With five years left before 2015, world leaders are meeting in New York this September to take stock of the progress and gaps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. But, however laudable, the MDG effort is poised for failure—above all, for skirting the structural issues at the root of global poverty.

Like other Third World countries, the Philippines is off track in more than 40% of the 21 indicators, including poverty, hunger, infant mortality, and maternal health. Based on the monitoring of the
National Statistical Coordinating Board (NSCB), at the rate things are going, the Philippines is bound to fail in meeting the goals by 2015.

As we approach 2015, immediate policy steps need to be taken to hurdle the challenges of the global economic crisis. At the same time, discussion about a post-2015 international development agenda that goes deeper and beyond the MDGs is in order.

A Great Boost for Ecosocialism

As a result of the meeting in Bolivia, ecosocialism is now presented with a historical opportunity to bloom into a world-wide social movement.

FIFA’s Gordion Knot

(Whose identity is served by this mega-event—South Africa, or Fifa’s?)

South Africa’s 2010 World Cup ‘feel good’ factor is addictive. At taxi ranks, street bazaars and tea-rooms, South African citizens everywhere are filled with elation - and pride. Just sixteen years ago, within living memory, non-white South Africans were deprived of basic human rights by the brutal apartheid regime.

While BP is Largest Spill in U.S., Chevron’s Ecuador Disaster is Largest in World Chevron Admits Dumping at Least 16 Billion Gallons of Toxic Waste into Rainforest

As the nation remains riveted on the tragic BP spill unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, Chevron still holds the record for creating the world’s largest oil-related contamination and it
happened deliberately in the populated Amazon rainforest in an even more sensitive ecosystem than the marshes of
Louisiana.

Frankfurt’s Eurotower, which houses the European Central Bank. Photo: AFP

The current turmoil in financial markets around the world is another illustration of the damage that can be done by a bloated and politically powerful financial sector, combined with finance ministers and central bankers who identify with this sector and have their own right-wing policy agenda.

As Europe frantically shores up an unravelling economic system, popular protests are erupting against adjustments made to placate the finance markets. Austerity measures and bailouts may keep the banks happy, but what about the people?

The inherent instability of the current financial system, largely to blame for the recent credit crisis,
has raised its ugly head once again. What began in October last year with Greece admitting to a budget deficit exceeding 12 percent of its gross domestic product (well beyond the EU’s supposed limit of three percent) has burgeoned into a Europe- wide sovereign debt crisis threatening to split the monetary union apart.

What do exhortations of lifting people out of one-dollar-a-day poverty really mean?

There is a problem with most definitions of poverty, in that they do not do what they claim to. Thus, it is common forhumanitarians to cite the fact that there are 1,000 million people in the world who “live on less than a dollar a day”. This fact is cited as proof of the most unspeakable of deprivations; and audiences exposed to it duly register their shock and amazement.

After decades of failing to address the root causes of poverty and inequality, the aid industry is bigger than ever. Is it time for some serious soul-searching on the value of ‘development’?

Reviewers are linking Ridley Scott’s blockbuster version of Robin Hood to a seemingly unlikely crowd: the Tea Party movement.

References Charles Gore, “The Global Development Cycle, MDGs and the Future of Poverty Reduction” 2008; Global Footprint Network, Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity 2006; ITUC, Gender (in)equality in the labour market 2009; Mehdi Shafaeddin, “NAMA as a Tool for De-industrialization of Africa” 2009; PovCal.net; United Nations, Millennium Development Report 2009 Annex; UN General Assembly, 64th session, Keeping the promise: a forward-looking review to promote an agreed agenda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015: Report of the Secretary-General 2010 Photo credits Anduze traveller / flickr.com; Filipine Moreira/ flickr.com