Professor speaks on UN plan to end poverty

from The Spectrum

ERIC PASTORE - Staff Writer

Poverty and hunger are facts of life for half of the world's population according to Marieme Lo, assistant professor in the department of women's studies.

On Saturday in the Screening Room of the Center for the Arts she presented "The United Nations Millennium Development Goals: Utopian Agenda or Realistic Commitment to Halve Poverty by 2015," the United Nations' plan to halve world poverty by within the next eight years.

The presentation was part of the Cutting Edge Lecture Series.

According to Lo, it is difficult to come to a concrete and universal definition of poverty, given the various views and dimensions of the problem. As an exercise, Lo gathered various definitions of poverty from the audience, and then proceeded to explain the multiple dimensions of poverty.

"Is poverty simply about the level of income obtained by households or individuals?" Lo asked. "Is it the inability to meet basic human needs, nutritious food, shelter, education, to lead a healthy life? So what about relative deprivation, destitution? These are the interlocking dimensions of poverty."

The UN definition focuses on a lack of essentials for human life, according to Lo. Poverty is defined as a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.

Lo identified several types, stages and thresholds of poverty including extreme, moderate or relative, chronic and transient poverty.

Moderate or relative poverty is a problem affecting 2.7 billion people and is defined as those who make less than two dollars a day, according to the 2006 Human Development Report.

Lo was passionate when engaging the audience stressing the importance of the entire world lobbying for this cause.

"Extreme poverty is a problem facing approximately 1.1 billion people in the world, and is defined as those who make less than one dollar a day," Lo said.

Chronic poverty is a perpetual state of being impoverished, whereas transient poverty is a temporary state brought on by crisis or reversal of fortune. Lo added that standardized measures of poverty often do not account for the individual differences, complexities, and experiences of the "impoverished."

She emphasized the differences between "material poverty" and "human poverty," stating that human poverty looks at more than just monetary and physical needs.

"We have to focus on what is human, and not just what is material about human life," she said. "In that respect, it deals with questions of self-esteem, questions of well-being, questions of rights that are not necessarily measured by the level of income."

Lo proceeded to describe the plan that the UN has set in motion to halve poverty by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals are eight goals agreed on by 189 nations.

The goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

Professor Lo has been at UB since 2005. She is a native of the West African nation of Senegal, and has received education in four major universities across the world. She completed her undergraduate studies at Sorbonne University in Paris, and then moved on to receive her Master's at the University of Dakar in Senegal.

She later earned another bachelor's degree from Cornell University in the United States, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.