Ending Poverty

VIDEO: Prof. Thomas Pogge, spoke about the Millennium Development Goals in a keynote address held at RSA

Pogge argues that much of today's severe poverty constitutes a human rights violation committed through supranational rule design. The eradication of severe poverty requires mainstreaming the concern for the poor beyond the niche of development assistance.

In Pogge's view, the first Millennium Development Goal - the aim to reduce the number of extremely poor and the number of chronically undernourished by 27 percent in the 1990-2015 period – was and is grotesquely under-ambitious and, in fact, these MDGs, not coupled with tasks or responsibilities of specific agents, were not genuine goals at all. What we need post-2015 is the commitment to eradicate severe poverty fast and completely, coupled with clear responsibilities assigned to specific competent actors to keep the effort on a clear path to delivery.

Source: Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce