Caritas wants APEC to do better on poverty

from the ABC

By Brendan Trembath

The world leaders in Sydney this week will have first-class food and five-star accommodation, but they insist their APEC meetings do help alleviate poverty.

Their host, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, says tens of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty since the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group was formed in 1989.

Catholic aid agency Caritas says that is true to a certain extent, but millions more are missing out because of holes in APEC's agenda and are living on less than $1 per day.

Protesters will probably look at the red-carpet style and gourmet food rolled out for the 20 world leaders visiting Sydney and accuse the APEC delegates of not caring about the poor.

But Mr Howard does not buy this argument.

"Why don't they stop for a moment and recognise that the economic growth in the APEC region has lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty since APEC was founded? They never think about that," he said.

Mr Howard supports goals like increasing a country's foreign investment.

"The only way you're going to lift people out of poverty is to give them a job, is to give them a sustainable standard of living, and you won't do that unless you have economic growth and you get foreign investment," he said.

"That's the great message of globalisation. I'm not saying it's perfect and I don't argue that there aren't wrinkles, but fundamentally you have no hope of lifting people out of poverty without better governance and economic growth.

"That's the problem of Africa; it's still the problem of other parts of the world; it's less of a problem in Asia now than it used to be."

Anti-poverty campaigner Jack de Groot is the chief executive officer of Caritas, the Catholic agency for international aid and development.

"Capitalism is the accepted model of economic development throughout the APEC member nations; no-one's questioning that," he said.

"The question is, are the checks and balances to make sure that all benefit from the models of economic growth and development in place?"

Mr de Groot agrees with the analogy that capitalism is the accepted umbrella but some of the poor are still getting wet.

"It is very much the case that capitalism needs its checks and balances," he said.

Millennium Development Goals

He would like to see the APEC leaders include in their agenda the Millennium Development Goals, which include such ambitions as reducing youth unemployment and halting the spread of malaria.

Mr de Groot says the Millennium Development Goals are discussed at meetings of the world's eight most industrialised nations (G8), the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank.

"This is the international architecture for dealing with poverty alleviation," he said.

"To not have this as a core agenda item for APEC is quite an omission, verging on a degree of negligence."

There are many views on the best ways to fight poverty, and Andrew Stoeckel is among those who say economic growth is paramount.

Dr Stoeckel is the executive director of the Centre for International Economics, which completed a report for the Australian Treasury.

"The biggest driver, as well known, for poverty alleviation is economic growth, and you can't have economic growth unless you have investment," he said.

"What is often not appreciated is that when a student studies at a university, they are investing; when a farmer buys out their neighbour's plot to expand and get some economies of scale, they are investing.

"So investment is about these millions of decisions that are made throughout a whole economy, and it's much more than the headline-grabbing, ribbon-cutting, multinational plant that sets up, as important as that is.

"So governments importantly shape the investment climate and all those decisions through many different ways.

"For example, restrictions on student places at a university is a barrier to investment."