Each nation must act on its problem of poverty

POPE Francis was visiting the offices of the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which was hosting a session of the governing council of its sister organization the International Fund for Agricultural Development last week, when he commented about the extreme poverty in most of the world today.

“Few have too much and many have little,” he said. “Many do not have food and are adrift while a few are drowning in the superfluous.” While the rate of extreme poverty reduction is slowing, he added, the concentration of riches in the hands of a few is increasing. “This perverse tendency of inequality is disastrous for the future of humanity.”

Many were reminded of that report by international activist organization Oxfam which it released on the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, last January. The world’s 26 richest persons, Oxfam said, own the same amount of wealth as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity.

The World Economic Forum went on with its usual meetings on various issues affecting world economic growth, such as the trade war between the United States (US) and China and the instability of world oil prices. The WEF delegates were, after all, business leaders, economists, and political leaders of various nations and were naturally concerned with such destabilizing matters as trade wars and unpredictable oil prices. The Oxfam Report did not merit the international forum’s formal attention.

Similarly, we expect, Pope Francis’ comments on extreme poverty at the FAO in Rome will not draw much attention and interest, much less action, from the world’s political and economic leaders. They have their specific problems to tackle. Italy is struggling with its economic debt. The United Kingdom faces an exit from the European Union without some kind of stabilizing agreement. The US and China have not reached any firm agreement on their trade war which is affecting most of the rest of the world, including us in the Philippines.

In the face of such national problems of such magnitude, nations and their leaders may not be condemned so much if they do little or nothing about the problems of the world as a whole – about the fact that 96 percent of those in extreme poverty in the world today are in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the West Indies East Asia, and the Pacific. The Philippines is part of this group of nations.

The Pope spoke about this situation of extreme poverty in much of the world today, much like a voice of conscience reminding the world’s political leaders that while they have their own big problems to face, they must not ignore this problem of the small people of the world.

Ultimately, however, it will have to be the individual leaders of individual nations who must do something about the problem of extreme poverty in their own lands. We in the Philippines should be able to act on this problem in our corner of the world.

After three years of all-out war on drugs, on crime, on corruption, on graft, we should see this year the beginning of an economic development offensive focusing on infrastructure and on agriculture, that should help ease the problem of poverty in our country.