The Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute (ALLI) in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of Pretoria recently hosted a public lecture at the Javett Art Centre on the politics of poverty in a changing world order. Prof Dan Banik, an extraordinary professor at ALLI and a professor of political science at the University of Oslo, delivered the broad-ranging lecture, which explored the complex relationship between poverty and politics, with a focus on the various political ideologies and policies that affect poverty reduction efforts.

Poverty is a global phenomenon and often a symptom of the underlying issues of unemployment, harsh economic conditions and lack of development in many countries. The least developed countries, usually third-world countries, experience poverty more than developed countries.

Opening his lecture, Prof Banik explained the concept of development, stating that it has various meanings for people based on their backgrounds and lived experiences across various parts of the world. “My needs are very different from yours, depending on where I live, my life phase, and my prior background. So development is notoriously difficult to define, and it’s also hugely contested. It is something that we don't always agree on. And we see this increasingly in this polarised environment, the so-called Global North and Global South.”

Prof Banik highlighted that his own understanding of development was shaped by one of his mentors, Prof Atul Kohli at Princeton University, who taught him that development “is a deliberative movement of societies towards more liveable life conditions”.

As a political sciences scholar and development expert, he dissected the concept of development being integral to poverty reduction, before turning his focus to the politics of poverty in a changing global order, highlighting some of his studies in China, India, Malawi, Rwanda, and South Africa.

In his talk, Prof Banik stated that there are three critical elements that are central to development: Economic growth, distribution and democracy. “Economic growth is important for development, some distribution of that growth and a political system that facilitates both growth and distribution – which is democracy. Development as we see it is maximising these three elements, even though there may be trade-offs in the process,” he emphasised.

Although a large population of the world is poor, with 700 million people living in extreme poverty, economic growth has substantially reduced poverty in some parts of the world over the past few decades and centuries, he noted. However, he stated that this must be prefaced against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which worsened poverty. “Now much of the progress that we had achieved in terms of numerous development indicators, particularly poverty, have either been reversed, or they've stalled,” he said.

While the outlook is bleak, making it easy to fall prey to pessimism, Prof Banik highlighted development success stories before homing in on some of the challenges. “Some categories of successes we have achieved include infrastructure, technology, internet and mobile phones,” he said. Talking on the technological advancements, he recalled how calling his parents, as a poor student 33 years ago, was expensive: “Today, I am not as poor, I am a relatively well-paid professor and I can FaceTime my parents for free. This technological advancement is amazing.”

These advancements are marked as significant progress in development. Today, the average person is four times richer in terms of income, and the economy has grown 13 times, despite the huge increase in the world’s population. Prof Banik made an example of the development successes in Asian countries. 

“Taiwan is particularly impressive. In 1940, the GDP capita in Taiwan was $1 400. In 2016 it was $42 400. It is this increase that has allowed Taiwan to reduce poverty, invest in health and education, and really promote wellbeing.” He added that China’s poverty reduction, which saw her uplifting half a billion people out of poverty in a period of 15 years, was laudable.

Other development elements where there has been great progress were health and education, social protection, food and nutrition – with an overall improvement in wellbeing. “In terms of health and nutrition, people have better food now. We don’t have children dying early as they did before. People are living longer now,” said Prof Banik. There is an enormous improvement in wellbeing. “We’re actually better off. It’s a bit strange to say that we’ve never been as well off as we are now,” noted Prof Banik. But he cautioned that “we need to be careful, because when we talk about successes, we think that it is something that happens all the time or over a long period. We have seen some countries doing very well for a short period.”

In Africa, Uganda is one such success story that was impactful, but later short-lived. He made an example of how the growing concern of HIV/Aids, which permeated Uganda in the 1980s, led to the country successfully combatting the prevalence of HIV and Aids through strong political support and other initiatives. All of these had an impact and Uganda succeeded, but of late it wasn’t as successful. “We should appreciate success even in a short period,” he said.

Shifting to the challenges of development, he highlighted some ‘poverty traps’ that Prof Paul Collier, an economist at Oxford University, identified as impediments to development. These include conflicts such as civil war, which is not good for development; the abundance of natural resources, which can end up being a curse; being landlocked with bad neighbours and no access to the ocean; and finally, bad governance.

“For him (Prof Collier), every country wants to climb the ladder of development and reduce poverty, but they often end up falling down,” he said.

In his concluding remarks, he said that, while challenges exist, much has been achieved in terms of development and poverty reduction. But, the question that we should be asking ourselves, Prof Banik noted, is how do we promote economic growth? How do we mobilise the distribution of that growth? And what role does the state play? He added that for Africa specifically, leaders should leverage on the growing interest to invest in the continent, and its inhabitants “should be negotiating better deals to make sure that one is more of an active agent and not a passive patient”.