Displacement in Burundi may have colonial origin © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

Understanding global poverty involves stepping back from the infinite variety of circumstantial misfortune experienced at household level. A vantage point of history will observe that most poor countries were vassals of the great colonial powers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The exit strategies pursued in granting independence cemented geographical boundaries that were inspired more by the politics of empire than the creation of new nation states.

Too many countries found themselves lacking a critical mass of resources or population, landlocked, or seething with irreconcilable ethnic division. A significant proportion of global poverty exists in war-torn and post-conflict countries.

The newly independent countries also lacked capacity to punch their weight in international negotiations. This has been most apparent in the evolution of global trade rules which have prevented them from reproducing proven models of industrialisation. Agriculture has been similarly impeded by massive subsidies available to US and European farmers. The consequence has been inability to break free of the shackles of the colonial economic model which depends largely on the export of natural resources.

Control over domestic development strategies has also been hampered by conditions for concessionary grants and loans. Designed to create macroeconomic stability, these have cut back state activity and impeded the provision of education, health, social safety nets and opportunities for work.

It has to be said that many governments have been the architects of their own misfortunes. Self-perpetuating kleptomaniac governance has drained economic growth through corruption and clientele politics. Weak democracy perverts the allocation of resources, most apparent in African governments’ failure to meet their own commitment to invest in agriculture, the core need of the vast majority of their populations. The broader lack of institutional capacity and infrastructure hinders delivery of aid programmes and business investment alike.

Population growth places great demands on poverty reduction programmes but it is not an underlying cause of poverty. Rich countries have themselves emerged successfully from periods of high population growth that coincided with industrial development.

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