1.5 million were left homeless, their communities reduced to rubble. Haiti’s plight was witnessed on a global scale, as shocking images of human suffering and destruction were disseminated in the world’s media.

The impact of the earthquake on the country’s education system was devastating. Many universities were severely damaged or destroyed, including the newly christened campus of Quisqueya University. There, researchers from Quebec had been supporting the development of an urban studies programme through the Precarious Neighbourhoods and Sustainable Urban Development in Haiti project. ASAP spoke to programme participant Nicolas Lemay-Hébert about his ongoing work in Haiti and the struggles that Haitian academics and their students face as recovery continues.

 What motivated you and your colleagues to go to Haiti?:  The Precarious Neighbourhoods and Sustainable Urban Development in Haiti project is led by three senior researchers from the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM): Jean Goulet, Paul Bodson (both urban studies) and Paul-Martel Roy (economics). They have a longstanding history of collaboration with Haitian institutions, stretching well before the earthquake. The project started in 2007, and I joined in 2010 in my capacity as adjunct professor of economics at UQAM. They were looking for an additional colleague to supervise graduate students in Haiti and to teach specific seminars on post-disaster reconstruction and humanitarian action. As a scholar interested in humanitarian affairs, peacebuilding and statebuilding, and with increased interest in these themes among Haitian students, they asked me to join their team. I also think they approached me because of my flexibility as a (still fairly) young researcher; there are not a lot of lecturers who are ready to spend their Spring breaks teaching under a tent in Haiti! Personally, it provided me with the opportunity to see Haiti for the first time, and to extend my expertise from Kosovo and Timor-Leste to the newest focal point of the ‘aid caravan’. This research interest further developed into a passion for me, as I have now visited Haiti seven times since the earthquake.

What was the original aim of the project?  The initial goal of the project was to support local institutions with the aim of strengthening networks of local organisations and enabling them to intervene effectively and competently in poor neighbourhoods in Haiti. Training and support structures offered under this project have been designed and implemented in partnership with local actors, in particular, the Research and Technological Exchange Group (GRET) in Haiti, a French non-governmental organisation (NGO), which is active in poor neighbourhoods.

Images of the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12 2010 have been all over the media, revealing the vastness of the destruction in several cities, particularly Port-au-Prince [Haiti’s capital city], but also the precarious conditions in which the majority of the urban population live. Yet, these same images also revealed another reality: they showed mechanisms of local solidarity, which are crucial to understanding these precarious neighbourhoods. Faced with a growing structural shortage of available housing, as well as the absence of coherent government urban management policies, these populations have provided themselves with housing and urban services which they deemed essential to their own specific community. The aim of the project was certainly not to teach Haitians ‘what to do’, but rather to help them build from existing resources and support them in the process of setting up a department of urban studies at Quisqueya University (UNIQ). Obviously, the earthquake – and the death toll associated with it, for students as well as for faculty members – increased the need for supervision and teaching on our behalf. Sadly, the university had inaugurated its new campus a few weeks before the earthquake; it was completely destroyed by the earthquake, killing many students and teachers.

How did the partnership between UQAM and UNIQ come about?  The partnership between the two universities officially started in 1997, but there is a longstanding history of collaboration and exchange between Haitian and Quebecian universities. It is mostly due to the special relationship that the Quebecois have entertained with the Haitians since the 1970s. Montreal is home to one of the biggest Haitian Diaspora communities, and we have many well-established scholars, artists and civil servants of Haitian decent (including the 70,000 Haitians living in Montreal – almost two per cent of the city’s population). Hence, I presume that the partnership between the two specific universities made sense from the start – especially if we take into account the linguistic affinities between the two countries. This project was enabled by a grant from the Canadian International Development Agency, under the University Partnerships in Cooperation and Development programme (www.acdi-cida.gc.ca).

Describe the scene when you first arrived in Haiti.  This likely betrays my western culture bias, but I immediately thought of the images of the bombing of Dresden during the Second World War. It was probably the sight of the Port-au-Prince cathedral, with only its lower walls and its façade standing after the earthquake, which made me think of the images of Dresden Cathedral after Allied bombing. In any case, the cathedral was clearly a landmark in the city, and images of its destruction came to represent the extent of destruction caused by the earthquake (on par with the National Palace, home to the president) for news agencies. It is also quite telling that the design for the new cathedral, to be rebuilt in the same spot as its predecessor, will integrate the façade of the collapsed building – an important marker both on the road of reconstruction and of the necessity to remember the traumatic experience and the deceased.

I also realised the extent of the destruction by accompanying my colleagues on their visits to various precarious neighbourhoods. With the overpopulation of Port-au-Prince and its vicinity, the poorest segments of the population were progressively forced out of Port-au-Prince’s nicest areas to the coast, the slopes, the ravines and the central areas, a product of the deterioration of older neighbourhoods. As Solidarités Internationales notes, it is not only 30 to 40 per cent of the urban population that live in these precarious neighbourhoods (as in most Latin American capitals); in fact, the vast majority of Port-au-Prince citizens live in a self-constructed, self-organised district.[i] It is important to understand that these neighbourhoods respond to a specific way of spatial organisation, articulated around mechanisms of local solidarity and needs arisen from the informal economy. At the same time, this spatial organisation exposes the population to environmental risks, especially in the slopes and ravines area. In one such area (Canapé Vert), I saw a lorry literally dropping bricks from the top of a hill down into the valley. It was also disheartening to see inhabitants pulling buckets of rubble to the top of a hill – one bucket at a time. The topography of these areas makes them almost impossible to access by car – let alone by truck – which makes rubble removal a very difficult operation.

If the earthquake killed more than 300,000 (many Haitians buried their relatives privately without notifying the government, which makes official estimation a tricky business), signs of the human catastrophe were not immediately visible on my first trip, six months after the earthquake. Port-au-Prince was a gigantic pile of rubble (the equivalent of 10 World Trade Centre sites), but you become de-sensitised to the sight of collapsed buildings after a while. Also, people with mental or physical disabilities suffer widely from stigmatisation and marginalisation in Haiti, which results in them being kept out of sight in the central areas of Port-au-Prince; consequently, the most blatant signs of the earthquake’s human toll had been removed in the first few months. However, I still remember vividly the first conversation I had with my colleagues at UNIQ and the State University of Haiti, describing their own ordeal during and after the goudougoudou (Creole for earthquake). I also remember seeing little things that reminded me of the sheer human cost of the earthquake: drafts of documents scattered where the United Nations headquarters once stood, a testimony to the suddenness of the event; people digging in the rubble to find the bodies of loved ones; babies’ shoes lost in the middle of piles of debris – a reminder that the earthquake had spared no one.

It is thought that a large proportion of Haitian higher education institutions were damaged or destroyed in the earthquake. What are conditions like for Haitian students?  It is difficult to say, since my personal experience derives from my involvement with one specific university – moreover, a private university. However, one thing appears clear to me (and my colleagues in Haiti): universities in Haiti suffer from a structural phenomenon where the best elements (students and faculties) are hired by foreign universities and institutions (external brain drain) or by international non-governmental institutions (internal brain drain), weakening governmental agencies in the process. While this is a situation that may appear advantageous at first sight, especially for students (who is not looking frantically for placement opportunities for their students in these tough economic times?), recruitment conditions are not always optimal, and most students discover that their degrees are not recognised abroad and subsequently have to retrain. This is especially true for healthcare and engineering graduates. It is difficult for us to make any judgement, as we obviously don’t have any legitimacy in commenting on this process. I have lived, studied or worked in Canada, France, the United States and now the United Kingdom, so who am I to judge the personal choice of many colleagues in Haiti, leaving their home country for better working conditions – a choice I have myself made multiple times? One thing appears clear though: if the personal choice and motivations behind each decision to leave the country cannot be disputed, it compounds to a collective disaster for Haitian universities and institutions. Hence, the situation of the higher education institutions cannot be understood by looking only at the institutional destruction of the earthquake; one has to look at the structural factors which have marginalised and weakened higher education institutions in the past decades. At the same time, it is not a situation that is specific to higher education institutions; it has to be understood within the wider story of the progressive weakening of Haitian state institutions. There is an inherent tension between the conscious policies of many western governments at attracting the most promising segments of the Haitian society in their ‘chosen immigration’ schemes and their pledge to support local ownership and strengthen national capabilities in Haiti. However, it’s not all gloom and doom, as there are positive signals emerging from recent developments, including the inauguration of the Roi Henri Christophe Centre for Higher Education in Limonade (northern Haiti), or the continued excellence of scholars associated with UNIQ and Haiti’s State University resisting the siren song of expatriation.

What response have you had from your Haitian students? What knowledge or skills do they most want to learn?  They are so eager to learn and make a difference, it is just amazing. When you see the conditions in which they are forced to write their essays – relying almost exclusively on excerpts of books available on Google Scholar (rarely full chapters, which in turn forces the students to show imagination in completing the author’s arguments) or the grey literature available online – you can only be amazed by how resourceful they are. I have taught two intensive seminars as part of the project: an advanced seminar on qualitative methods entitled “Local-International Interactions in the Reconstruction Process of Precarious Districts” and one on “Emergency, Reconstruction and Rubble Removing”. The students were particularly eager to learn how to conduct interviews and write articles or reports. I thought it was important to make them understand the ‘rules of the game’, to make them aware of what was considered an ‘authorised discourse’ and, in the process, break the cycle of reproduction of certain discourses (‘Haitians cannot take care of themselves’ type of narrative). As an assistant editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, I deal with the rejection of articles and the reproduction of a certain knowledge on a daily basis. My students have also shown a marked interest in past experiences in Kosovo, Timor-Leste, Iran (Bam) or Indonesia (following the tsunami). I guess it helped them put the Haitian situation into perspective.

How do your Haitian students apply the knowledge that’s passed on? Most of them work full time during the day and attend university in the evening, so they have an opportunity to apply their knowledge right away. They are also in high demand by the aid community, looking for locals to contribute to the reconstruction efforts. I am also currently working on the publication of three outstanding essays written by Haitian students, which hopefully will send a signal to the other students that it is possible to publish and make your ideas well known outside of Haiti.

Do you think that providing assistance via knowledge transfer is as effective as offering practical help in the field?   It’s not an either-or situation. Practical help was clearly needed in the aftermath of the earthquake, especially in the first few months. However, there was indisputably a tension between reconstruction efforts conducted ‘from the outside-in’ and strengthening local capacities and local actors. The tension is not as much actor-driven per se (as any international NGO will employ locals, for instance) as it is a by-product of a specific mindset – the ‘we do it ourselves’ mentality that plays such a crucial role in humanitarian action. As former Haitian Minister of Heath Daniel Henrys once said, “Haiti has lived in a state of urgency for the past two decades”. So, I would argue that knowledge transfer and strengthening of local capabilities is – and should be – a crucial element for every international intervention. Quite honestly, I think it is an opinion that has become quite consensual in policy circles and in the specialised literature, despite the fact that there is actually no consensus on how to implement a significant modification of current mindsets. Hence, we end up following the same patterns of intervention, while labelling these patterns differently.

Haiti is considered one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere – how can knowledge transfer and improving research methods facilitate in alleviating poverty? Certain scholars (Jeffrey Sachs, among others) are preaching for the establishment of a Marshall Plan for Haiti – mirroring the postwar reconstruction effort of Western Europe through American funding (and lending). The Marshall Plan represented two per cent of French gross domestic product (GDP) over a period of three years. Yet, Haiti received an average of eight per cent of its annual GDP in aid in recent years, representing nothing less than four Marshall Plans per year.[ii] There needs to be significant change in how aid is disbursed in Haiti, and how local actors are included (or not). There is certainly a need for ‘alternative’ development schemes, focusing on local capabilities and knowledge transfer. There is a need to address the root causes of the fragility of the state in Haiti – and like it or not, that also means conducting an analysis of the role played by international actors in the marginalisation process of state institutions. I don’t believe that international factors are the unique cause of the stalled economic development in Haiti, yet I question the seriousness of any analysis leaving international factors unexamined.

What academic capabilities are in need in Haiti?  Without romanticising the local, so to speak, I find the Haitian production of articles and books is outstanding. Most of my Haitian colleagues are both innovative and highly productive. Most of them are already well integrated in the knowledge production fields, especially through French connections, so I feel slightly uncomfortable with the assertion that we should strengthen their academic capability in one way or another. However, other social scientists are operating under the radar, mostly because they are producing research using alternative frameworks. Personally, I think that what is lacking is a better integration of these alternative frameworks into the global field of knowledge production. This is mostly a joint responsibility – meaning that it is our responsibility in western institutions to open our minds to unconventional analyses and research, and it is the responsibility of researchers to submit articles and books using the accepted format and following the ‘rules of the game’. In these difficult economic times, and with the current crisis of neoliberal capitalism, I believe it is more relevant than ever to look for alternative conceptions of social integration, new frameworks and new ways to approach intervention.

How can academics and researchers who do not specialise in disaster recovery/management get involved (either in Haiti or in other disaster-struck areas)? It is a common misconception to believe that development is only for development specialists (ie, social scientists). While there is a continuous need for locally-sensitive, energetic and hard-working aid workers (I am based in an international development department, after all), international and local organisations are also looking for engineers (especially agricultural engineers), urban planners and physicians (eg, Doctors Without Borders). So, I would suggest to anyone interested in an experience overseas to look at the websites of the major aid organisations.

What can teachers and researchers learn from teaching abroad? Would you encourage others to join projects overseas? I would certainly encourage colleagues to teach overseas, even for small stints. It is a fabulous way to reflect on your own research, among other things. I know it sounds clichéd, but I have learned a lot from my students, discussing how they see the future of their country, how they are dealing with the everyday, with their international colleagues and so on. It is also a great opportunity for social scientists to develop new research projects, extending their stay for seven to 10 days to conduct a first round of interviews, for instance. This can considerably strengthen a research proposal. The most difficult aspect is probably being away from your loved ones for a while – but here again, most organisations understand these particular constraints and suggest intensive seminars over two weeks to limit the negative impact on your family and work.

What inspires you to keep returning to Haiti?  Several factors: first, I have to mention the resilience of the Haitian people, their ability to focus on positive aspects and to keep their morale up, even in difficult times. Working on and in Haiti might sound depressing; actually it is far from it. People are continuously smiling and welcome you with open hearts, and you rarely feel in danger in Port-au-Prince. Second, there is the Haitian culture, including visual arts, music and theatre. Haiti might be poor in global economic terms, but culturally speaking, it is a tremendously rich nation. Third, I also have to be honest and say that for someone interested in local narratives of resistance to international interventions and the political economy of aid and peacebuilding, Haiti is a particularly stimulating environment. Finally, I am inspired by local success stories, made of local initiatives (and sometimes empowered by visionary international actors) and anchored in local communities. I have participated in a short documentary on one such initiative (available online at: http://vimeo.com/18668506). For me, it means that there is no determinism in the current debate over the limits of aid in Haiti and elsewhere, and alternatives routes to sustainable development exist.

Some overseas opportunities for academics are detailed at the following websites:

UK Department for International Development: www.gov.uk/browse/citizenship/international-development

United Nations Development Programme: http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm

The European Commission Community Research and Development Information Service: http://cordis.europa.eu/home_en.html

European Commission EURAXESS: http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/

European University Institute Academic Careers Observatory: www.eui.eu/ProgrammesandFellowships/AcademicCareersObservatory/AcademicCareersbyCountry/Index.aspx

Despite some rosy reports about global poverty reduction, and despite highly publicized commitments such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the number of persons who simply can’t get enough food to eat remains staggeringly high. The United Nations recently reported that the achievement of MDG Goal 1, halving by 2015 the number of persons facing chronic hunger globally from a 1990 baseline, may be within reach. Yet, the same report notes that when chronic hunger is measured according to the food needed for ‘normal activity’, rather than ‘a sedentary lifestyle’, more than 1.5 billion fall below the threshold. A full 2.5 billion have too little food to fuel ‘intense activity’, and progress on hunger reduction has slowed dramatically since 2007-08.

The need to do better remains urgent. Yet, why should academics focused on poverty, as well as on related issues such as climate change, think that they have special responsibilities to contribute to public dialogue, outreach and impact efforts?  Further, why should those who already have extensive experience in poverty policy and dialogue efforts feel compelled to help mentor others?

We would offer three main reasons. The first is that academics in the UK and similarly affluent countries hold a relatively privileged position within societies that themselves hold privileged positions globally. Thus, we are the beneficiaries of current supranational arrangements in trade, investment, finance, etc., which tend to be tilted in our favour.  As such, we are likely to have special responsibilities to explore and highlight structural injustices that our governments design and uphold in our name. These could be negative responsibilities to avoid harming others through such institutional arrangements, or positive ones to use our favoured positions to aid and protect people much less advantaged than we are.

Second, and more narrowly, when there is an important public debate, for example, on levels of overseas development assistance amid continuing domestic economic hardship, academic silence can be interpreted as acceptance that the main views represented in the public debate are credible or widely accepted amongst researchers. If empirical evidence or robust normative arguments suggest otherwise, then those who can offer the counterpoint have some responsibility to do so.

Third, academics have more general duties based in the potential to use their subject expertise to make contributions that are significant, distinctive and complementary to existing efforts, such as those of some large development NGOs. Those economists, environmental scientists, development studies specialists, political scientists, philosophers, and others with expertise salient to the problems of global poverty, can and should feel compelled to put their skills to good use in the public arena. Those already deeply immersed in such activities can magnify their impact through closer coordination with like-minded others in academia, and through various forms of mentoring to help others enhance their own impact, especially those working in less-affluent countries.

What sorts of specific contributions, then, can and should academics seek to make? First, in terms of public outreach, we can share expertise through popular print, online and broadcast media, in public debates, official testimony, and through collaboration with civil society organizations and some types of firms. Such activities can be crucial for presenting new findings, challenging assumptions in public discourse, and for helping to frame the discourse around global poverty with appropriate academic input. And again, those with long experience of reaching public audiences can help others become more effective in doing so.

Further, we see an important and potentially much more expansive role for academics in contributing more directly to poverty alleviation. For example, an ASAP-sponsored project surveying leading researchers’ assessments of the Millennium Development Goals has made important contributions to the current dialogue on what should replace the MDGs when they expire in 2015: http://academicsstand.org/projects/the-global-poverty-consensus-report/  A separate effort, GiveWell, involving academics and civil society representatives, works to assess the effectiveness of poverty and development NGOs in order to help donors make more informed decisions: http://www.givewell.org/   Another effort is developing a complement to the way pharmaceutical innovations are currently incentivized and rewarded through patent-protected markups that predictably render new medicines unaffordable to the world’s poor: www.healthimpactfund.org  All offer examples of very concrete ways in which academic expertise can be put to work in interventions.

We close by inviting university researchers, teachers and graduate students interested in poverty reduction to join Academics Stand Against Poverty. The initiative was launched by academics in several countries who were seeking better ways to leverage scholarly expertise on global poverty and promote collaboration across disciplines. Initial organizing efforts have led to conferences involving hundreds of participants in 2011-12 at Yale University, the University of Birmingham, University of Oslo, University of Notre Dame London Centre, University of Delhi and Ryerson University in Toronto.

ASAP’s web site has numerous collaborative features, including open forums, a dedicated social network, and ongoing calls for articles on specific aspects of poverty policy, impact efforts and events. We invite all interested academics to join the organization and make their own contributions toward enhancing positive academic impact globally on public dialogue, policy and civil society efforts to reduce severe poverty.

————–

Thomas Pogge and Luis Cabrera*

*Thomas Pogge is Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University and the Chair of the Board of Academics Stand Against Poverty. Luis Cabrera is Reader in Political Theory at the University of Birmingham and an ASAP Board member. A longer version of this article appears as Thomas Pogge and Luis Cabrera. 2012. “Outreach, Impact, Collaboration: Why Academics Should Join to Stand Against Poverty.” Ethics & International Affairs 26(2). Other articles in the issue also address the idea and promise of ASAP. A version of that article is available at  http://eprints.bham.ac.uk/1159/

He says he hopes many ASAP members will participate in a campaign, initiated by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), pressuring the United States and other countries to ensure the availability of generic medicines in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal currently being negotiated.

According to MSF, leaked reports from the trade negotiations show that the US has proposed strict intellectual property rules that would undermine access to generic medicines, which are essential to MSF’s work and play a major role in healthcare systems across developing countries.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will cover at least half a billion people in 11 Pacific Rim nations–Vietnam, Peru, Mexico, Malaysia, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, United States, Singapore, Canada, and Australia–and may be extended to include ten additional countries. TPP negotiations began in 2010 and are scheduled to conclude in October 2013.

With MSF, Shue is calling on ASAP members to contact the United States Congress and other governments negotiating the TPP and demand that access to generic medicines be protected in the trade deal.

To join MSF’s campaign and for more information, click here.

1. We are seeking input from academics in Australia and beyond concerning what their research shows about the poverty implications of the policies of the Labour Party, the Coalition, and the Greens. Policy areas might include (but are not limited to):

• Indigenous policy
• Welfare policy (parenting benefits, child benefits, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, old age pensions)
• Labour policy (unions, conditions, pay)
• Housing policy and homelessness
• Health policy
• Education policy
• Refugee/asylum policy
• Migration
• International aid and development
• International trade (e.g. extractive industries, free trade agreements)
• Intellectual property law
• Environmental policy (e.g. forestry certification standards, environmental safeguards on international development projects)
• Climate Change
• Illicit financial flows
• International labour standards

We are inviting you to send us a summary, of up to one page, of what you see as the implications for their impact on poverty of a policy position (in your area of expertise) of the three parties. It may be that they have no policy, or no stated policy and it would also be good to know this, as well as any indication from previous policies.

The deadline for these submissions is May 6.

2. We also wish to ask the three major 15 ‘litmus test’ questions that will provide us with indications of how their policies will impact poverty.

To this end, we are inviting you to send us one or two questions that you would like to ask each party to test how their policies will impact poverty.

Examples of such questions might be:

• Do you support Australia’s foreign aid being raised to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP by 2020?
• Do you have policy ideas for how to ensure that the production of goods imported into Australia meet fair labour and environmental standards?

The deadline for sending responses is May 1, so that we can send out the survey and get answers back in time.

In addition, it would be helpful if you could suggest to us any colleagues or people in your field who you think could be interested in being members of ASAP Oceania and/or contributing to this project. If you send us names, we can add them to our database if we have not already contacted them. You might also make personal contact with them (always better) but please do put us in touch with them also.

At the same time as collecting this data, we will be working on a dissemination plan. One key question here is who is our target audience? The executive thinks that it is both political parties (to put them on notice) and the general public (so that they can be alive to this dimension of policy promises).

We are thinking about an event one month before the election where we will ask a few prominent people to speak and attract some media attention. We will also use the ASAP Oceania website to get the findings on the web and we hope that our members will write op-eds and do other media. If you have good ideas for dissemination please do let us know.

Please send input, suggestions, or requests for further information, to Associate Professor Danielle Celermajer (danielle.celermajer@sydney.edu.au) or Dr Keith Horton (khorton@uow.edu.au).

If you would like to join ASAP Oceania or receive updates about our activities please contact Reyilai Maimaiti (reyilai.maimaiti@sydney.edu.au).

The conclusions Horton and Tanay draw will be tested in a survey of academics who have published on topics related to global poverty.

David Rodríguez-Arias, a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Spanish National Research Council, led the effort to create a comprehensive database of academics around the world who have published peer-reviewed papers on global poverty in the last three decades. He and his team of volunteer researchers managed to gather basic data and contact information for 1,429 different academics who had published on topics relevant to the GPCR.

Rodríguez-Arias sees an urgent need for the GPCR effort. “Within the academic field of global justice,” he said, “too much focus on disagreement sends the misguided and potentially paralyzing message to the society that a common agenda for global poverty eradication cannot be defined. Academic experts in global poverty need to be consulted when policy makers define sound and effective policies. In that respect, this is a very important moment: the Millennium Development Goals are about to expire, and the post MDG framework is being defined. Any academic consensus on what the Beyond 2015 agenda should look like can achieve a considerable positive impact for the face of global poverty during the 21th century.”

Rodríguez-Arias and Tanay identified six academic disciplines that are highly relevant to the field of global poverty: social science, economy, political science, philosophy, public health and environmental studies. For each of these disciplines, Rodriguez-Arias searched a prominent bibliographic database for papers on the Millennium Development Goals, global poverty, and development policy. Volunteer researchers Janina Pescinski, Mario Ascolese, Amy Wood, Beatriz Carrillo, Iason Gabriel, and Gulrez Azhar turned this long list of publications into a database, complete with authors’ names, affiliation, location, and contact information.

Pescinski described the process as being “as broadly inclusive as possible, from disciplines to geography”. She said “it was especially difficult to find contact info for non-
Northern or non-English speaking scholars, but I think this speaks to many of the inequalities ASAP targets”.

Ascolese had not expected they would identify so many academics writing on the topic of global poverty and development. “It was stunning and encouraging,” he said. “It means that many efforts already exist to promote change in academia, and that maybe a project aiming at coordinating these efforts can be useful”.

Additional details about the professorship are available here: BWPI_Professorship.

To learn more about the fellowship, click here: BWPI_Fellowship.

By Vera Schroepel, ASAP Students, Birmingham Chapter

BACKGROUND

TECHO is a youth-led nonprofit organization present in 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It was established in 1997 by a group of young people with the dream of overcoming poverty. Through the joint work of families living in extreme poverty and youth volunteers, TECHO seeks to overcome poverty in slums. The organization is built on the conviction that poverty can be permanently eradicated if society as a whole recognizes poverty as a priority and actively works to overcome it. TECHO works to promote community development and resilience in slums, fostering social awareness and action, especially by mobilizing volunteers, as well as political advocacy to drive structural change to reduce the prevalence of poverty. Juan Colín Irazábal is based in Mexico City and has been Social Director of TECHO Mexico since 2011.

INTERVIEW

How did you get involved with TECHO and how do you help out?
I got involved as a volunteer when I was in university almost 6 years ago. In 2007 and 2008 I only went and built houses. I graduated from university and started working in a large chemical company, so I wasn’t able to continue building houses. However, in 2009 I got involved in the second stage of the project, which focuses on community development and social inclusion programs. I was a volunteer in the education program in a slum about half an hour away from my house. I went every Saturday for about three hours to give tutoring to elementary school children in the community.

And then?
In 2010, I quit my job in the chemical company and I got hired to be the Regional Director of TECHO México. Back then I was in charge of supervising the work that was done in the four regional offices we had back then in different states (today we have six).

What are you doing with TECHO now?
After a year as Regional Director, I became the Social Director of the organization (one of the two heads in the organization). My job is to supervise our social intervention, which includes finding the communities to work in and diagnosing them, our construction programs, our volunteering programs and our community development / social inclusion projects (there is a specific person that guides teams for all of these programs). Also, I’m in charge of generating alliances with universities, other NGOs and governments.

Do you enjoy working for TECHO?
My experience in this organization changed my life. It showed me the reality of my country, which I had never seen before, took me out of my comfort zone, and committed me to work alongside the families that live in extreme poverty to overcome their situation. I would definitely recommend getting involved in the work of our organization.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For more information about TECHO, see this video, which is in English and provides an overview of TECHO’s mission and strategy. And this TEDx talk by TECHO CEO of the US office Nicolás Berardi.

INTERVIEW WAS CONDUCTED OVER E-MAIL AND HAS BEEN EDITED.

Day 3, The post-MDGs and SDGs

Click here to view the video on YouTube.