GLOBAL
GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY REDUCTION THROUGH MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS: SOME
REGIONAL EXPERIENCES
John N.N Ugoani
Rhema University, Nigeria
E-mail: drjohnugoani@yahoo.com
Submission: 10/06/2015
Revision: 01/07/2015
Accept: 08/07/2015
ABSTRACT
Global governance is a broad, dynamic, and complex process
of interactive decision-making that is constantly evolving and responding to
changing global circumstances. The incidence of poverty on cross-border peace,
development and the environment is obvious today. Also the consequences of
poverty in terms of living conditions call for a unified action to tackle it.
Recent research states that poverty is not simply a short fall of money, but
also involves the constant day-to-day hard choices associated with poverty and
in effect taxes an individual’s physical and mental resources. This cognitive
tax, in turn, can lead to economic decisions that perpetuate poverty. To face
the challenge, the United Nations MDGs suggests that the fight against poverty
belongs to the pivotal political challenge of the 21st century
involving a network of structures between governmental and nongovernmental
actors at various levels in the field of poverty reduction. This perspective is
making positive contributions with some regions in the world heading toward the
achievement of the target. Even those countries in sub-saharan Africa where
most of the global poor live and who are lagging behind, are making frantic
efforts to do so, with the assistance of global bodies. The survey research
design was used for the study. Data generated were statistically analyzed and
it was found that global governance has strong positive relationship with
poverty reduction.
Keywords:
Co-operative leadership, Global governance architecture, Multilateral bodies,
More openly political than bureaucratic, Global imbalances.
1. INTRODUCTION
Despite the efforts of global
institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and
others through the enunciation of public policies, reduction in poverty levels
in recent decades has been less than expected, especially in the
late-developing countries.
This woeful disappointment has given
rise to a holistic examination of what public policies best promote poverty
reduction in the world. Particular concerns exist about the level of resources
dedicated to reducing poverty and the ways in which they are delivered. The old
model of a technocratic government supported by donors is seen as incomplete
and ineffective.
Most dynamic public policy
practitioners now believe that public policy and global governance
effectiveness depend on the input of a whole range of agents – including the
private sector and civil society – as well as on the healthy functioning of the
societal and institutional structures within which they operate (COLLIER;
DAVID, 1999).
In 2000, with unprecedented fanfare,
world leaders pledged to boost living standards by achieving eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) –especially those that deal with poverty, health,
education, hunger, and the environment by 2015. Although progress has been made
on some fronts, most of the MDGs remain stubbornly out of reach of most
nations.
According to Wallace (2007), overall
the world as a whole is on track of the goal of halving poverty by 2015 from
its 1990 level. It is believed that those living in extreme poverty number
fewer than 1billion for the first time. But Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains
way off track, with the region accounting for about 30 percent of the world’s
extreme poor.
The Middle East and North Africa are
expected to reach the goal narrowly, and Europe, Central Asia, and Latin
America as well as the Caribbean are likely to come close. The stars are East
Asia, the Pacific and South Asia, which have adapted dynamic transformational
public policy strategies and are projected to overshoot the MDG1 target.
To meet the overall MDGs target, the
international community needs to grapple with much more than financial
governance issues. The removal of barriers to international trade creates new
employment opportunities, but it also raises thorny questions about labour
standards and other social concerns that border on poverty. There is need for
transformational public policy strategies that seek to determine whose welfare,
which right, and what goals matter most.
This makes global governance –
whether it pertains to finance, trade, the environment, education,
transportation or health etc, one of the most vital and difficult challenges of
the modern world. Poverty is an all encompassing concept, manifest or latent
inadequacy, insufficiency or a lack in certain aspects of human life (MBOHO;
INYANG, 2011). According to the World Development Report (2000/2001) poverty is
multidimensional, extending beyond low levels of income, but including lack of
opportunity, low capabilities, low levels of security, lack of empowerment,
among others.
The World Development Report
(2000/2001) states that the empirical correlations between these different
dimensions of poverty are overwhelmingly positive. There is now an emerging
consensus that transformational public policy strategies at the country level
and the support of development partners will be more effective in bringing
about sustainable poverty reduction. Transformational public policy involves
such policy decisions saturated with sufficient political will to transform the
critical sectors of the polity for the benefit of the greater majority of the
people.
A key feature of transformational
public policy is that social safety nets are designed to protect the possible
adverse effects of reform measures on the poor. These instruments include
governance arrangements as well as existing social protection measures adopted
for this purpose such as employment generation, food subsidies, provision of
healthcare services, affordable education for all, social security arrangements
and other contingencies targeted at public good.
In pursuit of such global public
policy strategies targeted at employment generation and improved productivity,
the European Commission (EC) (2013) embarked on their Entrepreneurship Action
Plan. Under the broad public policy strategy – European Commission’s Rethinking
Education strategy and Entrepreneurship: IP/12/1233 – EC believes that with
high-tech and high-growth enterprises increasingly becoming a focus of
entrepreneurship-related public policies, higher educational institutions
become an active component of Member States and EU’s innovation policies.
A major element of this public
policy is the legislation to remove legal obstacles to the establishment of
businesses and giving qualified immigrant entrepreneurs a stable permit. EC
states that the transformational public policy paradigm is imperative for
Europe because lower labour productivity is a major reason why Europe’s GDP per
capita lags behind that of the United States. It accounts for about 15 percent
of the gap between European and US GDP per capita.
Cotis (2004) insists that in Europe
many people who have below average productivity are not employed, and thus are
not included in the measurement of labour productivity. Across OECD countries,
there is a strong negative correlation between, employment rates and labour
productivity. From this perspective, it is reasonable to state that many EU
countries lag behind the United States in terms of labour productivity and that
one challenge is to rekindle productivity growth and reduce the level of
poverty.
While government can fine-tune
strategy for productivity, OECD empirical research stresses the importance of
good public policies and institutions. Structural public policies that boost
flexibility and sharpen the polity’s adaptability to shocks are very essential.
Public policies that promote educational achievements, well-designed incentives
for research and development, are highly competitive and among what the
governments can do to enhance productive efficiency and poverty reduction (OECD,
1999; DYE, 1992; ALEXANDRATOS, 2005; IMF, 2007).
Current World Development Report
(2015) believes that poverty may also generate an internal frame, or a way of
interpreting the world and poor people’s role in it. It states that poor people
may feel incompetent and disrespected, without hope that their lives can
improve, and that empirical evidence suggests an association between poverty
and low aspirations.
The World Development Report (2015)
emphasizes that poverty is not just a shortfall of money, but also involves the
day-to-day hard choices associated with poverty which in effect strains an
individual’s mental resources. Poverty generates an intense focus on the
present to the detriment of the future. Certainly, when poor people must focus
their mental resources toward dealing with the concerns of poverty, they have
little or no attention to devote to other important tasks that may be
cognitively demanding.
The environments of people living in
poverty make additional cognitive demands. Consequently, the absence of certain
physical and social infrastructure that reduces cognitive burdens in
high-income contexts such as steady income flow, regular water and electricity
supplies, encumbers those living in low-income settings with a number of
day-to-day decisions that deplete their mental resources much further.
The material deprivation that
accompanies poverty is such that the poor are more likely to find themselves in
situations in which they must forgo meals or live in substandard houses. They
may have high debts to pay back. These are among the situations that create
additional cognitive burdens that interfere with decision making in important
ways beyond a person’s monetary constraints.
1.1
Statement of the problem
The IMF and the World Bank warn
that, on current trends, most developing countries will fail to meet most of
the Millennium Development Goals target. Their reports show uneven progress
toward reducing poverty by one-half of the 1990 global rate of poverty by 2015.
Achieving the goals with regard to health, education and others is bleaker.
The goals of reducing child and
national mortality will not be attained in most regions, and only a small
proportion of counties-5-20 percent appear to be on track. The largest “MDG
deficit” is in states with lax law and order, stymied by weak institutions and
corruption and often rocked by civil conflict. With about 9 percent of the developing
world’s population – nearly 500 million people – these fragile states account
for over 25 percent of the world’s extreme poor.
On the health and education fronts,
the news is similarly discouraging. Fragile states account for nearly one third
of child deaths and for one-third of all 12 year - olds who fail to complete
primary school. Global governance is required, because, if these states are not
helped they pose risks to public safety and bread civil crises and insurgency,
like the case in Nigeria.
1.2
Objective of the study
The study was designed to explore
the relationship between global governance and poverty reduction via-a-vis the
MDG1 target.
1.3
Significance of the study
The study will enable policy makers
to assess the status of the MDGs agenda. It will also alert the general public
on the need to make adjustments in a changing world environment. Students of
public policy and governance will also benefit a great deal from the study from
the perspective of poverty reduction.
1.4
Delimitation of the study
The study was delimited to Abia
State. Abia State is one of the 36 states in Nigeria and it is believed that
the views of the people in the state are a good representation of the views of
the Nigeria population.
1.5
Limitations of the Study
The study was limited by lack of
research grant and current data. However, these constraints did not dilute the
academic potency of the study.
1.6
Hypotheses
To achieve the objective of the
study, two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance.
Ho:
Global governance has no relationship with poverty reduction.
Hi:
Global governance has a relationship with poverty reduction.
2. LITERATURE
REVIEW
The World Development Report
(2000/2001) defines poverty as an unacceptable deprivation in human wellbeing
that can comprise both physiological and social deprivation. Physiological
deprivation involves the non-fulfillment of basic material or biological needs,
including inadequate nutrition, health, education, and shelter.
A person can be considered poor if
he or she is unable to secure the goods and services to meet these basic
material needs. The concept of physiological deprivation is thus closely
related to, but can extend beyond, low monetary income and consumption levels.
Social deprivation widens the concept of deprivation to include risk,
vulnerability, lack of autonomy, powerlessness and lack of self-respect.
Poverty can contribute to a mindset
that can make it difficult or even impossible for people to realize their own
potential to take advantage of existing opportunities. The imperative of good
public policy cannot be over emphasized, because if policy makers assume that
poverty results from poor people’s deviant values or character failings, or
that poor people simply do not understand the benefits of important investment
like education, they might pursue a policy strategy of persuasion to assist the
poor.
When constraints are beyond the
control of the decision maker, especially when material resources are in short
supply the person’s willingness to act upon his or her desires may not be
realoized. Recent empirical evidence suggests that some decisions do not arise
from deviant values or a culture of poverty particular to poor people.
But poor people are mostly face
stressful cognitive, psychological, and social constraints on decision-making
(WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT, 2015) Reducing global poverty will at least need
transformational public policy strategies based on (i) Economic opportunities
(ii) governance and public sector financial management (iii) dynamic fiscal
public policy and (iv) security and empowerment (KLUGMAN, 2002; KHANDKER, 1998).
i)
Transformational
Economic Public Policy: Numerous statistical studies confirm that rapid
economic growth is the engine of poverty reduction using both income and
non-income measures of poverty. Domestic policies have an important effect on
sustained growth including prudent macroeconomic management, more open markets,
and a stable and predictable environment for private sector activity.
Macroeconomic stability provides an important precondition for higher growth
rates and also helps to prevent balance of payment crises and the resurgence of
inflation both of which have negative consequence for prosperity and leads to
poverty reduction.
ii)
Governance
and public sector financial management: A transformational public policy
strategy through global governance would ensure and consider how governance
arrangements and budget management could be improved, since in many countries,
this has been found to be a critical constraint on the effectiveness of public
actions in reducing poverty. Sound transformational public policy reforms are
needed at the central, states and local governments levels in order to ensure
accountability for the use of fiscal resources and to improve service delivery.
The process of transformational public policy should include a review of
potential issues in governance and public expenditure management such as lack
of transparency and accountability. Government reforms must be tailored to the size
of resources, both human, intellectual, financial and political. Good leaders
must negotiate. Leadership is that amorphous quality that determines governance
of social institutions. But recent reform history is replete with examples of
inept leaders squandering reform opportunities (Sheng, 2006)
iii) Dynamic Fiscal Public Policy:
Fiscal policy can have a direct impact on the poor, both through the
government’s overall fiscal stance and through the distributional implications
of tax policy and public spending. Structural fiscal reforms in budget and
treasury management, public administration, governance, transparency and
accountability can also benefit the poor through inducing more efficient and
better use of public resources.
iv) Security, and empowerment: Insecurity
can be understood as vulnerability or decline in wellbeing. The shock
triggering the decline can occur at the household level or at the national or
international level. The extent and nature of the country’s vulnerability to
exogenous shocks, and the impact of such shocks on the poor, could be assessed
through quality public policy and global governance. Capabilities in terms of
education and health can be properly assessed and managed to enhance poverty
reduction. Generally, education and health capabilities are among the primary
dimensions of individual well-being. Different sets of factors and actions
affect whether poor people achieve literacy and good health. Public policies
and actions are important, but private providers of education and health
services, the interactions between the public sector and the market, social
norms and practices, and individual and household behavior also play important
roles. One important dimension of empowerment is access to, and influence over,
state institutions and social process that set public policies. The level of
empowerment among the poor increases as they gain access to economic
opportunities, develop human capabilities, and establish greater income
security. As the poor become empowered, they are more likely to influence
public policy discussions on how well the policies and reforms that constitute
poverty reduction strategies meet their needs. To be meaningful, empowerment
should be seen as a strategic global governance policy and an active process
that occurs at different levels for the benefit of humanity and poverty
reduction.
2.1 Early
Global Governance Structure
Global poverty reduction imposes
environmental responsibilities around the globe. For example, most
frighteningly, contagious health risks, like Ebola, respect no borders. In each
case, hard decisions must be made about the welfare of man.
According to Boughton and Bradford,
Jr (2007) global governance is a process of cooperative leadership that brings
together national governments, multi-lateral public agencies, and civil society
to achieve commonly accepted goals. It provides strategic direction and then
marshals collective energies to address global challenges. To be effective, it
must be inclusive, dynamic and able to span national and sectoral boundaries
and interests.
It should be more democratic than
authoritarian, more openly political than bureaucratic, and more integrated
than specialized. Neither the concept nor the difficulty of global governance
is new. At the end of the First World War, for example, the leaders of the
victorious allies led by the four great powers of France, Italy, the United
Kingdom, and the United States met in 1919 in Paris for six months of talks
aimed at redrawing many of the world’s national borders and establishing a
permanent forum-the League of Nations – to deal with future issues and
problems.
This model of global governance, in
which the few countries that sat at the apex of the world economic pyramid
invited others to participate without ceding much control, became the
prevailing paradigm for the postwar era. This dominance model of early global
governance was a reasonable and practical model for much of the 20th
century. Today, political, economic, social and legal changes pose a serious
threat to the ability of this model to achieve common objectives.
Despite these huge challenges the
concept of global governance with such proxies as The World Health Organization
(WHO), The United Nations (UN), The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund
(IMF), The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), among
others, are involved in extensive consultations and co-operation that seek to
shape public policy around the global.
The overriding problem of global
governance is the immense and challenging transformation of the world,
particularly how to absorb a huge increase in population. It is projected that
the world population will grow from 6 billion people in 2000 to 9 billion in
2050, and all the additional 3 billion people will be living in developing
countries, where the majority today live in conditions of poverty.
The primary aim of the Millennium
Development Goals, endorsed by almost all of the world’s national leaders in
2000, is to reduce the rate of extreme poverty by half based on the 1990 rate
in 2015. The goal is being pursued globally, and even those regions that are
lagging behind are now at least achieving growth in per capita incomes.
Sustaining that progress throughout the transformation over the coming decades
will require leadership in, and cooperation among, rich and poor nations,
multinational institutions, the private sector, and civil society.
Public policy should seek to
strengthen the governance of global interaction involving rationalizing the
relationships among sovereign states, updating the existing multilateral
institutions, and creating an effective oversight body, because it is no-longer
possible to argue that the current oversight of international relations is
adequate for the 21st century.
To enhance the romance of global
governance architecture, bodies such as the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, and others must play more important roles within
the global organizations they guide; therefore, they must be representative
enough to provide legitimate global leadership. This is essential because
global governance is crucial to accelerating private investment, economic
growth, political stability, poverty reduction and world development (UNITED
NATIONS, 2007a).
2.2 Global
Governance and Regional Integration in Asia
After recovering from the 1997 – 98
financial crises, Asian countries seized the opportunity to undertake
significant restructuring and reforms and to strengthen the dynamism and
resilience of their political economies, with real GDP per capita about 75
percent higher than before the crisis.
This followed greater flexibility,
including more labour and capital mobility which have enabled Asian countries
to increasingly participate in the globalization of production, particularly in
manufacturing, and to expand their technology related services. The cumulative
effect of all the changes in Asian public policy strategies after the crisis
has been to position Asia as a dynamic and resilient region in the global
economy.
The diversity in economic
structures, income levels, and resource endowments has also helped to
accelerate the regional integration process. Asian integration, both within the
region and with other parts of the world, made it to become an important engine
of growth in the global economy. This process is expected to contribute to the
rebalancing of global growth and to the adjustment of global imbalances.
With prosperity on the rise in Asia
and being on course on MDG1 target, Asia would also benefit from having access
to IMF financial resources in times of need, because its share of world GDP is
rising. Asia is a key part of the global economy, boasting three of the ten
largest economics (China, Japan and India) and accounting for more than 35
percent of world GDP. The region’s economy, having fully recovered from the
1997-98 financial crisis is now the fastest growing in the world, contributing
about 50 percent of world growth. (AZIZ, 2007; RAVALLION, 1999; BURTON, et al,
2006).
2.3 Sub-Saharan
Africa and MDGs – Nigerian Experience
Those living in extreme poverty are
those people who live on below $1.25 per day, characterized by high poverty gap
ratio, inequality, child malnutrition as well as under weight children under
the age of five years. The MDGs also emphasize universal primary education in
all countries by 2015, evidenced by net enrolment in primary education, high
literacy rate of 15-24 year olds, ratio of girls to boys in primary and
secondary education, as well as ratio of literate females to males.
Access to health, reduction of the
death rates for infants and children in developing countries by two thirds of
the 1990 level by 2015 are among the major objectives of the MDGs. Countries on
the path of meeting these targets have done so through the instrumentality of
global governance, those lagging behind like countries in SSA are queuing up
behind global bodies so as to achieve the desired results.
The agreement reached in September
2000, at the UN Millennium Summit by world leaders and placed at the heart of
the global agenda called the MDGs, is a positive instrument for poverty
reduction (UNITED NATIONS, 2007ª; ADEYEMI, 2014; Coffie-SBYAMFI, 2015; JIMOH,
2014; TSOKAR, 2015). Relevant political
actors all over the world perceive poverty as a global phenomenon and
challenge, which calls for co-operation across national, as well as
institutional borders.
This is true because, there are
global norms and practices dealing with the poverty problem including basic
human rights resolutions and decisions of UN World Summits, particularly the
Copenhagen Social Summit, which sought to strengthen and underscore the human
rights bases for poverty reduction in the world.
According to the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals, the fight against poverty belongs to the pivotal
political challenges of the 21st century, requiring some kind of
network structures between governmental and non-governmental actors at various
levels in the field of poverty reduction.
Eberlei (2002) hypothesizes that
drawing an interim balance, suggests that global poverty reduction efforts seem
to be a good example for analyzing Global Governance. He emphasizes that based
on credible Poverty Reduction Strategies theory, the most important principles
of the new super weapon in the fight against poverty involves the medium term
development path of a poor country, particularly its strategy to combat
poverty, and by this means enlist international support and collaboration.
This will not only include social
sector programmes, but equally the comprehensive economic and financial
policies of the late-developing countries should be aimed at fighting poverty,
and such policies must not be based on Bretton Woods Institutions, but rather
manifests ownership and developed by the countries themselves. Ownership of
policies would suggest that not only governments are left to draw up public
policies.
These should be a broad
participatory process involving all active actors within a polity that
encompasses nongovernmental organizations, co-operative societies and
associations, grassroots groups, the academia, the press, political parties and
the parliaments. This is critical because a poverty reduction strategy is never
a once – and – for all approach.
It must be organized as a public
policy cycle revolving around problem-analyses, strategy implementation,
monitoring and evaluation and where necessary, revision of the strategy. Such a
well and co-ordinated document for all poverty-oriented donor activities in a
country, means that the donors should organize and co-ordinate themselves
around the strategy and within the strategy in order to concentrate their
efforts and to realize synergy effects as much as possible.
Eberlei (2002) insists that this
approach to poverty reduction has been put in place by about 60 to 70 of the
poorest countries by the end of May 2002, and the poverty reduction strategies
requirement has already been fulfilled by 12 countries and another 33 countries
have developed their own interim poverty reduction strategy. 25 out of these 45
countries are located in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a very high number of poor
people.
Because of the destructive effects
of poverty, the UN General Assembly comprising all 191 UN member states
developed the Millennium Declaration pledging a new global partnership to
reduce extreme poverty. The 22nd Resolution of this declaration
reaffirmed the Declaration on Environment established during the 1992 UN
Meeting in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, known as Agenda 21.
The latter, an action plan, sought
for ways to achieve sustainable economic development of resource limited
countries, through attention to natural resource management and help future
generations to meet their basic needs. According to UN (2007a) the
MDGs are all deeply rooted in the concept of sustainable development. Since
2000, when the MDGs were first announced, developing country governments –
aided by local and international agencies, have launched a number of
initiatives focusing on one or more of the eight goals.
A half way (2007) report on progress
toward the MDGs revealed that, although programmes have been implemented to
achieve the goals it is not apparent that they will be successfully reached by
2015. In spite of some notable gains made in several areas, in many countries
in Sub-Saharan Africa, given high levels of extreme poverty, the continent is
not considered on track to achieving any of the goals by 2015.
Extreme poverty is measured by three
indicators: the percentage of the population that lives on less $1.25 a day;
the number of people who live beneath the minimum income level deemed necessary
to meet basic needs; and the share of national food consumption by the poorest
20 percent of the population. While China’s successful poverty reduction
strategy accounts for most of the world’s gains in poverty reduction, East
Asia’s poverty rate tumbled from 80 percent in 1980 by 20 percent in 2005.
In contrast Sub-Saharan Africa’s
rate hovered around 50 percent over the same period. It is now known that the
rate of poverty reduction has been much slower in low – income countries,
especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where the absolute number of poor has
continued to increase. The target of the UN is to halve 1990 extreme poverty
and hunger rates by the end of 2015, which means that the percentage of
improvised people defined as those living on less than $1.25 or ƒ0.83 a day –
must fall to 25 percent by the end of 2015, while the proportion of people
without adequate food security must be reduced to 12.5 percent.
But this laudable objective that
could be achieved through the imperatives of global governance is likely to
elude late developing highly indebted poor countries like Nigeria. Sub-Saharan African countries where
corruption, illiteracy, conflict and poverty have become both epidemic and
pandemic look up to the global bodies for assistance to enable them meet the
MDG1 target of reducing poverty by one half of 1990 rate by 2015.
But most of these countries lack the
political will to first fight corruption. For example, Bayagbon (2015) reports
that researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, estimate that
from 1970 to 1996, capital flight from 30 Sub-Saharan African countries totaled
$187bn, exceeding those nations external debts. Much of the money was proceeds
of corruption.
Other estimates are that Nigerian
leaders for example, stole more than $400bn between 1960 and 1999. Lack of
sound public policy strategies continues to accelerate corruption and poverty
in countries like Nigeria. According to reports, the Federal Government of
Nigeria (FGN) needs N5trillion to complete 8000 abandoned projects since 2009.
According to Orintunsin (2014) the
FGN should formulate a national policy on innovation as well as set up a
national implementation council on innovation development to drive
entrepreneurship. Such critical public policy strategies like the Subsidy
Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) put in place to reduce mass
unemployment and poverty has been accused of poor implementation and hijack by
politicians (ADELOWO, 2014).
During the general elections in
Nigeria in the first quarter of 2015, Nigeria had to collaborate with relevant
global bodies for a free and fair elections. According to Sheni (2014) “The
European Union (EU) and Federal Government have signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) to facilitate the monitoring of the general elections.
Nigeria as one of the biggest
nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, values the presence of the international
observers for its elections, since this is one of the pillars for strengthening
democracy, having free, fair, credible, transparent and peaceful elections is
seen as a way to poverty reduction. Nigeria over the years put in place some
major public policy strategies to meet international standards as a way out of
debt and poverty.
Among such policy instruments are
the Nigeria Vision 20:2020, and the National Economic Empowerment and
Development Strategy (NEEDS). According to Soludo (2015) he spent five weeks in
the hotel with his team (as co-ordinator/chairman for drafting the National
Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy).
Some of the reform targets in NEEDS
became the conditionalities Nigeria was required to fulfill to merit debt
relief. Nigeria is held behind MDG1 target as a result of public corruption.
Laudable public programmes, like the Universal Primary Education (UPE) that
sought to wipe out illiteracy and reduce poverty failed due to public and
political corruption. (AGBOSU; ARCHANA, 2011; NNA, et al., 2010; MOMOH, 2011).
In general, government policies
could influence the composition of GDP for example, through targeted
infrastructure investment, change in the transmission channels between GDP
growth and income, through market regulations or fiscal policies, aimed at
poverty reduction, Coudouel, et al (2006), illustrate the model as in figure 1
below.
Figure1: Economic Policies and
Poverty Reduction
Source:
Coudouel, et, al (2006) p. 81
The NEEDS, as an economic blue print
seeks to be the beginning of ‘a Nigeria with a new set of values and
principles, which will facilitate the achievement of national goals of wealth
creation, employment generation and poverty reduction’. The policy in itself is
well designed and has received the acceptance of global bodies like the UN,
UNDP, the World Bank, IMF among others (FAJONYOMI, 2006).
NEEDS recognizes that the
fundamental challenge at this stage of Nigeria’s development is to meet the
basic needs of its people and reduce poverty on a sustainable basis (SOLUDO,
2004). Nigeria records gross under-achievement of the MDG1 with a significant
amount of its population still living below the poverty line, and with food
insecurity, high child/maternal mortality, among others.
In line with the MDG1 on hunger and
poverty, Nigeria Vision 20:2020 aims to reduce the number of people who suffer
from hunger and malnutrition by 50 percent by 2015 and 75 percent by 2020.
Despite these projections an estimated 60-70 percent of Nigerians continue to
live in poverty.
According to Okocha (2015) Nigeria
is far from blazing a paradigm shift for the Nigerian poor and the downtrodden
despite a huge $18billion debt write-off by the Paris Club in 2011. He reports
Okonjo-Iweala as saying: “We have a coefficient in equal. We live in a country
where the rich can just wake up and decide to travel abroad just as their
children school abroad and have access to good health care”.
By implication therefore, the
Nigerian perspective is that despite the imperatives of global governance on
poverty reduction, Nigeria is conspicuously off the track toward the
achievement of the MDG1 target by 2015, due mainly to the impunity of bad
governance characterized by corruption.
Nigeria today has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.
The unemployment rate has risen
steadily since 2006 and by 2014 at 25 percent. However, the IMF projects that
based on Nigeria’s, 2011 GDP estimate ($247billion), the country is likely to
overtake South Africa to become Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy by 2016 (UGBABE,
2012; UGOANI; IBEENWO, 2015; SOLUDO, 2015; 2004).
According to Kiljunen (2006),
because representative democracy which is confined to nation states and does
not seem to solve the common problems of the world such as poverty, the call
for more democratic global governance has become ever lauder in recent years.
Combating poverty places a high level of responsibility on global governance.
Present indications are that while
some regions are on the way to reducing 1990 poverty rate by one half by 2015,
other regions particularly the Sub-Saharan African countries where the world’s
extreme poor live are lagging behind the target. Poverty rate in Nigeria in
2000 was 74.0 percent. The figure rose to 83.0 percent and 88.0 percent in 2001
and 2002 respectively.
There was a reduction to 54.7
percent in 2004 with a slight increase to 55.5 percent in 2005, same figure
recorded in 2008. In 2010 the figure stood at 60.9 percent, rising to 67.1
percent in 2011. The figure is put at 64.2 percent for 2013 and 2014 (NWAORGU,
2014; OKAFOR, 2014).
This scenario in one African country
illustrates the situation in other poor African countries where the poor is
getting poorer by the day despite the commitment of global bodies. The
situation could have been worse without the intervention of the global bodies.
The persistence of poverty is distressing because poverty is associated with
destructive and dangerous behaviours, such as crime.
Poor people feel excluded and
powerless, even though sometimes poverty is the result of a disability or a
natural disaster, but many poor people seem trapped in a cycle of unemployment,
inadequate education, drug abuse and crime (Klasen, 2007).
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research design
Te survey research design was
adopted for the study. Surveys are very useful in describing the features of a
large population or a particular subset of the population such as the business
community or the working class, or the unemployed. Surveys provide insight into
society’s ethical standards, tell researchers whose views are similar to the
official views or norms of behavior, and show them how personal or universal
standards evolve from an individual’s perception of right and wrong.
Surveys are not characterized by
manipulations and controls that dominate experimental studies. Populations
involved in surveys are usually large. Surveys are oriented towards
ascertaining and establishing the status quo, facts, or pieces of information
at the time of the research and presenting such facts as they are or going
further to analyze. Surveys therefore, could either be descriptive or
analytical (OBODOEZE, 1996).
3.2 Population
The population comprised the people
in Abia State, Nigeria. Abia State is one of the 36 states in Nigeria and it is
believed that the opinion of the people in Abia State will provide a good
representation of the views of the people in Nigeria.
3.3 Sample and Size
The sample was selected through the
simple random sampling method, while the sample size was determined using he
Yamane’s technique.
3.4 Data collection instrument
Quantitative data were collected
based on the core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (WIQ). The (WIQ) is one of
the latest in a series of survey instruments developed by the World Bank and
its partners to help provide policy makers with household level information for
policy formulation and evaluation. The (WIQ) is intended to provide information
on poverty and the effects of development policies, programmes and projects on
living standards based on 30 items, duly validated and reliability confirmed
(Klugman, 2002a).
3.5 Sources of Data
Data were collected through primary
and secondary sources including questionnaire administration, interviews,
observations, books, journals, newspapers, among others. The mixed method was
used so as to complement, supplement and validate data through each other.
3.6 Data Analysis
Data were analyzed through
descriptive statistics and Pearson’s Product Moment correlation method using
the statistical package for the social sciences, and the results presented in
tables.
4. PRESENTATION OF DATA AND RESULTS
Table 1: GDP and HDI Trends in
Nigeria 2005-2013
|
Human
Development Indicators |
|||||
Year
|
GDP
(Naira Trillion) |
Life
Expectancy |
Exp.
Years of Schooling |
Mean
of Years of Schooling |
GNI
Per Capita (2011 PPP $) |
HDI
Value |
2005 |
14,57 |
48.7 |
9.0 |
5.0 |
3,830 |
0.466 |
2010 |
33.98 |
51.3 |
9.0 |
5.2 |
4,716 |
0.492 |
2011 |
40.54 |
52.1 |
9.0 |
5.2 |
4,949 |
0.496 |
2012
|
40.54 |
52.1 |
9.0 |
5.2. |
5,176 |
0.500 |
2013 |
Na
|
52.5 |
9.0 |
5.2 |
5,353 |
0.504 |
Source:
Okafor, 2014
Table 1 showed the trend in
Nigeria’s economic performance and the corresponding movements in the country’s
HDI between 2005 and 2013.
Table
2: Annual Growth Rates in GDP and HDI
Year
|
GDP
(Value) (N Trillion) |
%
Growth Rate |
HDI
Value |
%
Growth Rate |
2005 |
14.47 |
|
0.466 |
|
2010 |
33.98 |
133%
|
0.492 |
5.58% |
2011 |
37.30 |
9.77% |
0.496 |
0.80 |
2012 |
40.54 |
8.63% |
0.500 |
0.81 |
2013 |
Na |
|
0.504 |
0.80 |
Source: Okafor, 2014
Table 2 showed the annual growth
rates in Nigeria’s GDP between 2005/2013.
Table
3: Nigeria’s Poverty Levels (2004-2011)
Poverty
Measure (in %) |
2004 |
2010 |
2011 |
Relative
poverty (in %) |
54.4 |
69 |
71.5 |
Absolute
poverty (in %) |
54.7 |
60.9 |
61.9 |
Dollar
per day (in %) |
62.8 |
61.2 |
62.8 |
Source: Okafor, 2014
Table
3 showed Nigeria’s poverty levels between 2004 and 2011.
Table
4: Trend in and status of Poverty
Indicator
|
1990 |
1992 |
1996 |
2004 |
2010 |
2015
target |
1.1:
Proportion of population below USD 1 (PPP) per day (%) 1.2:
Poverty gap ratio (%) 1.3:
Share of poorest quintile in national consumption (%) |
NA
32.10 5.0 |
42.70 NA 5.10 |
65.60 NA 5.10 |
51.55 29.60 5.90 |
61.20 NA 5.50 |
21.40 NA NA |
Source: Nigeria MDGs Report, 2013
Table 4 showed the trend in and
status of poverty in Nigeria as at 2013.
4.1 Correlations
(DataSet0)
Table 5: Descriptive Statistics
Measures
|
N |
Mean |
Std.
Deviation |
Glob.
Gov. Pover
Red. |
5 5 |
.26 6.12 |
1.211 2.151 |
Table
6: Pearson’s Correlation
Measures
|
Glob.
Gov. |
Pover.
Red. |
Glob.
Gov. Pearson’s Correlation Sig.
(1-tailed) N |
1 5 |
.883* .024 5 |
Pover.
Red. Pearson’s Correlation Sig. (1-tailed) N |
.883* .024 5 |
1 5 |
*correlation
is significant at the 0.05 level (1-tailed).
4.2 Interpretation of result
The correlation result of
approximately =.88* showed a strong positive relationship between global
governance and poverty reduction. This result goes ahead to support the views
of other researchers and particularly the views of the world leaders who at the
United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 and placed poverty reduction at the
heart of the global agenda.
The good news that the Middle East
Asia and North Africa, among others are expected to reach the MDG1 target of
reducing poverty by 50 percent of the 1990 level in their respective regions
gives credence to the potency of global governance on poverty reduction. This
result also supports the important views of Eberlei (2002) that global poverty
reduction efforts seem to be a good example for analyzing global governance.
The Millennium Development Goals provide
a new set of diagnoses to explain decision making in contexts of poverty. If
social demands are beyond the control of the individual such a person will be
unable to act upon his or her own desires. According to World Development
Report (2015) a good approach at reducing poverty would involve providing poor
families housing subsidy, mental and physical health services, earnings,
employment and welfare programmes.
According to World Development
Report (2015) World Values Surveys show that lower income is associated with a
higher tendency to report that life is meaningless, to argue that it is better
to live day-to-day because of the uncertainty of the future, and to reject
adventure and risk.
The Report explains that data from
low-income populations in France suggest that poor students have lower academic
and employment aspirations than wealthier students who display the same degree
of academic achievement. According to the United Nations MDGs the fight against
poverty belongs to the pivotal political challenges of the 21st
century involving a network of structures between governmental and
nongovernmental actors at various levels in the field of poverty reduction.
4.3 Discussion
The concept of global governance
remains relevant even after the failed League. Decades after 1919 most nations
of the world still look up to the global bodies like the UN, IMF, UNIDO, the
World Bank and others for political, economic, and other forms of assistance
like the reduction of global poverty and unemployment.
Global governance structure as a
process of co-operative leadership that brings together sovereign governments,
multinational public agencies, to achieve commonly accepted global goals, like
poverty reduction has come to remain as a permanent feature of the world today.
This is imperative because the
question of a multiplicity of independent nations pursuing their own objectives
and priorities exclusive of the collaboration of critical global bodies have
not always produced the best results. For examples, nations of the world faced
with modern warfare and civil conflicts, as rampant in the Sub-Saharan Africa
have almost always depended on the global bodies like the UN, EU, AU, among
others to secure the desired stability and progress in their individual nations
or regions.
The problems of such issues as
demographic change, climate change, alleviating health risks and many others
cannot be solved without the active influence of global governance. It is to
the credit of public policy and global governance that the UN set a time-bound
and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease,
illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015.
There is now no doubt that poverty
is a global challenge. And it is also obvious that the MDG1 approach offers a
network structure including very different actors at various levels,
encompassing global norms, forming a strong basis for poverty reduction.
Strategy involves interactions and interfaces between the national governance
system and the global institutions shaped in a collaboration manner.
The national dimension ensures that
the quality of participation is improved substantially in order to talk about
democratically based global governance systems and interaction between the
national and the global levels as co-operative. The central action in the
poverty reduction framework is the national government which is politically
responsible for the strategy and its implementation.
This means that at the national
level the organized civil society, the organized private sector, associations,
and nongovernmental organizations have to play a vital role. And at the global
level, the UN, at the apex of global governance architecture set norms and
goals for poverty reduction; in collaboration with the internationally active
civil society, such as human rights organizations and development groups.
But very importantly more
influential regarding poverty reduction processes are such global players as
the IMF and the World Bank, as well as bilateral donors. As they finance more
than 50 percent of the national budgets of programmes in many countries, they
can furthermore, decide about debt relief, and their influence on the national
governments can be very strong.
Besides they also give support to
local authorities, civil society and private sector organizations. Again, in
the poverty reduction area, the UN’s willingness to cooperate is high and it
has quite a number of interactions with partners at different levels of
national government, civil society, among others. The UN is the coordinating
body for donors in respect of poverty reduction activities, involving dialogue
with national governments, especially with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) as the
lead agency in different countries of the world.
Depending upon which donors play an
influential role in which country, the UN is cooperative. They interact with
the MOF, but also with line ministries and to some extent with local
organizations. Significant global bodies like the IMF and World Bank are not
independent institutions.
The decisions within these
organizations have the support of industrial countries that have majority of
votes due to their capital input. Therefore, the support of these bodies brings
into sharp focus the need for cordial relationship among the UN on the one
hand, and the huge number of poor and week late developing countries on the
other hand. Again, this underscores the beauty of global governance.
4.4 Recommendations
i)
All
nations of the world should key into the structure of global governance as a
means of reducing global poverty, in furtherance of the MDGs objectives.
ii)
The structure of global governance should be
streamlined to make it possible for weak nations to enjoy more benefits of its
existence, for more prosperity.
iii) Global
bodies like the UN and EU should intensify the process of political education
around the world with a view of reducing conflict and promoting the dignity of
man.
iv) The
World Bank should ensure that empowerment is a process that occurs at different
levels. This is against what happens in late developing nations where the
language is only “Youth empowerment”. This does not take care of “adult
empowerment” by paying workers salaries and pensioners allowances. A situation
like this seems to perpetuate poverty across households and nations.
v)
The IMF should work out modalities through
which banks should find it imperative to see lending to the productive sector
and entrepreneurship development as tools for employment generation and poverty
reduction. This is critical because lending to these important areas in the
HIPCs leaves much to be desired, even in this millennium.
4. 5 Scope for further study
Further study should examine the
relationship between poverty and disease in late-developing countries. This may
provide insight about low GDP in the areas.
5. CONCLUSION
In recent history, Nigeria has come
to be regarded as one of the largest economies in Africa. It is also one of the
fastest growing economies in the World. However, according to Okafor (2014), in
UNDP 2014 Report, the 187 countries covered were grouped into four, namely:
very high HDI group, high HDI group, medium HDI group and low HDI group.
Nigeria was among the 43 countries
Worldwide in the low HDI group. She shared the unenviable status with 35 sister
African nations. With a HDI value of 0.504, Nigeria is ranked 152 of the 187
counties investigated around the world and 22 among 50 African counties covered
in the survey. Available report of poverty levels in Nigeria also show upward
movements between 2004 and 2011.
Each of the three indicators showed
increasing trend in poverty levels in Nigeria. The Dollar per day index, which
is the most common in use, showed that about 63 percent of Nigerians were
living below the poverty line in 2011. The poverty bracket in Nigeria appears
to be expanding rather than reducing with the passage of years, amidst a strong
trend in economic growth.
Such trends generally suggest that
with high poverty levels and gap in HDI Nigeria is very unlikely to attain the
MDGI target in 2015. Nigerian experience could well be the result of weak
governance, otherwise it should be able to leverage on global governance in at
least nearing the MDGI target. The global governance perspective appears to be
the only credible vehicle to seek a way out of the poverty problem through its
multinational collaborative efforts. As a contribution to research on global
governance and poverty reduction, this study provides fresh evidence that
global governance has very strong positive relationship with poverty reduction.
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