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"Trying to reduce poverty is not in contradiction with promoting growth"

Gargi Parsai

Erna Witoelar, United Nations Special Ambassador for the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific, advocates that governments should balance pro-poor policies with economic growth to achieve the MDGs. In an interview, the former Indonesian Minister talks of a major role for civil society to ensure that governments do not sweep the poor under the carpet.

— Photo: V.V. Krishnan.

Erna Witoelar: "India has so much potential."

What is the relevance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that call for education for all, gender equality, and reduction of poverty, maternal mortality, child mortality and malnutrition by 2015?

It is to work together in a concerted manner. To get rid of poverty and solve problems of inequitable gaps in social justice.

Is it possible to achieve the MDGs by 2015?

It is. There are enough resources, technology, information, and knowledge. It is just that in each country we have to build a holistic approach in trying to balance economic growth and pro-poor policies. Trying to reduce or eradicate poverty is not in contradiction with promoting growth. We can ensure both, but if we don't concentrate on poverty and don't make the extra effort for pro-poor development then the gap will constantly remain. Through the MDGs we can see that tackling income poverty is not enough without linking it with problems of education, health, environment and so on.

What has been the progress in the Asia-Pacific region?

In most Asia-Pacific countries awareness on MDGs is there. Many countries have identified the gaps. Some have already mainstreamed the international development policy into the budgeting system. In many countries, the civil societies are promoting MDGs as well as trying to keep governments accountable to their millennium summit pledges. In the developed countries also, colleagues have managed to campaign for more pro-development awareness. At central government and even at local levels they are now more committed to increase the amount as well as the quality of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).

At the recent United Nations World Summit in New York, some developed countries gave an indication of wanting to abandon the MDGs. Does this point to a North-South divide on development issues?

No, it is an indication of some [developed] countries wanting to get out of their obligations because it is still too far for them to achieve some of the commitments that other countries have already achieved. So then some developed countries are trying to wriggle out or do it in a different way or to call some other programme as ODA instead of development in accordance with the MDGs. Luckily even the public from those countries are against them [on this] and have managed to put pressure on their governments to put MDG commitments stronger than ever.

There is a view that achieving the MDGs is pushing developing countries into a debt trap?

Loans from multi-lateral agencies — like, as you mention, the Indian Government proposes to take for Bharat Nirman [rural infrastructure] or in health and water sectors — are probably not for the MDGs. Actually to achieve the MDGs most developing countries in the Asia-Pacific unlike in Africa, should be able to do so with their own budgets and resources. We definitely can afford to send our children to school and prevent mothers from dying in childbirth if we use our resources well. That is why governments distributing their resources better is not an issue enforced from outside but has to be felt as important for ourselves. So those loans [for Bharat Nirman and the water sector] are probably for increasing growth, based on the old paradigm of growth trickling down.

Now governments need to be more than aware of the consequences of debts and allowing themselves to fall into the debt trap. Many of the developing countries have suffered too much because of this, but I don't think their people would allow them to enter into deeper or new traps. There is already high awareness on this.

What have you as an engineer, coming from the people's movement and then being part of the Indonesian Government, personally brought to your job?

I think several things. I have been in civil society all my life, but I have also been in the government so I know the difficulties of achieving the ideals that I have, as a civil society member, promoted in implementing development. So I can talk to civil society and the government as well as the private sector. I really believe that there is a role for everybody. Secondly, my background in environment and sustainable development is making me see development in a holistic way.

And last but not the least, I am a woman and I can see the perspective of a woman as a `victim' of non-achievement of the MDGs, be it in poverty, malaria or HIV/AIDS. I can also see that women have the power to make the changes. Women have both perspectives, that is why it is possible to talk about the MDGs without strongly balancing the male perspective with a women's perspective. Lots of solutions can come from women. Lots of energy can come from women. But first women have to be prevented from being the biggest victims.

What role do you envisage for civil society in India?

NGOs are diverse. Some are doing advocacy very well because they've seen the problem clearly and longer than anybody else. They should continue pushing because it is not easy for governments to be consistently pro-poor. Sometimes there is too much misleading attention to pro-rich facilities or malls or supermarkets for the upper class. Governments sometimes prefer the easy way of not consulting the poor, of pushing the poor under the carpet to show development and then take action against the poor [when they protest], which is not right. Aware civil society can change that. NGOs have access to information and they can correct a government with a tendency to be more pro-growth than pro-poor, whereas they should balance that.

But NGOs are not just to do advocacy from outside. Many NGOs should work with the government, in enabling it to work with the poor.

Governments have the tendency to work `for' the poor and not `with' the poor — they don't know how to be participatory, gender sensitive and consultative with the affected community. NGOs know that. So NGOs have to work with governments. Otherwise governments continue to do their own thing.

The world over governments are short-term with a five-year term. During their tenure they have to show that their cities are clean, there is no poverty and all that.

So poverty is shuffled somewhere else and is made not-visible. It is like being opportunist and short-term. Changes can happen if governments make the extra effort to upscale what NGOs have been doing on the ground.

Do you expect a huge country like India to meet its MDGs target by 2015?

Oh yes, I do. India has so much potential. The education system in India is good. Your country has many, many thinkers from whom the world is benefiting, I am sure, India too can. I see India now in transition into becoming better. It cannot become worse.

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"Trying to reduce poverty is not in contradiction with promoting growth"

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