Going deeper on what is needed for children’s equity, Naila
Kabeer’s “Can the MDGs Provide a Pathway to Social Justice? The
Challenge of Intersecting Inequalities” stresses that the focus on the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on ‘average’ measures of
progress fails to capture the unequal pace of this progress and the
systematic exclusion of certain groups in society, and demonstrates
how the effects of social exclusion are detrimental to child well-
being. The wealth of Kabeer’s analyses relies on highlighting how
cultural, special, economic and political inequalities make people
deprived of voice and influence in the decisions that affect their
lives and their communities, calling for attention to issues of caste,
race, ethnicity, language and religion given they are among the most
common markers of exclusion.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, in “Rethinking Poverty,” discusses the most
striking findings presented in UNDESA's recent publication of the
same title. He describes global poverty trends and distribution
patterns over the last 20 years, and asserts the need for rethinking
policy approaches, starting by the need for multidimensional
poverty measurements. He emphasizes that the global financial,
food, and fuel crises, as well as the ongoing effects of climate
change threaten efforts to greatly reduce extreme poverty,
undermining some gains achieved since the 2000 Millennium
Summit. The mixed record of poverty reduction calls into question
the efficacy of conventional approaches involving economic
liberalization accompanied by targeted safety nets and services. Key
policies for poverty reduction include macroeconomic policies
focused on the stability of real output, incomes and employment;
universal social policies focused on the determinants of asset and
income inequality as well as poverty, such a social protection floor;
and the promotion of participation, inclusion and voice of poor
people.