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Economic justice If you want to find out how a country is faring economically, don’t just look at the domestic product or currency exchange rate. Look at how the children are doing. Fair economic practices, at both national/international (macro) and community or family (micro) level, contribute to the health, education and future income opportunities of children. In contrast, if a country is kept poor through lack of trade, or if a government’s wealth is not passed on to its people, the children suffer. Lack of healthcare and knowledge means that child mortality is high. Families struggle to feed their children and keep them at school. Their communities have limited opportunities for employment or self-sufficiency, and the cycle of poverty continues. Macro or micro? International economic policy has traditionally not shown much interest in improving the lives of the world’s poorest people. Trade agreements between wealthy countries can push struggling nations out of the competition through their system of tariffs and subsidies. Large global corporations, often operating in more than one country, have the power to drive hard bargains on raw goods and labour. Pushing the price down on manufacturing increases the net profit, which is removed from the local economy into private pockets. While poor governments complain that they are powerless against multinational economic decisions, they don’t always take the needs of their people into consideration either. When improved economic opportunities are not passed on to all, through better education, healthcare and social services, the division between rich and poor actually grows. Economic Justice - The Facts Through subsidies, cows in Europe earn over US $2 per day - that's more than half the world's people do. Out of a US $2 cup of coffee, the grower receives as little as two cents. Emerging economic empires India and China have between them 2.3 billion people. Around 1.5 bilion of them live below the poverty line (World Bank). Opportunities for children are closely linked to their country's finances - the 1998 economic crisis in Southeast Asia saw school attendance plummet and a marked increase in child labour. |
Both India and China, touted as the new economic empires of Asia, are facing major challenges in sharing fairly the benefits of their new-found riches. It’s vital for poor communities to have involvement in their own financial stability, and this can be made possible through micro-economics, including micro-enterprise development, or MED. A small loan and some training can help a family to start a successful small business in a commodity or service that is needed locally. Farming or handcraft co-operatives can build the power to trade at competitive prices, while retaining the profits for the benefit of their local community. As well as advocating at government and international level for greater and fairer spending on programmes to alleviate poverty, World Vision works with communities throughout Asia to assist them towards economic self-sufficiency.
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