ABANDONMENT OF THE POOR
POLITICS, CORRUPTION AND COLONIAL LEGACIES
Angela Huston Gold
We have argued, for years, that the disparities between rich and poor in access to services are because of weak systems caused in turn by the abandonment of the majority by political elites - local, national and global. Systems of people and infrastructure that should provide services – but do not. Systems that are underfunded, poorly defined, and prone to a chaotic mix of public, private and community-led interventions that fail to achieve economies of scale, that are ad hoc, unregulated, unsupported. Systems that are opaque (intentionally or unintentionally) and allow for looting or misuse of public funds.
A vacuum has been created by an abandonment of poor rural and urban communities by their own governments and a failure of the ‘international community’ to effectively target and reach them at the necessary scale.
In some cases, this is simply because the system is messy and fragmented, filled by a host of more and less well-meaning NGOs, businesses. And in the case of water – mafias, all pursuing their own interests, approaches and philosophies. In other cases there is clear, structural injustice. For example, economic policies and global financial architecture that benefit wealthier countries while leaving developing economies in cycles of debt. These economies are locked out of wealth through tax evasion by multi-nationals, and suffer from issues like monetary devaluation that prevent them from growing their public budgets.
The abandonment of the global majority is not just a consequence of inadequate systems or a lack of resources. It is a failure of leaders to see and change the system into one that can achieve justice and wellbeing for all. It is a failure of leaders from wealthy countries who control organisations like the World Bank and the IMF (who make loans and in turn control both industrial and public spending policy for indebted countries). And it is a failure of Global South leaders to confront and change practices which are harmful for their citizens, and to work strategically within the constraints they face to prioritise basic human rights like drinking water.
There have been, and are, systems leaders working to address these injustices and foster systems change. The solutions are not straightforward, and truly transformative change will require a network of systems leaders to work together with grit, vision, and creative collective action.
