United Nations Development Programme
Eradication of Poverty
Portugal
Luis F. Vazquez
Forest Hills Eastern
Poverty is a problem that every member state understands exist, yet ignores to properly acknowledge it on a day to day basis. Dosomething.org states that “nearly half of the world population-more than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day.” According to UNICEF, “22,000 children die each day due to poverty.” Member states going through rough economics time will raise the poverty rate within those respective countries. One of the most common ways a modern member state may go through rough economic patches is the inability to pay off borrowed money debt. Historically, European member states going through a rough patch due to debt will be forced into austerity. One of the most recent economic disasters is the Greece situation in which the European member states had to bail-out their government and push them towards austerity which has left them with a threatening poverty rate of more than 30%. Within the Implementation of the Third United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, it states how it will continue the momentum set by the Second United Nations Decade for the eradication of poverty, which is that since 1990, 1.1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.
As a country undergoing the reconstruction of its economy, Portugal understands the dangers of external pressure to enforce member states into specific actions to undergo economic recovery first hand. In 2011, under the governing of the social democratic party austerity, economic policies were put into place. After these economic policies were in action, the unemployment rate rose to a peak of nearly 18%, leading more people into poverty. After hyper apparent faults with new economic policies, the social democratic socialist party came into power challenging Germany’s influence in proposing austerity policies by undergoing more proactive policies that set the economy to become more productive. These new non-austerity policies have reduced Portugal’s spending deficit to only 1% of the nation’s GDP as of 2017.
Portugal proposes for the international community to strengthen the economies of struggling economies such as those like Greece and Ireland. Portugal seeks to have other countries provide resources to accommodate the needs of struggling economies to ensure global economic stability for the reduction of poverty worldwide. Resources provided could be purely monetary support or other resources such as structural help for setting forth infrastructure to help citizens of member states become effective participating members of the world society. Portugal also hopes to see austerity measures forced onto countries should be eradicated. As Nelson Mandela explained, “ As long as poverty, injustice, and gross inequality exist in our world, none of can truly rest” and neither shall the UNDP committee.
- Luis F. Vazquez
