Development expert Peter Rundell explores the challenge of 'saving the lives of several hundred million children' and shares his personal commitment and motivation.
“If there is the will, we really could reduce the number of people living in absolute poverty to under 10 per cent. We could save the lives of several hundred million children with relatively small dents in our own pockets,” an international development expert told a capacity crowd at a Greencoat Forum, held in the Initiatives of Change Centre, London, on 10 May, 2005. “That’s the challenge worth rising to,” said Dr Peter Rundell, who is responsible for poverty reduction strategies in the European Commission’s Development Director-General’s office. “That’s what gets me up in the morning and I hope there is a way for us to collectively work out a way of making it happen.”
In a wide-ranging address, entitled “Making Poverty History: a personal perspective”, Rundell outlined current challenges facing the international aid community, its successes and failures to date, and some of the positive and negative influences affecting outcomes. Aid has not reached its limit, Rundell claimed. “We could double, or triple, or quadruple aid to many countries and be very effective in terms of lives saved. It’s worth it in terms of keeping children in school, alive, growing and healthy; in terms of keeping mothers alive when they’re giving birth. Aid is a highly valuable investment so let’s have more of it.” Referring to the United Nations’ eight millennium development goals, he said there had been a surprising amount of success. The big millennium goal of halving the number of people living on less than $1 a day was on the way to being reached, he said. The proportion of people living below this poverty line had been reduced from 40 per cent in 1981 to 21 per cent today. In actual numbers, “this has meant a reduction from 1.5 billion to 1.1 billion people. That’s still a lot of people living below the poverty line. It’s a challenge. It’s what the British Prime Minister (Tony Blair) calls a scar on the consciousness of humanity.”
Other ambitious millennium development goals are not being realised, however. The goal of reducing by two-thirds the number of children dying before the age of five will not be achieved by 2015. Nor will the maternal mortality rate be reduced by three-quarters within the timeframe set in 2000. “Most of our successes have been in India and China but Africa has gone backwards statistically with a higher proportion of people now living in absolute poverty (than in 1990).”
The questions of protectionism, political involvement and corruption dominated both the address and the following debate. “The European Union and other countries suffer from a protectionist bug,” asserted Rundell. “That’s politically challenging for us here in the north. Are we willing to find a way of challenging our politicians to do what is uncomfortable for us in order to make things survivable for our brothers and sisters in the south?” he asked.
Rundell expressed concern over domestic and global governance issues, citing Zimbabwe where he had worked for eight years. “Those in power becoming less and less answerable to their citizens is, for me, one of the greatest failures over the last 10 years in many places. It’s a challenge for all of us – north and south alike.” Similarly, an on-going challenge is for poorer countries to find a way to hold rich countries accountable for their commitments and stated ideals, said Rundell. “Are we going to see promises delivered? Will rich countries meet their pledges?” Rundell noted there had been progress, however, pointing out that the European Union had pledged to increase its aid budget to 40p from 25p in every £100 and that there was evidence that aid delivers.
Although much of the address was upbeat, dwelling on positive results, Rundell voiced concerns about debt relief. He noted the enormous achievements resulting from the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign. “It has helped put development on the map in a way that no campaign before has achieved.” He expressed concern, however, that: “although it has done much good politically, technically it (debt relief) is not a great way of allocating aid. … Politically it is important that we have those things that show the drive but it is also worth being careful about the details because it is sometimes not that simple. For example, debt relief is a great way of delivering aid but if you’re not careful you give aid to the wrong countries; you end up giving more aid to better-off countries because they had more borrowing capacity so they borrowed more and get more debt relieved. You end up giving more aid to counties that have managed their economy badly which is why they got into trouble in the first place. So debt relief can turn out to be a bad way of sharing aid around.”
In response to a question of where most aid was going, Rundell replied that the two countries receiving the most increases at present were Afghanistan and “the largest-ever debt relief program on the planet went to Iraq this year. Iraq has received more in debt relief than the European Development Fund gets in five years for the whole of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific put together.” He noted, however, that there was sometimes a limit on the amount of aid that a country could absorb. “You can’t spend more on education than there are teachers to deliver. If there are no kids coming through the school system, you can’t increase the number of teachers to increase the size of the schools.”
Could the amount of money given to aid development be increased here in Britain? “Yes,” says Rundell. “People make a difference in the political system. Writing and lobbying ministers and Members of Parliament does work. Ministers do respond when approached personally.” Rundell said the issues were not simple, but very complex. But ending on a personal note, he observed, “Many people are involved in aid development because of their ideals. It’s 90 per cent perspiration and 10 per cent inspiration. That can come from friends or by spending time quietly seeking guidance from God. Because I followed that route, I decided to stay in Harare another two years when my two-year term expired. Within a month of following my sense of calling to stay I met my future wife and also got promoted.”
A man at peace with himself, Rundell is dedicated to his work, and seems confident that he is led in the process.
Neil Mence
English