Announcements
ASAP President Thomas Pogge was featured in the WFUNA journal ACRONYM in a special issue titled Peaceful Societies: An Essential Element of Sustainable Development. Pogge\’s article focused on small-scale violence, including domestic violence and abuse in the workplace, which is a consistent presence in the lives of many poor people.
\”Small-scale violence and the continual threat thereof—just like the large-scale violence of wars, civil wars and local insurrections—is a terrible burden upon the poor and a grave impediment to efforts to improve their lives,\” Pogge writes.
His article draws on his recent investigation of how poor people conceive of poverty, a years-long study during which he, Scott Wisor, Sharon Bessell, and other collaborators developed the Individual Deprivation Measure.
In ACRONYM, Pogge argues that the violence and corruption that endanger the wellbeing of poor people are largely driven by forces outside the control of developing country governments, such as the arms trade, the control and sale of natural resources by repressive governments, and illicit financial flows.
\”A hugely important impediment to development, violence deserves a prominent place in the SDGs. But we must attack its root causes in systemic features of our global order, which only the more powerful countries can reform.\”
You can read Peaceful Societies online now. Pogge\’s article begins on page 32.
