Financial Times
misleads on global poverty, UN pledges, World Food Summit pledge and "safe
water"
To be read in conjunction with documentary evidence on government commitments:
www.millenniumdeclaration.org/pledges.htm
Draft 5 November 2015
Matt Berkley
Financial Times, August 30 2005:.
“[The US ambassador to the UN said:]
Millennium Development Goals...
[were] a subsequent package ...
which member states never formally
adopted”
Financial Times, September 2015:
"MDG of halving poverty between
1990 and 2015...adopted in 2000
[!]"
"the aims adopted [!] in 2000 have become widely known
[?] simply as the MDGs."
Financial Times editor responding to complaint through lawyer, 24 February
2015
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
Financial Times Complaints Commissioner, adjudication sent to complainant 8 April 2015:
"Having been put on-notice of the
important distinction between the possible baselines, and the ways in which the
MDGs may differ from the Millennium Declaration (as affirmed unamended in
2005), it would be disappointing if
future articles in Financial Times were to elide the two, or fail to recognise the distinction.
Were it particularly germane to the particular article, my decision under
Clause 1.1 might be different now that the Complainant has put Financial Times
on notice of this potentially important question of fact"
Financial Times, September 15, 2015:
"(MDGs) ratified by [world leaders'] predecessors [!] at the
start of the century [!] ..."
"...goals endorsed in 2000.[!]"
"Extreme poverty in developing countries has fallen from 47 per cent in 1990 [!] ..."
[How can the journalists know? These
figure fail to take into account estimates of inflation faced by the extremely
poor people, or of changing needs as, for example, households now contain fewer
people and so are less efficient.]
"...on current trends it will take another decade for child mortality to
fall by the target of
two-thirds..."
[? - The target "ratified by
their predecessors at the start of the century", or the easier MDG
target?]
Howard Friedman in 2013 concluded that... the
acceleration had generally occurred in the 1990s."
"...Millennium Development Goals
agreed in 2000." [!]
September 23, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f599b75c-6042-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html
"MDG indicators after the goals were introduced in 2000."
Guest writers
31 August 2015
https://next.ft.com/content/b07d3554-dd47-318d-9e67-7c9d714fe7e5
28 August 2015
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/08/28/does-the-world-really-need-development-goals/
"(MDGs) adopted [!] in 2000 [!]
...
Much has been achieved in the 15 years [!]
since then. ....
...the eight goals with a handful of quantified targets helped provide focus,
support and accountability. [!] "
Editorial
12 July 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/84f79654-2721-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html
Did no-one at the Financial Times tell John Fallon the truth about the MDGs,
after the complaints?
"(MDGs)...have shaped development since 2000 [!]"...
" “...MDGs when they were developed 15 years ago,” [!] says Mark Devadason..."
"John Fallon, chief executive of
the education firm Pearson, which owns the FT, says he hopes the introduction
of the SDGs will bring a sharper focus on the outcomes of firms’ social
responsibility work."
June 2, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9562aad6-f7ee-11e4-8bd5-00144feab7de.html
"as global leaders assess
progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals — a set of eight targets agreed in 2000 [!]
to be achieved by this year."
June 25, 2015
UN-backed report warns against complacency in fight against Aids
Andrew Ward, London
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49eabdc6-1ad7-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html
"Over the past 15 years [!] — since the UN unanimously [!] adopted
[!] the Millennium Development Goals" [!]...
[The UN 15 years ago in fact unanimously adopted the more ambitious Declaration
with a 2000 baseline]
"Compared with 1990,
under-five child mortality has been halved. Maternal mortality has dropped by
nearly as much. Undernutrition is down by almost 50 per cent."
[50 per cent? – The official FAO projection to 2015 is 10.9%, down from
18.6% in 1991.
And that is chronic and severe lack of calories, not general calorie
inadequacy or general undernutrition.]
Letter
September 29, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c79b9020-66a3-11e5-a57f-21b88f7d973f.html
"Unlike the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 [!],
the situation today is..."
July 15, 2015
Letter from David Miliband
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0da8c926-2ad5-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html
I am puzzled by the Financial Times complaints commissioner's idea that the
FT was not "on-notice" of the difference between Millennium Summit
pledges and the later MDG framework.
"John Bolton, US ambassador, said there was “no doubt the United States
supports the development goals of the Millennium Declaration”, adopted in 2000.
But the term “Millennium Development
Goals” had caused confusion, he said, as it was used to refer to a
subsequent package of “goals and subsidiary targets and indicators” which were
“solely a Secretariat product, which member states never formally adopted.”
Annan hits at US over move on development text
August 30, 2005
By Mark Turner in New York and Andrew Balls in Washington
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/652ccfa2-199d-11da-804e-00000e2511c8.html
I have had no answer from the Financial Times or its complaints commissioner
on the following specific allegation of apparent failure of editorial
standards:
To: corrections@ft.com
20 December 2014
Subject: Proposal for correction: Wrong impression by FT over many years as to Millennium Summit commitments
...A blog post of 21 August and article of 27 August give examples...The Financial Times
appears to have given a similar impression about the leaders' commitments over a period of many years. I consider it appropriate for staff to
search the archive to verify
this. I propose appropriate remedial
action.
To: FT complaints commissioner
28 February 2015
...The Financial Times does not
dispute the central point of the complaint, which is in the title:
"Wrong impression by FT over
many years as to Millennium Summit commitments".
"For some targets civil servants now proposed 1990 baselines -
generally easier than from "current rates" and what was implied by
the Secretary-General's recommendation document to the Summit and by a
common-sense reading of the Declaration."
It is not clear that Mr Callus took into account the "common-sense reading of the Declaration" or the Secretary-General's recommendation document,
which clearly indicate that other pledges besides on mortality had a 2000
baseline.
Editor of the Financial Times,
amendment February 2015:
"When the UN in 2000 [!]
set a millennium development goal [!]
…
... the world hit that [!] target five years early, says the World Bank. ....
The eight MDGs adopted in 2001 [!]...
This article has been amended since publication to give the correct [!] year the MDGs were adopted [!]."
Financial Times complaints commissioner, adjudication sent to complainant 8
April 2015:
"correction [!] /clarification [!]... having been made, the articles now meet even the
Complainants high standards." [!]
UN Press Kit 2015:
"The landmark [2000-baseline] Millennium
Declaration, adopted in 2000,
and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, reflect the commitment of Member States to reach specific goals..."
"United Nations General Assembly opens on 15 September 2015"
http://www.un.org/en/ga/70/presskit/background.shtml
European Union, 8
January 2015:
"The EU and its Member
States remain strongly committed to
the
[more ambitious, 2000-baseline]
Millennium
Declaration"
Group of 77 and China, March
2015:
"essential contribution to achieving
the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the
[2000-baseline]
Millennium
Declaration."
Financial Times, February 2015:
"The MDG [!] aims, adopted
[!] by UN members in 2000
[!] with a target date of 2015, led to eight goals...
the world met the first goal – halving extreme poverty –
in 2010, five years ahead of the MDGs’ deadline …
This article has been amended since publication in relation to the development
aims adopted in 2000."
"When the UN in 2000 [!]
set a millennium development goal [!]
…
... the world hit that [!] target five years early, says the World Bank. ....
The eight MDGs adopted in 2001 [!]...
This article has been amended since publication to give the correct [!] year the MDGs were adopted [!]."
Financial Times complaints commissioner, adjudication sent to complainant 8
April 2015:
"correction [!] /clarification [!]... having been made, the articles now meet even the
Complainants high standards." [!]
Statement on behalf of the
European Union, February 2015:
"the declaration
needs to show the international community's resolve to fulfil the promise of the Millennium Declaration...."
"We, the Heads of State and
Government of...the Group of 77 and
China....
...decide to accelerate the
implementation of our respective commitments
[on the vital role of women and the need
for full and equal opportunities for their participation and leadership in all
areas of sustainable development]
as contained in....
...the United Nations Millennium
Declaration..."
June 2014
"We, the Heads of State and Government and heads of delegation...
reaffirm our commitment to
the Millennium Declaration...
and the outcomes of all the major UN conferences and summits
in the economic, social, and environmental fields."
25 September 2013
"We,
the Heads of State and Government and high-level representatives...
recommit to fully implement
the internationally agreed commitments
related to Africa's development needs, particularly those contained in the
United Nations Millennium Declaration...
"
Future We Want
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
Rio de Janeiro
22 June 2012
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/futurewewant.html
"“Millennium Development Goals.”....which member states never formally
adopted. ...
...[leaders
in 2005] must not backtrack
on previous agreements or create
ambiguity....
...President Bush said..."America
supports the international development goals in the UN Millennium Declaration."
We remain committed to work with member states in support of those goals."
John R. Bolton
US Ambassador to the UN
26 August 2005
"The
General Assembly…
Invites the organizations and agencies…
and encourages other interested parties…
to continue to pursue vigorously...the...
[2000-baseline]
goals contained in the Millennium Declaration…"
16 December 2002
"The
core aims for education and
health
are stated in the
[2000-baseline]
UN Millennium
Declaration."
Gleneagles Agreement.
Signed: Presidents Bush, Putin, Chirac, Berlusconi; Prime Ministers Koizumi,
Blair, Martin;
Chancellor Schroeder; President of the European Commission Barroso
July 2005
"Paris,
4 May 2005
OECD
Ministers reaffirm Millennium and Monterrey development commitments
As
part of a drive by the world’s richest nations to inject new vigour into
flagging world trade and development negotiations, OECD Ministers meeting in Paris have reasserted their countries’ commitments to the Millennium
Declaration and the Monterrey Consensus on development."
OECD Ministers reaffirm
Millennium and Monterrey development commitments
http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf
September 15, 2005:
"The US claimed that it had
signed the Millennium Declaration but not the Millennium Development
Goals…."
September 17, 2005:
"member states’ reaffirmation
[in 2005] of goals set by a UN Millennium summit in 2000 to halve poverty by 2015."
September 15, 2015:
"world leaders...(MDGs) ratified by their predecessors [!] at the start of the century [!] ...
...goals endorsed in 2000.[!]
Extreme poverty in developing countries has fallen from 47 per cent in 1990 [!] ...
...on current trends it will take another
decade for child mortality to fall by the
target of two-thirds...
[? - The target "ratified by
their predecessors at the start of the century", or the easier MDG
target?]
Howard Friedman in 2013 concluded that... the
acceleration had generally occurred in the 1990s."
2005, United States:
"…MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS…
ARE SOLELY A SECRETARIAT PRODUCT,
NEVER HAVING BEEN FORMALLY ADOPTED BY MEMBER STATES.
…"
"…MILLENNIUM DECLARATION,
WHICH THE UNITED STATES SUPPORTS. …"
TO ALL DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR POSTS…
State
Department
pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB560.pdf
"John Bolton, US ambassador, said
there was “no doubt the United States supports the development goals of the Millennium Declaration”, adopted in 2000.
But the term “Millennium Development
Goals” had caused confusion, he said, as it was used to refer to a subsequent package of “goals and
subsidiary targets and indicators” which were “solely a Secretariat product,
which member states never formally
adopted.”
August 30, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/652ccfa2-199d-11da-804e-00000e2511c8.html
"member states’ reaffirmation [in September 2005] of goals set by a UN Millennium summit in 2000 to halve poverty by 2015."
September 17, 2005
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/13d5a1d0-271f-11da-b6fe-00000e2511c8.html
"...Millennium Development Goals
agreed in 2000." [!]
September 23, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f599b75c-6042-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html
"(SDGs)....(MDGs) ratified by their predecessors at the start of the century [!] ..."
"...goals endorsed in 2000. [!]
Extreme poverty in developing countries has fallen from 47 per cent in 1990 ..."
"...on current trends it will
take another decade for child mortality to fall by the target
[? - The target endorsed in
2000, or the easier MDG target?]
of two-thirds..."
"Howard Friedman in 2013
concluded that... the acceleration
had generally occurred in the 1990s."
September 15, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1ac2384c-57bf-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html
"Mr Kenny…cautions against giving
the credit to the MDG of halving poverty between 1990 and 2015, especially considering improvement that had
already taken place by the time the goal was actually adopted in 2000. [!]
Mr Reddy goes further. The year 1990 was chosen by the UN as the
benchmark when the MDGs were adopted
in 2000, he says, because it “obviously makes them easier to meet”.
"
Critics question success of UN’s Millennium Development Goals
September 15, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/51d1c0aa-5085-11e5-8642-453585f2cfcd.html
Mr Kenny has now accepted that it is not clear that the 1990 baseline was adopted in 2000.
http://www.cgdev.org/blog/eleven-years-later-were-we-right-about-trouble-mdgs#comment-2285622855
Mr Reddy has also shown an interest in the complainant's work.
"MDG indicators after the goals were introduced in 2000."
Guest writers
31 August 2015
https://next.ft.com/content/b07d3554-dd47-318d-9e67-7c9d714fe7e5
28 August 2015
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/08/28/does-the-world-really-need-development-goals/
"(MDGs) adopted [!] in 2000 [!]
...
Much has been achieved in the 15 years [!]
since then. ....
...the eight goals with a handful of quantified targets helped provide focus,
support and accountability. [!] "
Editorial
12 July 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/84f79654-2721-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html
"Millennium Development Goals — a
set of eight targets agreed in 2000
to be achieved by this year."
June 25, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49eabdc6-1ad7-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html
...............................................................
8 September 2000:
UN resolved to achieve goals with 2000
baselines.
6 September 2001:
Annan proposed easier
1990-baseline MDG targets.
21 December 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2013:
UN members reaffirmed 2000-baseline
Declaration.
Does the Financial Times have evidence that the UN membership adopted a resolution changing the baseline from the 2000 of the Millennium Declaration to 1990?
UN librarians, in response to a request, have not found any such resolution.
http://millenniumdeclaration.org/unlibrary.htm
The editor of the Financial Times in February 2015 and its complaints commissioner in March 2015 accepted that the 1990 baseline was not adopted in 2000.
In 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2013, the UN General Assembly adopted resolutions choosing the 2000 baseline.
"The MDGs, adopted
by UN members in 2000
with a baseline in 1990"
Financial Times, 21 August 2014
http://web.archive.org/web/20140822234059/http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
"Proposal for correction: Wrong impression by FT over many years as to Millennium Summit commitments
…MDGs' "baseline of 1990" formed no part of what was "adopted
by UN members in 2000". The MDG
targets were not "agreed in 2000".
The symbolic nature of the date 2000 adds to the wrong impression that
leaders were committed to the easier targets…
The Financial Times appears to have given a similar impression about the
leaders' commitments over a period of many
years. I consider it appropriate for staff to search the
archive to verify this. I
propose appropriate remedial action."
Email to:corrections@ft.com
20 December 2014
"The MDGs, adopted
by UN members in 2000
with a baseline in 1990"
Financial Times, 21 August 2014
http://web.archive.org/web/20140822234059/http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
"material distinction between the
1990 baseline” and a 2000 baseline…
Had the articles suggested otherwise,
[?] this would have been
[!] a highly-material
inaccuracy of fact....
Clause 1.1 …is breached only by such inaccuracies that a careful newsroom could
and should have avoided publishing...
If any of the articles had [!] been specifically about the appropriate baseline,
and whether the MDGs were
being achieved (on a
particular basis), I might have been inclined to find a breach…"
"I am far from sure I would have
deemed the inaccuracies sufficiently significant as to have required
correction/clarification"
Financial Times complaints commissioner, by email April 2015, document dated
29 March 2015 sent to complainant 8 April 2015
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
...........................................................................................................
"not difficult [to] see that the difference between the General Assembly pledge in 2000 to reduce child mortality from "current rates" and the 2001 MDG target with a 1990 baseline amounts to several million child deaths."
To: editor@ft.com, complaints.commissioner@ft.com
8 January 2015
Following the notifications of the error to the editor and the complaints
commissioner, and the repeated request for correction, the Financial Times
published no correction but instead these:
"the SDGs are set to take over
after 15 years [!] of development work driven by the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."
"Five years ago, a summit was held in New York to celebrate the 10 year anniversary [!] of the MDGs"
15 January 2015
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/01/15/guest-post-2015-should-be-the-year-of-real-action-on-extreme-poverty-and-climate-change/
"world leaders...will gather
again in New York this September to take stock at a time when the 2000 Millennium Development Goals
come to a close"
February 16, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0eb2d3b8-9fd7-11e4-9a74-00144feab7de.html
In my submission it is not difficult to see this:
The symbolism of the date 2000 adds to the wrong impression that the 1990-baseline MDG targets were what leaders pledged.
"The eight Millennium Development
Goals, which were established in 2000
[!] and ranged from halving extreme poverty rates…
At the beginning of the MDGs, child mortality was addressed through a limited
set of immunisation measures…."
15 January 2015
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e4cd3de-9bfd-11e4-b6cc-00144feabdc0.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
[see original complaint on symbolism of the year 2000, which some readers
would clearly associate with leaders' pledges]
"Clause 1.1 …is breached only by such inaccuracies that a careful newsroom
could and should have avoided publishing"
Financial Times complaints commissioner, by email April 2015, document
dated 29 March 2015 sent to complainant 8 April 2015
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
…..…………………………………………………………………………….
"the aims adopted [!] in 2000 have become widely known
[?] simply as the MDGs."
Financial Times editor responding to complaint through lawyer, 24 February
2015
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
………………………………………………………………………………………….
"When the UN in 2000 [!]
set a millennium development goal
[!] …
the
world hit that [!] target five years early, says the World Bank. ....
The eight MDGs adopted in 2001 [!]...
This article has been amended since publication to give the correct [!] year the MDGs were adopted [!]."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/23232010-c5d9-11e3-a7d4-00144feabdc0.html
Original article: April 17, 2014
Amended February 2015
"The MDG [!] aims, adopted
[!] by UN members in 2000
[!] with a target date of 2015, led to eight goals...
the world met the first goal – halving extreme poverty –
in 2010, five years ahead of
the MDGs’ deadline …
This article has been amended since publication in relation to the development
aims adopted [!]
in 2000." [!]
Editor's amended version of February 2015 after complaint, of original
article 21 August 2014.
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
"correction [!]/clarification [!]
having been made, the articles now
meet even the Complainants high standards." [!]
Financial Times complaints commissioner
Adjudication dated 29 March 2015 sent to complainant 8 April 2015
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
"with the possible [!]
exception of the first amended article
[21 August 2014] , none of them
[!] were about the child mortality baseline
[? – not clear why the commissioner refers to this baseline, since other
baselines were also changed]
adopted, or indeed referenced the baseline in any way."
Financial Times complaints commissioner Greg Callus, adjudication dated 29
March 2015 sent by email 8 April 2015:
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
It is not clear that Mr Callus took into account the "common-sense reading of the Declaration" or the Secretary-General's recommendation document to the Summit, to which the complainant had drawn his attention and which clearly indicate that other pledges besides on mortality have a 2000 baseline.
……………………………………………………………….
"(MDGs)…that were agreed by all United Nations members in 2000 [!]...
As one of the original drafters [of the 2000-baseline pledges, the
1990-baseline MDG targets, or both?], my
view...
….child mortality,which has
halved globally since 1990....
...we need a debate about accountable
national government [!]"
Original article of 6 November 2014
http://web.archive.org/web/20141125205908/http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/11/06/guest-post-the-un-needs-to-overhaul-its-development-vision/
………………………………………………………….
"The MDGs, adopted
by UN members in 2000
with a baseline in 1990"
Financial Times, 21 August 2014
http://web.archive.org/web/20140822234059/http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
"When the UN in 2000 [!] set a millennium
development goal [!] …
the
world hit that [!] target five years early, says the World Bank. ....
The eight MDGs adopted in 2001 [!]...
This article has been amended since publication to give the correct [!] year the MDGs were adopted [!]."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/23232010-c5d9-11e3-a7d4-00144feabdc0.html
Original article: April 17, 2014
Amended February 2015
The above article referenced the baseline to the extent that it needed to do so
to make its false claim that the world had (officially) met a goal set in 2000.
"(MDGs)…that were agreed by all United Nations members in 2000 [!]...
….child mortality,which has
halved globally since 1990"
Financial Times, 6 November 2014
http://web.archive.org/web/20141125205908/http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/11/06/guest-post-the-un-needs-to-overhaul-its-development-vision/
"The MDGs, adopted by UN members in 2000 with a baseline
in 1990"
Financial Times, 21 August 2014
http://web.archive.org/web/20140822234059/http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
Financial Times complaints commissioner Greg Callus:
"with the possible [!]
exception of the first amended article [21
August 2014] , none of them were about the child mortality baseline
adopted, or indeed referenced the
baseline in any way."
It is not clear that Mr Callus took into account the "common-sense reading of the Declaration" or the Secretary-General's recommendation document, which clearly indicate that other pledges besides on mortality had a 2000 baseline.
The following article, ten days after the Financial Times
complaints commissioner dated his adjudication stating that he would be
disappointed if the newspaper failed to make the distinction between the
pledges and the MDG targets, seems to do so again, contributing to the
misleading impression:
"When
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
...with an overarching goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 — were initiated at the UN in 2000
[!], they, too, were greeted with skepticism."
But due to their unprecedented
[? - there was a precedent in the Declaration]
focus on measurable, time-bound results,
[? - the "poverty" and water targets were not "measurable due to
the lack of estimates of inflation faced by the poor, or needs, or water
quality
they have proved transformative. As we
approach the expiration of the MDGs at the end of this year, the world has met
the poverty goal...and halved child mortality".
[How can the journalists know a
poverty goal has been met without information on inflation faced and
needs? The world has not halved child
mortality since 2000, which is the baseline for what was "initiated at the
UN in 2000.]
Does the passage not give the impression, or contribute to an impression,
that
a) the agreement of 2000 was the same as the MDGs, and
b) that the world has halved child mortality since the pledge of 2000?
The baseline for the child mortality pledge is 75 per thousand, and the
baseline for the MDG target is 90. The
estimate for 2015 is about 43.
1 June 2003
To: martin.wolf@ft.com
…All studies of poverty suffer from the following flaw: if more poor people die early, the figures look “better”. In the age of AIDS, this is not just a theoretical possibility. The idea of “poverty reduction” as reducing the proportion of poor people is conceptually flawed, if the aim is to help poor people.
…Existing statistics on poverty are cross-sectional.
But all of them look “worse” if poor people survive longer.
So you cannot come to conclusions about how well or badly people did without looking at changes in life length.
For economists to try and estimate average food prices paid by poor people is far more complex than many people might think. And the statistical offices’ methods for setting a money value on food consumption are often not comparable with each other.
But food adequacy itself is a very complex and expensive thing to measure. It involves weighing the food people eat and asking them many questions, which, again, yield different answers according to different methods.
The simple solution is staring us in the face.
People who eat more usually live longer.
So life length is an indicator of economic success.
The only sane definition of extreme poverty is this:
Vulnerability to early death through hunger.
…
1. All existing measures of income inequality
- for example income ratios between rich and poor, and Gini indices -
fail to take into account the fact that more poor people than rich people are absent from the data due to earlier death.
In all countries, more poor people than rich people are absent from this year’s figures due to early death.
In that respect, all existing measures of income inequality underestimate lifetime income inequality, and underestimate inequality of distribution to people during a period.
2. All statements by economists as to the economic progress of poor people,
based on trends in their measures of income inequality,
have failed to take account of the following fact:
Trends in inequality of life length during a period partially determine
the inequality of annual income among living people at its end - but in the wrong direction.
Economists claim to have measured inequality of distribution to people during a period.
But that is not what they have measured. Changes in income differentials are merely one kind of determinant of the level of “inequality” recorded at the end of a period by an economist using an income ratio or a Gini index.
Economists have mistakenly treated income gains and losses to people as the sole determinant of the ratio or index. That is not the case.
If poor people live longer, the Gini index will look “worse” to an economist who makes the usual but erroneous assumption. The assumption is this: “a trend towards less equality in annual income at the end of a period shows, other things being equal, more losses to poor people”.
That is the common belief among economists, and it is not true.
We might call this the “distribution fallacy” or “inequality fallacy”.
There is a meaningful and important distinction between
a) trends in inequality of distribution when comparing people alive at different times and
b) inequality of distribution of income to people during a period.
Without information on life length, you cannot calculate from (b) from (a) You cannot calculate the change in distribution to people from comparing populations whose composition may have changed.
Financial Times, 21 August 2014:
"The MDGs, adopted [!] by UN members in 2000 [!] with a baseline in 1990 [!]"
The baseline adopted by UN members in 2000 is 2000.
It is not clear which resolution the editor of the Financial Times claims agreed the Millennium Development Goals
On 14 December 2001 the UN General Assembly welcomed a report by the Secretary-General, entitled "Road Map on the Implementation of the Millennium Declaration".
It contained an annex of "Millennium Development Goals". Apart from the water target, the MDGs had a generally easier baseline than the Declaration: 1990.
The General Assembly did not say anything in 2000 or 2001 about MDGs or eight goals, or a 1990 baseline.
After the Road Map was produced in September 2001, the UN Development Group – a committee of heads of UN agencies, funds and programmes – on 6 November 2001 had sent out to UN country representatives guidelines for country reporting using the generally easier 1990 baselines. There was no Assembly authority for this change.
The resolution of 14 December 2001 recommended that the Road Map be considered as a useful guide to implementing the Declaration, but then called for more publicity for the Declaration, which has more ambitious 2000 baselines.
On 21 December 2001 the Assembly reaffirmed the Declaration.
At the UN conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey in March 2002, the outcome "consensus" document did not mention MDGs.
Leaders reaffirmed the Declaration at the World Summit in 2005, when they did for the first time agree to mention MDGs, and the high-level meeting of 2013.
…………………………………………………..
To: editor@ft.com, complaints.commissioner@ft.com
8 January 2015
…I think it is not difficult [to] see that the difference between the General
Assembly pledge in 2000 to reduce child mortality from
"current rates" and the 2001 MDG target with a 1990
baseline amounts to several million
child deaths.
Financial Times editor
through lawyer, response 24 February 2015:
"the aims adopted [!] in 2000 have become widely known [!] simply as the MDGs."
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
Bold and underlining added later.
…………………………………………………..
To:corrections@ft.com
20 December 2014
Subject: Proposal for correction: Wrong impression by FT over many years as to
Millennium Summit commitments
…MDGs' "baseline of 1990"
formed no part of what was "adopted by UN members in 2000". The MDG targets were not "agreed in
2000". The symbolic nature of the date 2000 adds to the wrong impression that leaders were
committed to the easier targets…
The Financial Times appears to have given a similar impression about the
leaders' commitments over a period of many
years. I consider it appropriate
for staff to search the archive to verify this.
I propose appropriate remedial action."
…………………….
Financial Times complaints commissioner Greg Callus, adjudication dated 29 March 2015:
"I am far from sure I would have deemed
the inaccuracies sufficiently significant as to have required
correction/clarification, but having been made, the articles now meet even the Complainants high standards."
[!]
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
Editor's amended version after complaint:
"The MDG aims, adopted [!]
by UN members in 2000 [!]
with a target date of 2015, led to eight
goals... the world met the first goal
[? - actually relates only to one indicator for target] – halving extreme poverty – in 2010, five years ahead of the MDGs’ deadline ."
Those countries less dependent on
aid...paid the MDGs much less
heed. More than half the world’s very poor
in 2000..."
"This article has been amended
since publication in relation to the development aims adopted [!] in 2000.
[!]"
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
"I have no doubt that the
Complainant is correct that there is a material distinction between the 1990
baseline” and a 2000 baseline” (assuming that he is correct that a 2000
baseline” is implicit in current rates" in the Millennium Declaration).
Had the articles suggested otherwise, this
would have been a highly-material inaccuracy of fact....
Clause 1.1 will only be breached if the Press has not taken care to avoid
publishing inaccurate information. It is a rule against slapdash journalism
that is negligent in setting out the facts. It is not a rule which is breached by the mere presence of any inaccuracy
however minor. It is breached only by such inaccuracies that a careful
newsroom could and should have avoided publishing...
If any of the articles had [!] been specifically about the
appropriate baseline, and whether
the MDGs were being achieved (on a particular basis), I might have been
inclined to find a breach"
"Appropriate remedial action" does not mean amending articles long
after most people have read them, or failing to tell the truth you have
obscured.
………………………….
Financial Times complaints commissioner, Greg Callus:
"with the possible [!]
exception of the first amended article
[21 August 2014] , none of them
[!] were about the child mortality baseline [!]
adopted, or indeed referenced the
baseline in any way."
It is not clear to me why Mr
Callus refers to the "child mortality baseline". Other pledges were also clearly from 2000
baselines, as the complainant made clear.
Articles clearly do "reference" the baseline if they refer to
relevant targets being met at particular times, unless there was no progress or
regress on that target in the 1990s.
The word "possible" is puzzling, since the article of 21 August
does mention the baseline.
The idea that only one article "possibly" referenced the baseline in
any way is puzzling. The Financial times
mentioned a target being met. That
clearly refers to the confused or misleading idea that the baseline for the
pledges was 1990.
It is not clear to me that Mr Callus understood the significance of the errors. It does not seem to me hard to realise that they tend to encourage readers to hold governments to account for the wrong targets.
The adjudication, by giving a misleading account of the chronology, fails to
acknowledge that some of the problematic
material appeared after the newspaper had been put on notice of the problem. This seems relevant to the complaints
commissioner's own standards on the editor's duty to take care.
It is not clear to me that Mr Callus understood the cumulative effect of the errors. A newspaper's business model is repeat
business.
I made the point to Mr Callus that the newspaper does not deny the long history of
error. I see no response on
this.
I am surprised if he considers amendment of articles sufficient, rather than correction of the impression given to the public. For the "world's most authoritative source" this is hardly the correct standard.
6 November 2001: Mark Malloch
Brown as chairman of the UN Development Group sends out, with no authority from the General Assembly,
country reporting guidelines for UN staff to "assist" member
states. The guidance note states that the Millennium Declaration text "would imply" it has a 2000
baseline, but "Millennium
Development Goal" targets have been agreed by civil servants with
[generally easier] 1990 baselines.
6 November 2014: Mark Malloch Brown wrote for the Financial Times:
"(MDGs)…that were agreed
by all United Nations members in 2000 [!]...
As one of the original drafters, my view...
….child mortality, which has
halved globally since 1990....
...we need a debate about accountable
national government [!]"
Financial Times complaints commissioner:
"with the possible [!]
exception of the first amended article [21
August 2014] , none of them were about the child mortality baseline adopted, or
indeed referenced the baseline in any
way."
.........................................................
"I commend this publication to
all policymakers, development practitioners and human rights workers committed
to sustainable human development and social justice.
Louise Arbour
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights…
After the Millennium Summit, the eight Development Goals were ....endorsed by
United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the ... (IMF) and the ...(OECD).
However, the United Nations General
Assembly explicitly mentioned and endorsed
the eight MDGs only as late as October 2005. Until then it had focused
(and still does) on calling for the implementation and monitoring of
all goals and measures in the Millennium
Declaration, which go beyond development."
Claiming the Millennium Development Goals: A human rights approach
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations
New York and Geneva, 2008
ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Claiming_MDGs_en.pdf
"...as Manning (2010) [former Director-General at UK Department for International Development] notes, the MDGs are not formally endorsed by the UN membership, but described as ‘a useful guide’".
Andy Sumner and Meera Tiwari
Global Poverty Reduction to 2015 and Beyond
October 2010 Working Paper
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/771ids.pdf
Note by MB: That is not correct. What the UN members mentioned in
the relevant resolution, 56/95 of 14 December 2001, was not the MDGs but the 58-page report containing among other
proposals an Annex proposing them.
Member states did not say which part or parts they considered a "useful
guide" or were for the Secretary-General to "draw on" for his
reports.
Far from describing the 1990-baseline targets as a "useful guide" member states in the same
resolution called for increased
publicity for the 2000-baseline Declaration, and reaffirmed the Declaration on 21 December 2001.
Leaders mentioned the MDGs in the outcome document for the World Summit of
2005, which is what the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
document above refers to.
However, any "endorsement" that
might be claimed to have occurred in 2005 was in the context of leaders at the
same time reaffirming the Declaration's pledges.
Any endorsement member states were making of the easier targets is not enough to
invalidate the pledges with 2000 baselines.
Member states were, and are,
still committed to the actual pledges of 2000 - which they and their
successors reaffirmed in 2013.
Evidence: millenniumdeclaration.org/pledges.htm .
Sumner and Tiwari rely on the 2010 article by Richard Manning:
"(MDGs), of which the
authoritative version was contained in an Annex to a ‘Road Map’ produced by the
Secretary-General in September 2001...
the Annex [!] to the ‘Road Map’ was not formally endorsed by the UN membership, but merely described as
‘a useful guide’ [!] in the
relevant Resolution,"
[Clarification by MB: The General Assembly in the resolution of 14
December 2001 recommended the "Road Map" as a useful guide. It did
not mention the Annex containing the MDG framework. The full text is later
in this document]
"and that the subsequent
updating has been carried out by the so-called Inter-Agency and Expert Group on
the Millennium Development Goal Indicators, a body whose status is pleasingly
unclear.
Nevertheless, despite this less than robust formal basis, there
can be no doubt that the MDGs have become highly influential at least at the
level of international discourse about development."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1759-5436.2010.00098.x/abstract
2010
The Impact and Design of the MDGs: Some Reflections
Richard Manning (former UK Department for International Development Director
General)
"Welcomed as a useful guide, the MDGs [incorrect: the UN had not
mentioned MDGs as a "useful guide"] were not formally endorsed by
the General Assembly until 2005 (Manning, 2009; Hulme, 2010: 19;
Manning, 2010; Sumner and Lawo, 2010; Langford, Sumner and Yamin, 2013"
Thomas Pogge and Nicole Rippin
www.post2015hlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Pogge-Rippin_Universal-Agenda-on-the-Multiple-Dimensions-of-Poverty.pdf
[Note by MB: What the General
Assembly welcomed as a "useful guide" in the relevant resolution,
56/95 of 14 December 2001, and called on the Secretary-General to "draw
on" for his future progress reports, was not the MDGs. It was the 58-page report containing, among
other proposals an Annex proposing them.
The General Assembly did not say in that resolution whether it was interested
in the proposed MDGs.
Far from describing the 1990-baseline targets as a "useful guide",
they in the same resolution called for increased publicity for the
2000-baseline Declaration. , and reaffirmed the Declaration on 21 December
2001.
Although leaders mentioned the MDGs in the outcome document for the World Summit of 2005, which is
what the authors seem to refer to, any "formal endorsement" of the
MDGs was in the context of their also reaffirming the Declaration's
pledges.
Any endorsement they were making of the easier targets is irrelevant and, in
effect, invalid.
That is because they were still committed to the actual pledges of 2000 - which
they and their successors reaffirmed in 2013.
Evidence: millenniumdeclaration.org/pledges.htm ]
Secretary-General's 58-page report, Road Map on the implementation of the
Millennium Declaration:
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/sgreport2001.pdf
The resolution of 14 December 2001 said nothing specifically about MDGs. Instead, UN member states asked the agencies to publicise the Declaration, which has a 2000 baseline.
"The General Assembly…
1. Takes
note with appreciation of the report of the
Secretary-General
entitled "Road
map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration";
2. Recommends
that the "road
map" be considered as a useful guide in the
implementation of the Millennium Declaration by the United
Nations system, and invites
Member States, as well as the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade
Organization and other interested parties to consider the "road
map" when formulating plans for implementing goals
related to the Declaration;
3. Requests the Secretary-General to prepare an annual report and a
comprehensive report every five years on progress …towards
implementing the Millennium Declaration, drawing upon the "road
map" and in accordance with resolution 55/162, and requests that…
quinquennial comprehensive reports examine progress achieved towards implementing all the commitments
made in the Declaration…
4. Invites the United Nations system, in cooperation with Member States, to
adopt specific measures to give widespread publicity to the Millennium Declaration
and to increase
the dissemination of information on the Declaration…"
Resolution 56/95
14 December 2001
http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/56/95&Lang=E
In effect, the same resolution which some might think agreed or welcomed the MDGs in fact asked UN staff to report on the Declaration's commitments.
The resolution which welcomed the Road Map as a useful guide requested Kofi
Annan and one might think Ban Ki-Moon to submit reports in accordance with resolution 55/162, which states:
"The General Assembly…
requests the Secretary-General to prepare a comprehensive report every five
years, supplemented by an annual report
on progress achieved towards implementing the Millennium Declaration, taking into account the following:
(a) The annual reports should reflect
the broad array of specific
goals and commitments enunciated in the Millennium
Declaration…
(b) All reports should focus, in this respect, on the results and
benchmarks achieved, identify gaps in
implementation…"
55/162 Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit
14 December 2000
http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=A/RES/55/162
In 2000, UN member states were reported by the Economist, the Guardian, the Times of India, the New York Times and Reuters as making pledges with 2000 baselines.
The Millennium Development Goals with generally easier 1990 baselines were proposed by civil servants on 6 September 2001.
On 21 December 2001 the General Assembly reaffirmed the Declaration. World leaders in 2005 mentioned the MDGs at the same time as reaffirming the Declaration.
"When the UN in 2000 [!]
set a millennium development goal
[!] (MDG) of halving the percentage of humans living in extreme poverty by
2015, it sounded like just pompous verbiage. Perhaps the drafters themselves
thought so too. But despite economic crisis, the world hit that
[!] target five years early, says the World Bank. ....
The eight MDGs adopted in 2001 [!]..."
This article has been amended since
publication to give the correct [!] year the MDGs were adopted [!]."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/23232010-c5d9-11e3-a7d4-00144feabdc0.html
Date of original article: April 17, 2014
Amended February 2015
"The MDG aims, adopted
[!] by UN members in 2000 [!] with
a target date of 2015, led to eight goals... the world met the first goal –
halving extreme poverty – in 2010, five years ahead of the MDGs’ deadline
."
"This article has been amended
since publication in relation to the development aims adopted in 2000."
21 August 2014, amended February 2015.
The text is still inaccurate and significantly misleading.
Several very well-known MDG aims with a target date of 2015 were not
"adopted by UN members in 2000".
The article clearly gives the impression that UN members' agreement of 2000 was met in 2010.
"Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs)…
Millennium Development Goals…
The Millennium Declaration is a
promise of partnership not
lightly to be broken."
Editorial
Financial Times
January 18, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/50f7bd20-68f5-11d9-9183-00000e2511c8.html
"John Bolton, US ambassador, said there was “no doubt the United States supports
the development goals of the Millennium Declaration”,
adopted in 2000.
But the term “Millennium Development Goals” had caused confusion, he said,
as it was used to refer to a subsequent
package of “goals and subsidiary targets and indicators” which were
“solely a Secretariat product, which member states never formally adopted.”
August 30, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/652ccfa2-199d-11da-804e-00000e2511c8.html
"The annual stock-take on the
2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed
by world leaders in 2000 [!] shows good progress in reducing the numbers living on very low
incomes, and in tackling disease and poor water
quality."
[! - The statistics are not on water quality.]
"while the proportion of children
aged under five who are underweight declined from 30 per cent in 1990 to 23 per cent in 2009, it is unlikely
to achieve a maximum goal of 15 per cent by 2015."
July 8, 2011
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc1b42d8-a907-11e0-ab62-00144feabdc0.html
Neither the Declaration nor the MDG framework mentions 1990 for the water pledge or target.
"(MDGs), ...targets for 2015 that
were agreed by world leaders [!] at the start of this century [!] ....
A target of halving the number of people
without sustainable access to safe [!] drinking
water between 1990 and 2015
is on track"
November 24, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ede4c3be-b9c6-11dd-99dc-0000779fd18c.html
Financial Times, 17 April 2014:
"When the UN in 2000 [!] set a millennium
development goal (MDG) of
halving the percentage of humans living in extreme poverty by 2015 it sounded
like just pompous verbiage."
"But despite economic crisis, the world hit that target
five years early, says the World Bank. …The eight MDGs adopted [!] in 2000..."
"When the UN in 2000 set a millennium
development goal (MDG).."
[! Untrue . MDG targets have a standard, generally
easier 1990 baseline.
The UN in 2000 set a more ambitious 2000 baseline.
It reaffirmed that pledge on 21 December 2001, in 2005 and 2013.]
"…of halving the percentage of
humans living in extreme poverty by 2015..."
[Not a "Millennium Development Goal". MDG1 is "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.]
"…it sounded like just pompous verbiage."
[Is the Financial Times claiming it was a target which made sense for
judging poverty?
There were no official statistics on prices faced by the poor.
There are none in 2015. The hunger
statistics are based partly on the same unreliable surveys.
The figures look better if the poor die.
Amazingly, economic theorists had entirely failed to include this in
their "poverty measures" and "welfare economics", despite
economists claiming to cover periods of war, famine and epidemic. Economists' global and national progress
reports and policy advice confused "the average rise" with "the
rise in the average for whoever survives to the time of survey". They did this even though life expectancy
had fallen in some African countries due to AIDS.
The problem was put to professors and experts before the UN summit in
2000. In April 2001 before the MDG
framework was agreed it was put to the World Bank and OECD "MDG
architects", to Caroline Anstey of the World Bank, and to Jeffrey Sachs,
Ravi Kanbur and Kenneth Arrow.
For other problems, see below.]
"But despite economic crisis, the world hit that target
five years early, says the World Bank. …"
[How can the Financial Times possibly know that the proportion of people in extreme
poverty was halved if they do not consider what people needed to spend?
It is misleading also because that is not what the UN set "in
2000"; it is not one of the eight
"MDGs" leaders mentioned in 2005 either.]
"The eight MDGs adopted [!]"
[In which
resolution, exactly, does the Financial Times claim this happened? Clearly not in 2000.
The resolution of 14 December 2001 welcomed the Secretary-General's "Road
Map" as a "useful guide" to the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration, but did not mention the annex containing the MDG framework, or the
MDGs, or eight goals, or 1990. It called
for more publicity for the Declaration, which has a 2000 baseline. ]
in 2000..."
[untrue]
Notes: The newspaper is clearly stating not just that a "dollar-a-day"
target was met, but that an "extreme poverty" target was met.
That is odd, because
a) income is not the same thing as profit;
b) spending – which is what most of the surveys are on - does not tell
economists what people got in return or how far their needs were met;
c) the World Bank takes no account of any changing needs for any items.
Anthony Atkinson co-wrote a paper in 2000 saying that these kinds of income surveys were unreliable.
It is not difficult to see that poor countries' inflation rates may be unreliable even for the whole population.
The figures take no account of assets or debts, or even whether spending is or has been financed by selling assets or mounting debt.
The idea is that the more you spend, the richer you get.
"the problems with poverty
estimates go well beyond the inappropriate nature of the conversion factors
used to make such adjustments across currencies, and ultimately reside in the failure to specify an international
poverty line (or national poverty lines) that are meaningful in the
sense that they correspond to the real
cost of achieving basic human requirements (as argued extensively by
Thomas Pogge and myself in various published articles)."
Letter from Sanjay Reddy
2007
Difficulty of making meaningful estimates of poverty
www.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F9c9aa4f6-9640-11dc-b7ec-0000779fd2ac.html
Financial Times, 21 August 2014:
"The MDGs, adopted
[!] by UN members in 2000 [!] with a baseline in 1990"
[!]
Article of 27 August, amended February 2015:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d321500c-2e27-11e4-b760-00144feabdc0.html
"This article has been amended since publication to reflect that targets agreed in 2000
led to the MDGs".
Misleading. The amendment was either
a) because, as the complaint stated, the article gave a "misleading
impression that at the Millennium Summit, UN member states committed themselves
to development targets with a generally easier baseline than is in fact the
case", or
b) for some other, apparently trivial, reason not specified by the editor.
I think this is either a significant
breach of editorial standards or a significant contribution to one. The Financial Times gives a false reason for
the amendment, obscures the actual pledges from the public, which it should
have reported in the first place.
The article was in fact amended to remove a false statement.
It as amended to reflect that world leaders in 2000 agreed more ambitious targets than the Financial Times claimed. Otherwise any such amendment would have been pedantic and trivial.
8 September 2000: General Assembly
adopts Millennium Declaration.
The Economist, Times of India, Reuters, the Guardian, the Independent all
indicate 2000 baselines for
the pledges.
14 December 2001: General Assembly welcomes Secretary-General's detailed
Road Map as a "useful guide" to implementing the Declaration.
The Road Map contains an annex, a "Millennium Development Goal"
framework with several 1990 baselines.
The General Assembly does not mention the annex, 1990, Millennium Development
Goals, or eight goals.
The resolution calls for the Declaration, which has 2000 baselines, to be
better publicised.
21 December 2001: General Assembly reaffirms Declaration.
Leaders reaffirm the Declaration in 2005 and 2013.
Bold, italics and underlining have been added later:
…………………………………………………………….
To: corrections@ft.com
20/12/2014
Proposal for correction: Wrong impression by FT over many years as to Millennium Summit commitments
A blog post of 21 August and article of 27 August give examples of a misleading impression that at the Millennium Summit, UN member states committed themselves to development targets with a generally easier baseline than is in fact the case.
The backdated 1990 baseline is in the Millennium Development Goal framework proposed in 2001. However, it forms no part of General Assembly Resolution 55/2 of 2000, the Millennium Declaration. World leaders committed to child and maternal mortality reductions from "current rates".
The specific set of eight "Millennium Development Goals" and targets was proposed by the Secretary-General in September 2001. In that year and subsequently, some "MDG" targets were proposed which were additional to the leaders' pledges in the 2000 resolution. For some targets civil servants now proposed 1990 baselines - generally easier than from "current rates" and what was implied by the Secretary-General's recommendation document to the Summit and by a common-sense reading of the Declaration.
The pledges of 2000 have not been revised or rescinded: they were "reaffirmed" by the General Assembly in 2005.
In relation to the specific statements in Financial Times items of August 2014, the MDGs' "baseline of 1990" formed no part of what was "adopted by UN members in 2000". The MDG targets were not "agreed in 2000". The symbolic nature of the date 2000 adds to the wrong impression that leaders were committed to the easier targets.
The Financial Times appears to have given a similar impression about
the leaders' commitments over a period of many years. I consider it appropriate for staff to search the archive to verify this. I propose
appropriate remedial action.
...
[examples given in email of 20 December 2014:]
21 August 2014
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/08/21/the-new-un-development-goals-still-missing-the-point/
"The MDGs, adopted
by UN members in 2000
[sic]
with a baseline in 1990
[sic]
and a target date of 2015, set eight
goals including reductions in extreme poverty..."
27 August 2014
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d321500c-2e27-11e4-b760-00144feabdc0.html
"The previous targets, the Millennium
Development Goals, were agreed in 2000 with objectives for
2015."
[conflates MDG targets proposed in 2001 with the pledges]
17 April 2014
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/23232010-c5d9-11e3-a7d4-00144feabdc0.html
"When the UN in 2000
set a millennium development goal (MDG)
[sic]
of halving the percentage of humans
living in extreme poverty by 2015, it sounded like just pompous verbiage.
...But despite economic crisis, the world hit that target five years early, says the
World Bank."
"The eight MDGs adopted in
2000..."
14 September 2014
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/bbcd03f6-3a89-11e4-bd08-00144feabdc0.html
"Millennium Development Goals, which have shaped aid policy since
2000
[sic]
and expire in 2015."
[sic - seems to refer to the dated targets rather than the undated goals]
"The promises
[sic]
in question this week are the
Millennium Development Goals"
http://blogs.ft.com/mdg/2008/09/23/aid-is-a-leg-up-not-a-hand-out/
............................................................................................
Financial Times: No response until 30 January, after complainant notified editor that he had contacted the Financial Times complaints commissioner.
2 January 2015:
"yet another major UN conference in
New York will seek to replace the Millennium
Development goals, adopted
"
[sic - in reality the General Assembly resolution of 2001 welcomed the MDG framework as a "useful guide", whereas the resolution of 2000 did clearly "adopt" the Declaration's pledges; the 2001 resolution called for more publicity for the Declaration]
in 2000 [sic]..."
"More progress was made towards the MDGs, for example in reducing child mortality, than many sceptics believed possible in 2000"
[sic - the phrase "MDGs" was not used at all in 2000. The child mortality pledge of 2000 was for
reduction from "current rates".
Note the juxtaposition of "yet another major UN conference in New
York" and two mentions of "in 2000" adding to likelihood that
readers would think the easier baselines are those of the pledges].
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df2c6ff0-8447-11e4-bae9-00144feabdc0.html
15 January 2015: " the SDGs are
set to take over after 15 years
[sic] of development work driven by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."
"Five years ago, a summit was held in New York to celebrate the 10 year anniversary [sic] of the MDGs"
15 January 2015: "The eight
Millennium Development Goals, which were established
in 2000 ...At the beginning of the MDGs, child mortality was addressed
..."
[see original complaint on symbolism of the year 2000, which
some readers would clearly associate with leaders' pledges]
and ranged from halving extreme
poverty rates..."
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0e4cd3de-9bfd-11e4-b6cc-00144feabdc0.html
....................................................................................
21 January 2015
Reminder: Correction on Millennium Summit commitments
To: corrections@ft.com
[appended complaint of 20 December ]
..................................................................................
FT: No comment.
..............................................................................................
28 January 2015
Message for Greg Callus. Reminder: Correction on Millennium Summit commitments
To: corrections@ft.com
Dear FT staff,
Please pass the complaint below to Mr Callus.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Matt Berkley
[appended complaint of 20 December and reminder of 21 January]
..........................................................................................................
FT: No comment.
...........................................................................................................
28 January 2015
Fwd: Message for Greg Callus. Reminder: Correction on Millennium Summit commitments
To: editor@ft.com, complaints.commissioner@ft.com
Dear Mr Barber,
I wish to add the following articles to the complaint.
I think it is not difficult so see that the difference between the General Assembly pledge in 2000 to reduce child mortality from "current rates" and the 2001 MDG target with a 1990 baseline amounts to several million child deaths.
Yours sincerely,
Matt Berkley
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/11/06/guest-post-the-un-needs-to-overhaul-its-development-vision/
Nov 06 2014
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/df2c6ff0-8447-11e4-bae9-00144feabdc0.html
January 2, 2015
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/01/15/guest-post-2015-should-be-the-year-of-real-action-on-extreme-poverty-and-climate-change
January 15, 2015
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0e4cd3de-9bfd-11e4-b6cc-00144feabdc0.html
January 15, 2015
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 28 January 2015 at 12:42
Subject: Message for Greg Callus. Reminder: Correction on Millennium Summit commitments
To: corrections@ft.com ….
…………..............................................
24 February 2015:
Financial Times Senior Legal Counsel answering on behalf of the editor:
"The 'Millennium Development Goal' framework of 2001 originated from General Assembly
Resolution 55/2 of 2000, the 'Millennium
Declaration'."
http://aboutus.ft.com/files/2010/09/Matt-Berkley-adjudication.pdf
The eight-goal MDG framework
originated not from the Declaration but from the six OECD International
Development Goals of 1996, and the version with seven goals of June
2000 agreed by four civil servants
from the OECD, IMF, UN and World Bank - not 189 governments.
The goal/indicator structure, most of the goals, 20 of 21 indicators, and the baseline,
were retained from that OECD framework.
Manning seems correct here:
"the OECD at least wished to see the maximum coherence with the list
published in Shaping the Twenty-First Century and to ensure that all 21 IDG indicators were included"
http://www.oecd.org/site/progresskorea/44117550.pdf
See OECD document from 14/17 September 2001 – after the Secretary-General produced his MDG list:
http://www.mofat.go.kr/webmodule/common/download.jsp?boardid=106&tablename=TYPE_DATABOARD&seqno=075ffcfdafa0fa2ff1fd103b&fileseq=05b06bfb1fd504dfa303b07b
Page 4. It is a .pdf document which may need the extension .pdf to be
added. It is also at:
http://millenniumdeclaration.org/mdgwaterbaseline.pdf .
The editor also strangely
stated:
"the aims adopted in 2000 have become widely known simply as the MDGs."
That is only true in a ridiculous sense of "known" as "wrongly
believed".
The Financial Times
complaints commissioner dated his adjudication 29 March 2015. In it he stated that he would be disappointed
if the newspaper failed to make the distinction between the pledges and the MDG
targets.
The following article of 8 April, the same day that he sent the adjudication to
the complainant, again contributes to the misleading impression:
"When the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) ...with an
overarching goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 — were initiated at the UN in 2000, they [!], too, were greeted with skepticism. …. the
world has met the poverty goal, come close on education, and halved child mortality."
The "poverty"
statistics are clearly unreliable.
The child mortality statistics have not been halved relative to what was set at
the UN in 2000.
I hope the Financial Times will not attempt another weasel-like defence.
………………………………………………………………
Note: The Financial Times has employed as a leader writer Tim Harford, who
was employed as an economist at the World Bank in the mid-2000s. The World Bank's slogan on 1 January 2006 was
"Working for a world free of poverty".
http://web.archive.org/web/20060101024929/http://www.worldbank.org/
It is puzzling that the Financial
Times has made so many mistakes about world leaders' pledges of 1996 and 2000, about "safe" water statistics,
and in referring to statistical progress on "extreme poverty" from
unreliable numbers with no estimates
for inflation faced by the poor or needs.
It is also puzzling how he has made so many, and such serious, mistakes in his
work as a fact-checker for the BBC.
poornews.org/bbc.htm
.................................................................................
"(MDG) of halving
the proportion of hungry people between 1990
and 2015.
...From 20 per cent in 1990,
the prevalence of hunger in developing countries has fallen but is stuck at 16
per cent, and there will not be enough time or money, according to many
experts, to hit the 10 per cent
target by 2015.
...That is better than
in 1990, but “progress is currently not fast enough to reach the MDG target”
the UN has warned.
The depressing
situation is highlighted further by the fact that so much progress has been
made on reducing poverty rates, the other MDG that tops the list of millennium pledges." [!]
October 14, 2010
"Adopted [?] in
2001 [?] after years of wrangling, the eight goals
set 2015 as the deadline for…halving extreme poverty…and reducing child and
maternal mortality... 1990, the MDGs’ baseline year..."
"In fact, sub-Saharan Africa’s absolute poverty rate has fallen by about a percentage point a year since the
mid-1990s"
September 15, 2010
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f575ec76-c0f8-11df-99c4-00144feab49a.html
"The annual stock-take on the
2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
agreed by world leaders in 2000 shows good progress in reducing the numbers living on very low
incomes, and in tackling disease and poor water
quality."
July 8, 2011
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc1b42d8-a907-11e0-ab62-00144feabdc0.html
There are no official statistics on water quality.
"Barbara Frost, chief executive
of WaterAid, a charity the Financial Times is supporting this year in its
seasonal appeal...says..."Nine hundred million people do not have access
to safe water...
The results are evident in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of
development targets for 2015 that were agreed
by world leaders [!] at the start of this century [!]
to improve prosperity, education, health
and the environment in the developing world. A target of halving the number of
people without sustainable access to safe [!] drinking water between 1990
and 2015 is on track"
November 24, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ede4c3be-b9c6-11dd-99dc-0000779fd18c.html
"In an uplifting report released on
Wednesday, [the World Bank] revealed that the percentage of people living on
less than $1.25 a day declined in every region of the developing world between
2005 and 2008, according to more than 850 houshold surveys.
[! - the 850 cover previous years as well]
What’s more, in spite of global food, fuel and financial crises, that trend
continued post-2008 – and preliminary surveys for 2010 show
[How can the surveys "show" poverty? The researchers do not take into account inflation faced by the poor, or take into account any changing needs]
that the number
[! - proportion]
of people in extreme poverty was less than half that of 1990."
"China’s economic boom helped
662m people escape poverty
[well-sourced? No estimate of
inflation faced or changing needs]
over the period"
World Bank: poverty falling everywhere
March 1 2012
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/03/01/world-bank-poverty-falling-everywhere/
"This week’s UN summit in New
York, convened to review progress towards meeting its millennium development goals (set in 2000) [!]
...Part of the problem is that
they were unrealistic. ...
halving the proportion of
hungry people in 1990 was a daunting,
if not impossible, task..."
Millennium goals
Editorial
September 21, 2010
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b23319ae-c5b5-11df-ab48-00144feab49a.html
The author of a Financial Times article may himself have already been, as the Financial Times complaints commissioner put it, "on-notice" of the difference between the Declaration's 2000 baselines and the MDGs' 1990 baselines:
"The US claimed that it had
signed the Millennium Declaration but not the Millennium Development
Goals…."
Explicit false statement:
"All 18 of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals - to halve hunger, fight disease, reduce maternal mortality, ensure access to safe drinking water, and more - are explicitly part of the Millennium Declaration."
September 15, 2005
Sachs: Serving up soil for dinner
By Jeffrey Sachs
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/17580444-23b7-11da-b56b-00000e2511c8.html
"Almost a decade ago, world leaders agreed in New York
to the UN Millennium Development Goals, calling among other targets for a
halving between 1990 and 2015
in the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. "
December 9, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c20b66e2-c562-11dd-b516-000077b07658.html
"The pledges are crystal clear. [!] In September 2000, 189
states adopted the Millennium Declaration.
This comprises eight [!] concrete
and quantifiable goals for 2015 including halving extreme poverty…
The first seven Millennium Development
Goals [which are not the
pledges] have to [?] be achieved by developing countries themselves,
[Where do the Declaration or the MDG list, state that any targets have to
be achieved by those countries themselves?]
which means that we can call them to account for their efforts. [?] And
we are doing that. [! – not by confusing the targets with the actual
pledges]
So far, 67 countries have submitted reports
on their progress in achieving the MDGs."
Rich nations must be accountable [!]
Letter
15 June 2004
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a39f296-be69-11d8-8a60-00000e2511c8.html
"(MDGs), a set of development
targets for 2015 that were agreed by
world leaders [!] at
the start of this century " [!]
"A target of halving the number [!] of people without sustainable access to safe [!] drinking water between 1990 and 2015 is on track"
November 24, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ac758e3c-b9a7-11dd-99dc-0000779fd18c.html
The complaints commissioner's
statement that the Financial Times' amendments meet the complainant's high
standards was not supported by any evidence or reasoning.
It is not clear why the
commissioner might think the amendments - or their descriptions - meet his own
standards either.
The amendments disguise the errors.
It is obvious that not all are accurate.
The amendments fail to tell the truth about these matters.
It is obvious that not all of the newspaper's descriptions of the amendments are accurate.
Even if the amendments and descriptions of the amendments had been accurate, that would clearly not mean that they met the complainant's standards.
The complainant had not proposed articles which were technically free from
errors, but stated "I propose
appropriate remedial action."
That means, not rectifying the articles after most readers had already
seen then and been misled, but rectifying
the wrong impression gained by readers about what their own leaders were, and are, committed to.
"Concerted action to reduce
deaths from childbirth is making a difference, according to a recent report by
Countdown to 2015, an initiative that tracks progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals on deaths
of mothers and children under five.
The number of women dying because of
complications from pregnancy or birth has nearly halved since 1990 to 287,000 a year.
While the rate of progress is still
not good enough to meet the Millennium
pledge [!]...."
July 7, 2012
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b5eea956-c1de-11e1-b76a-00144feabdc0.html
"millennium development goals on
reducing poverty and disease, to which world leaders committed themselves back
in 2000"
March 22, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/826e18cc-9a78-11d9-a094-00000e2511c8.html
"The original purpose of the
summit was to review the ambitious MDGs agreed by the world leaders five years
ago"
September 12, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/96b4bd7e-2329-11da-86cc-00000e2511c8.html
Not true. This was the actual purpose of the summit:
"We welcome the adoption of General Assembly resolution
58/291 of 6 May 2004 on the integrated and coordinated implementation of and
follow-up to the outcomes of the major UN conferences and summits in the
economic and social fields, which decided to convene in New York in 2005, a High-level
plenary meeting to undertake a comprehensive review of the progress made in the fulfillment of all the commitments contained in the
Millennium Declaration, including the internationally agreed
development goals and the global partnership required for their achievement.
"
Declaration
of the Twenty-eighth Annual Ministerial Meeting of the G-77
http://www.g77.org/doc/Decl2004.htm
"The world leaders are at the United
Nations first and foremost to discuss the Millennium Development Goals, five years after they were adopted
and with a decade left to go to achieve them. Two weeks ago the US claimed that
these international goals to fight poverty, disease and hunger did not even
exist"
September 13, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fe216fe8-23fb-11da-b56b-00000e2511c8.html
"the 2015 Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) agreed in 2000"
September 26, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f8ee4ce-8b63-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html
"Mr Malloch Brown, who was in
Geneva to present the annual report on the
UN’s 2015 targets for reducing poverty, said that “real progress” was
being made.
The world was on track to meet the
overall target of halving the proportion of people living on less than a dollar
a day. This had already fallen from 28 per cent in 1990 – the base year – to 19 per cent."
"The establishment by world leaders in 2000 of the
millennium development goals [!] had
transformed attitudes towards aid and development."
July 3, 2006
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e08bd80-0ab3-11db-b595-0000779e2340.html
"it was here seven years ago…[!]
in this United Nations conclave…
with the eyes of the whole world upon us all…
that every world leader [!], every international body, almost every single
country signed a historic declaration for the new millennium, pledging to set
and then to meet by 2015 eight [!] development
goals.
It was a remarkable moment --- the
whole world coming together as one, the leadership of the poorest countries to
be empowered by the obligations [!]
accepted by the richest. All of us accepting our shared responsibilities to
work together for change.
But seven years on [!] it is already clear that our pace is too
slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk.
The Millennium Development Goal to be
met in 2015, is to reduce infant mortality by two thirds. But unless we act, it
will not be met by 2015, not even by 2030, not until 2050...."
Text of Gordon Brown’s speech to the UN
July 31, 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28b08110-3f73-11dc-b034-0000779fd2ac.html
"Almost a decade ago world
leaders agreed in New York to the UN Millennium Development Goals
which, among other targets, called for a halving of world hunger between 1990 and 2015."
December 10, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/46da7c9c-c65c-11dd-a741-000077b07658.html
FT appears to repeat FAO false claim that world leaders in 1996 pledged to
halve the number of hungry people from the 1990-2 level (actual pledge has
baseline of "their present level"):
"the United Nations’ hunger
reduction target, which is to reduce, between 1990–92
[!] and 2015, the number of undernourished people by
half."
Last updated: November 20, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e6c6745a-d433-11de-990c-00144feabdc0.html
The FAO page to which the FT article linked referred to leaders' pledge on the "number" of people.
http://web.archive.org/web/20091109220951/http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/
"In 1996, world leaders
attending the World Food Summit in Rome committed themselves to halve by
2015 the number of undernourished people. (Rome Declaration)"
The FAO linked to the Rome Declaration page
http://web.archive.org/web/20091110120122/http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.HTM
"In 2000, world leaders
agreed on the eight Millennium
Development Goals. The first goal states that the percentage of
undernourished people should be halved by 2015."
Note: The FAO statement "In
2000, world leaders agreed on the eight Millennium
Development Goals" is false.
This contributes to misconception that leaders pledged the easier 1990-2015 targets (the effect is clearly cumulative, especially since a newspaper's business model is based on repeat business):
"(SDGs) for 2015-2030 set to be adopted by world leaders at the UN general assembly in September. They will replace the millennium development goals (MDGs) adopted [!] in 2000" [!]
July 12, 2015
Editorial
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/84f79654-2721-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html
"Unlike the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 [!],
the situation today is..."
July 15, 2015
Letter from David Miliband
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0da8c926-2ad5-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html
This wrongly presents statistics on "improved sources" - which refers to the type of source, such as piped - as "safe". There are no official estimates for "safe" water.
"The headline achievement flagged
by the report is that the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day
— adjusted for inflation
[? - there are no figures on inflation faced by the poor]
— fell from 53 per cent to 14 per cent between 1990 and 2012. It is forecast to
fall again to 12 per cent this year, easily beating the target for halving it
between 1990 and 2015.
Other highlights cited in the research
include...a decline from 28 per cent to 7
per cent in the proportion of the population with no access to safe [!] drinking water."
"From
1990 to 2012 the number of the region’s people living on less than $1.25 a day
fell from 1.7bn to 569m."
[How do they know? There are no
inflation statistics for the poor.]
"...Safe [!] drinking
water: In rural areas the number of people without safe drinking water fell from more than 826m in 1990 to
about 293m in 2012. But the number of deprived urban-dwellers fell more slowly,
from 63m to 56m."
Asia surpasses UN poverty targets but falls short on social goals
May 28, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/556b6ae2-04fc-11e5-9627-00144feabdc0.html
This may contribute to the misconception that leaders in 2000 ("in the first place") pledged the easier MDG targets; and gives the wrong period for the child mortality statistics - a decade instead of 23 years:
"...for every government that signed up to the MDGs in the first place
[!]...
The World Bank estimates that the number of extremely poor people in developing
countries will fall from 29% in 1990
to 12% in 2015. Child mortality has almost halved from 12m to 6.9m in a decade " [! - claim is actually since 1990]
http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2013/01/millennium-development-goals-need-more-davos-attention/
"The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration [!] that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments
during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000."
Bono blogs for the Financial Times
September 23, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/09cb4096-8973-11dd-8371-0000779fd18c.html
This wrongly states that leaders agreed eight goals in 2000, implying that the easier targets are what was pledged:
"The most recent multilateral initiative endorsed by a large
number of countries was in 2000,
when 192 nations signed the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, an ambitious set of eight
[!] goals including
providing universal primary education by 2015. Although some progress has been
made, the failure of rich countries to fully fund these [!] efforts, execution problems and the
downturn make meeting the [!]
deadline unlikely."
Think small to tackle the world's biggest problems
June 19, 2009
By Moises Naim
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/437fd902-5c6b-11de-aea3-00144feabdc0.html
[If the MDGs proposed in 2001 were endorsed, as the Financial Times seems to
claim, then the first sentence has two mistakes. The first mistake would be that 2000 was the
Declaration was the most recent
If they were not, then the coverage is
misleading for the obvious reason.]
"Millennium Development Goals,
the international framework for aid co-ordination agreed by the UN in 2000 [!].
...In 2000 [!], the goals emerged from an expert consultation process and were
endorsed by heads of state [!] of almost 200 countries."
March 18, 2013
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/04478de4-8fc4-11e2-ae9e-00144feabdc0.html
"A three-year study...says that
with enough money and co-ordination, the Millennium Development Goals, adopted [!] by world leaders [!] in 2000 [!], are achievable."
January 17, 2005
Set clear goals [!] to meet aid targets, UN study urges
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c50e86d4-68c4-11d9-9183-00000e2511c8.html
"A three-year study headed by Jeffrey Sachs, the US economist, and
published yesterday, says that with enough money and co-ordination, the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by
world leaders in 2000, are achievable (see table)"
Think big and set clear goals to meet aid targets, UN study urges
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae0a060c-68f6-11d9-9183-00000e2511c8.html
"The first is the goals themselves. These were arbitrary, without evidence of achievability and uncosted. They were a wish list assembled to stroke the egos of world leaders at the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000."
Letter: Development goals perpetuate a failing system
January 27, 2005
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fca74b1c-7008-11d9-850d-00000e2511c8.html
"One target of the Millennium
Development Goals, agreed by world
leaders [!] a decade ago, [!]
is
to halve the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries by
2015, setting a goal of 10 per cent.
But the FAO said on Tuesday that the percentage was still far above the MDG
target, "
Last updated September 14, 2010
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c88edf6-bfde-11df-9628-00144feab49a.html
"In 2000, United Nations member
states pledged that the proportion of people who suffered from hunger in 2015
would be half the 1990 level."
The perils of complacency
June 24, 2004
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11e0b086-c57d-11d8-bfb1-00000e2511c8.html
"One of the millennium
development goals adopted by the UN
in 2000 was to halve the proportion of the world's population lacking
safe drinking water and basic sanitation between
1990 and 2015. ...
The report, the first in a series monitoring progress
towards the water and sanitation targets, says 1.1bn people gained access to improved drinking water [?] by 2002, raising global coverage rates to 83 per cent from 77 per cent
in 1990.
Roughly
half the world's population now drinks piped water, bringing substantial
economic benefits by improving health
and allowing women and girls to devote more time to work, family and school."
World water improves
August 27, 2004
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/006a3bc6-f7c6-11d8-afe6-00000e2511c8.html
..............................................................
FT may confuse "prevalence of undernourishment" with FAO's higher
standard of "food inadequacy".
Also, the MDG target is not on "developing regions" which make
for an easier target due to faster increase in total population:
"According to Wednesday’s hunger
report, in developing regions, the prevalence of undernourishment — which
measures the proportion of people unable to consume enough food for an active and healthy life [!] — has almost halved to 12.9 per cent of the population, down from 23.3
per cent in 1990-92.
Nevertheless, progress towards achieving food security targets has been hampered in recent years by challenging economic conditions, natural disasters, political instability and civil strife."
May 27, 2015
World’s hungry falls by fifth in 25 years
Emiko Terazono
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/827f9eb2-0458-11e5-a5c3-00144feabdc0.html
The FAO estimates are not on "enough food for an active and healthy life". They are on chronic calorie inadequacy for a sedentary life.
....................................................................
To: letters.editor@ft.com
"Sir,
You may need strong guts to print this letter. To your story “World Bank shows 'room for improvement' ” (June 7) we might add some areas not covered.
First, the Bank has used indicators which look worse if hungry people survive longer. The Bank’s measures - traditional economists’ measures such as the proportion of people in poverty, and the income share of the poorest fifth - have that flaw. No-one knows to what extent changes in life length have influenced these statistics. The demographic effects of AIDS have been significant - it increases the death rate and reduces the birth rate.
Martin Ravallion, charged with the World Bank poverty counts, wrote of the life-length flaw in 1996. It now features as a flaw in his own reports on global poverty. Professor Angus Deaton warned the Chief Economist of the Bank of the flaw in 2000. I warned the head of the World Development Indicators project at the World Bank, Eric Swanson, and three members of the British Cabinet including Clare Short in 2001; and have warned numerous academics and officials in the OECD, DFID, the UN, and the World Bank.
The life-length flaw represents a fundamental gap in the theory of economics. Suppose poor people die of AIDS. Economic growth may rise as a result, but that does not tell you that people on average got richer. The tradition in economics is to treat a rise in income per capita as the average income gain, but these are two different statistics. They may have the same number, or they may not. It is not possible to calculate the average gain or loss purely from the change in income per capita.
The flaw also features in several Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing the proportion of deprived people. There is no objective way of comparing a year of life to money or education or sanitation. The transparent option would be to place the relevant statistics next to each other.
Second, the Bank has not described its research data accurately. Its statistics are about money, not about trends in purchasing power or consumption. If you have data on poor people’s income but not on price trends in basic food, then how can you know that poor people did better or worse? You cannot. The World Bank does not know price trends for basic food except in rare cases. Astoundingly, this simple flaw features in all of the World Bank’s main claims on how policies have affected poverty. All of the World Bank’s major claims - such as that growth and globalisation have been good for the poor - suffer from both the life-length flaw and the inflation flaw.
Third, the Bank has failed to take into account the rising proportion of adults to children. Adults need more food, so even with price data you would need to know how big or small the people were in order to assess their poverty. Martin Ravallion wrote of this flaw in 1995 but now ignores it. I call this the “children flaw”. There is no theoretical requirement on economists to count adults’ needs as more than those of children.
Fourth, the claims were all based on data whose quality is questioned both publicly and privately by staff in DFID, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Professors Anthony Atkinson of Oxford and James Galbraith of Texas have carried out detailed research which casts severe doubt on the reliability of the World Bank’s main data. Their research is publicly available.
Taxpayers who fund the World Bank may think that this is not good enough. The governors of the World Bank are overwhelmingly finance ministers, responsible in democracies to those who elected them. In the case of the UK the governor has been the Secretary of State for International Development. Why they allowed such flawed research to be broadcast to the world is at present unknown.
The international focus on “reducing poverty” should be dropped. If the aim is to raise living standards of poor people, then that needs stating clearly.
Many people might agree with the following: extreme poverty is being so hungry that you are vulnerable to early death.
Life length statistics are mathematically necessary to interpreting economic statistics. They are also, in themselves, usually good indicators of economic success among hungry people. If you are chronically hungry and you eat more, you will probably last longer. Outcomes for hungry people are not measurable by looking at statistics on the survivors.
The economics of hunger is measured in years.
Yours sincerely
Matt Berkley
……………………………………………..
To:martin.wolf@ft.com
June 2003
G8 and poverty
Dear Mr Wolf
I thought you might be interested in the following, which I have just sent to your colleague Larry Elliott at the Guardian. There are a number of serious flaws in official statements concerning poverty measurement and poverty. You are welcome to contact me if you would like further detail.
Yours sincerely
Matt Berkley
…
-----Original Message-----
…Sent: 01 June 2003 08:17
To: larry.elliott@guardian.co.uk
Subject: Fixing the broken model
of development
Dear Mr Elliott
Africa, Millennium Goals and “poverty reduction”
I think you may be interested in my work. In “Do not let the rich cry poor” (May 19) you refer to the broken model of development. It is broken in ways which are not widely known.
All studies of poverty suffer from the following flaw: if more poor people die early, the figures look “better”. In the age of AIDS, this is not just a theoretical possibility. The idea of “poverty reduction” as reducing the proportion of poor people is conceptually flawed, if the aim is to help poor people.
I have undertaken what seems to be the most thorough review of assumptions in poverty research by economists, and theoretical assumptions in welfare economics. I have written extensively about the points below and related issues: the concept of utility, flaws in the World Bank’s claims on the progress of poor people, inflation and the poor.
The research is based on hundreds of academic papers and official documents, and on conversations with people including the Chief of Statistical Services at the UN, the head of the World Development Indicators project at the World Bank, the co-designer of the global poverty count methodology at the World Bank, heads of university departments, statisticians in DFID, the FAO, and many others.
My own background is in philosophy, history and experimental psychology. People who agree that I am raising important questions include Uskali Maki, John Broome (professor of moral philosophy in Oxford), senior academic economists such as James Galbraith; and Thomas Pogge (see “Poor but pedicured”, Guardian, 6 May).
The following are some brief notes which give an idea of the scope of my work. You are welcome to contact me if you would like further information.
In other documents I make practical suggestions as to how welfare outcomes for the estimated 800 million hungry people could be measured cheaply and reliably.
The argument on hunger is basically this:
Existing statistics on poverty are cross-sectional.
But all of them look “worse” if poor people survive longer.
So you cannot come to conclusions about how well or badly people did without looking at changes in life length.
Also, if economists did solve all the problems I describe below, what would they end up with?
They would end up having adjusted their data to make it reflect consumption adequacy.
But in the case of hungry people (?800 million) this would be the same as measuring food adequacy.
So there are two choices in relation to measuring daily consumption.
a) You can measure food adequacy using the original survey data on consumption.
Or
b) You can convert the food to money (which is what statistical offices do) and then back to food (which is what economists would like to do).
Of these, (a) involves fewer sources of uncertainty.
For economists to try and estimate average food prices paid by poor people is far more complex than many people might think. And the statistical offices’ methods for setting a money value on food consumption are often not comparable with each other.
But food adequacy itself is a very complex and expensive thing to measure. It involves weighing the food people eat and asking them many questions, which, again, yield different answers according to different methods.
The simple solution is staring us in the face.
People who eat more usually live longer.
So life length is an indicator of economic success.
The only sane definition of extreme poverty is this:
Vulnerability to early death through hunger.
The appropriate measure of success should be obvious.
Yours sincerely
Matt Berkley
Fundamental problems in the theory of welfare economics
Draft
Matt Berkley
29 May 2003
I am not an economist. If there are some errors in what I write below, then I shall be pleased to hear of them. We all make mistakes: in much of life, the task is to make small mistakes rather than large ones.
I suggest that several large errors of reasoning are widespread in both the theory and practice of welfare economics - the branch of economics in which claims are made as to aggregate gains and losses to people. Here is what seems to me an accurate description of several aspects in which the theory is defective.
1. All existing measures of income inequality
- for example income ratios between rich and poor, and Gini indices -
fail to take into account the fact that more poor people than rich people are absent from the data due to earlier death.
In all countries, more poor people than rich people are absent from this year’s figures due to early death.
In that respect, all existing measures of income inequality underestimate lifetime income inequality, and underestimate inequality of distribution to people during a period.
2. All statements by economists as to the economic progress of poor people, based on trends in their measures of income inequality, have failed to take account of the following fact:
Trends in inequality of life length during a period partially determine the inequality of annual income among living people at its end - but in the wrong direction.
Economists claim to have measured inequality of distribution to people during a period.
But that is not what they have measured. Changes in income differentials are merely one kind of determinant of the level of “inequality” recorded at the end of a period by an economist using an income ratio or a Gini index.
Economists have mistakenly treated income gains and losses to people as the sole determinant of the ratio or index. That is not the case.
If poor people live longer, the Gini index will look “worse” to an economist who makes the usual but erroneous assumption. The assumption is this: “a trend towards less equality in annual income at the end of a period shows, other things being equal, more losses to poor people”.
That is the common belief among economists, and it is not true.
We might call this the “distribution fallacy” or “inequality fallacy”.
There is a meaningful and important distinction between
a) trends in inequality of distribution when comparing people alive at different times and
b) inequality of distribution of income to people during a period.
Without information on life length, you cannot calculate from (b) from (a) You cannot calculate the change in distribution to people from comparing populations whose composition may have changed.
3. All statements by economists as to average income gains in a population, based on income per capita in different years, suffer from a related flaw.
The traditional assumption in economics is that “the people must have had income gains if the average rose and income inequality was unchanged.”.
Not so. If poor people live longer, the average will be lower.
That is caused by a better average outcome to people, not a worse outcome.
A fall in the average is consistent with income rises for every single person in a population during the period.
A rise the average is consistent with income falls for every single person in a population during a period.
World economic growth would fall if the hungry were kept alive longer.
There is a general fallacy of inference by economists in respect of what population averages measure.
We might call this the “economic fallacy” - the fallacy that what is good for the economic statistics is good for the people. But then that is a fallacy for several other reasons - see below. Perhaps we should call this the average-income fallacy, or the “growth” fallacy - whichever is easier to keep in mind.
4. All economists’ statements as to average gains or losses to people in poorest fifths or other abstract segments of the economy suffer from a related flaw.
The demographic factors in relation to “fractiles” - a jargon word for these abstract segments - are more complex than in the case of averages for the whole economy. Consider the poorest fifth.
If people in other fifths live longer,
the average for the poorest fifth will rise.
If people in the poorest fifth live longer,
the average for the poorest fifth will fall.
So it is quite hard to see how this kind of data on poorest fifths relates to costs and benefits to the people who were in them at different times.
It is also hard to see why anyone would use such data, whose meaning is unknown, to form policies to help poor people.
To use data on poorest fifths to talk about whether the incomes of people in them went up or down, or by how much, you need to know quite a lot about demographic change; and to talk about economic gains or losses you need to know quite a lot more (see below on prices, assets, children and so on).
5. All economists’ statements as to “better” or “worse” outcomes to poor people, based on the proportion of people below a per-day consumption poverty line, or the poverty gap ratio or any such static measures of the depth of poverty among living people,
or
any combination of these with other cross-sectional statistics of living poor persons,
suffer from a related flaw.
If very poor people die earlier,
all of these measures look “better” to an economist unaware of the flaw.
They look “worse” to that economist if very poor people live longer.
They look “better” if the non-poor live longer.
Unfortunately economists do not generally have consumption lines in any case. If a “poverty” line is defined by income level, then it is subject to the expenditure fallacy, the extra-items fallacy and the children fallacy (for all of which see below).
6. All economists’ statements about welfare gains or losses
using all the above kinds of statistics - population averages, measures of inequality, quintile averages, proportions of people below a certain level of income, poverty gaps and so on - suffer from an additional flaw which is in addition to and more serious than the other mortality flaw:
they have not taken into account the welfare benefit of living longer
or the welfare cost of dying early.
If you die early, it is not only in failing to take account of the effect of your absence on the cross-sectional statistics that an economist inferring welfare gains or losses has made a mistake. It is also in failing to count the welfare cost to you of dying early.
That cost is not quantifiable in any objective sense. The cost of dying early and the benefit of living longer is not objectively comparable to welfare gains or losses to people while they are alive. It is an entirely subjective value judgement.
That is so both in relation to statements about the outcome for one individual and in relation to statements about aggregate outcomes among many people.
Supposing a social scientist says that it was a better outcome for x number of people to die and y number of living people to have z welfare gains which outweighed the deaths. That judgement is not objective in any way: it is based on a personal opinion.
Nor is it possible for someone to make such a comparison in relation to welfare outcome for even one person, without basing their judgement on a personal opinion as to the value of life. Think of your own life. If you have a higher welfare level every year in a short life, is that better or worse than having a lower welfare level in a long life? For every welfare level (even if we could have an objective measure of welfare) and every length of life, the answer would be a matter of personal preference.
For a doctor to say that there was a better aggregate outcome if some patients died but many got slightly better would be an expression of a personal opinion. The same would apply to economists who made similar claims on the basis of measures of lifetime economic welfare.
One additional problem with looking at lifetime economic welfare would be that it would value the life of a poor person as less than the life of a rich person. This also is a value judgement. Is a country less poor if the poorest people die early than if richer people die early? If anything, to me the reverse seems to be true. If the poorest people begin to die earlier, then the problem of poverty is worse.
Another problem is that the relationship between a measure such as economic statistics and welfare is not linear. At some levels of consumption, a lower level of consumption per day may be far more preferable to a person if it means longer life. The non-linearity of the relationship between daily food consumption and daily welfare level among hungry and malnourished people is a complex matter to think about.
If lifetime income were the measure of welfare, with the implication that a poor person had gained less by surviving than a richer person, then for even that dubious idea to have credence the income would have to be a reliable static indicator of welfare. If we think about it (see below) we realise that it is not. It would thus be especially dangerous to go round saying that people on lower incomes had less to gain by living longer.
7. All economists’ statements about income gains and losses,
based on all the kinds of statistics above,
where these were derived from per capita figures,
fail to take account of the facts that
a) adults need more food than children and
b) the ratio of adults to children varies across countries and times.
Where, for instance, birth rates fall,
the average gain (the average people have for their age now compared to what they would have had on average at that age in the past)
is less than
the increase in income per capita.
Similar considerations apply to traditional measures of income inequality, the proportion of people in poverty, and so on.
To take another example: The change in the proportion of people below a consistent poverty line is not knowable from per capita statistics, if changes in the age structure among poor people.
There is no requirement on professional economists to avoid the assumption that adults and children need the same amount.
There should be.
8. All economists’ statements about the progress of poor people,
based on statistics based on the proportion of people below what is termed a poverty line, fail to take into account that the proportion of poor people is affected by not only a) economic gains and losses to poor people and b) demographic changes among poor people, but also c) demographic changes among people above the line.
If a government helps people above the line to live longer,
the proportion in poverty will fall.
If people above the line have more babies,
the proportion in poverty will fall.
If richer people reduce fertility rates more slowly than poor people,
the observed “income inequality” will change.
None of these means that poor people did better.
9. All economists’ statements as to income gains or losses to poor people during a period, based on existing measures of income inequality,
suffer from the flaw that
the inflation rate for poor people’s goods was not taken into account.
An income rise is consistent with a rise in prices which outweighs the benefit of that rise. Without any specific data on price trends in poor people’s goods, any conclusions as to economic gains or losses are therefore invalid.
For instance, if there is
a) a 1% increase in income per capita,
and
b) zero change in annual income inequality
(measured by Gini index, income ratios or anything else)
and
c) zero consumer price inflation in the economy
that cannot possibly tell us that
d) “poor people had 1% gains in purchasing power”.
A 1% increase in poor people’s incomes
(which is in any case not calculable without taking changes in differential mortality and differential age structure into account)
does not tell you that they were able to buy more.
That is because there is an inflation rate for poor people’s goods.
If the price of bread triples, the impact on the overall inflation rate will be far less.
The fact that the overall inflation rate is zero, or -1%, or 10%, tells you nothing about the inflation rate for the poor.
Without knowing how the price of wheat or rice and other basic goods changed,
you cannot tell whether poor people had gains or losses in real (inflation-adjusted for the goods they can afford) income.
For people who can only afford a very limited range of the items whose price changes influence the overall consumer price index:
a change in income,
adjusted by the overall inflation rate,
is not rationally described as a change in real income.
It is merely the nominal, numerical value of income adjusted by a rate which is of unknown relationship to the inflation rate for poor people.
It is hard to see how a description of income statistics among poor people which have not been adjusted by the inflation rate for poor people’s goods could be accurately described as showing economic gains or losses.
The statistics cannot tell us about economic gains or losses to poor people.
The above means that all past work on, for example, the relationship between GDP per capita and economic gains to poor people using poorest fifths has included a failure to take this logical step into account.
The work could not have told us the level of economic gains to poor people even if demographic factors had been taken into account. Additional reasons why the last sentence is true are found in point 10 below: changes in assets and items of necessary expenditure were not taken into account. An assumption that these were of zero importance (or alternatively that changes in these are always proportional to income or expenditure changes) has no theoretical or empirical support, but is crucial to any argument that income or expenditure statistics show the level of economic gain or loss.
An additional reason why welfare gains and losses could not have been assessed using such a method is found in point 6 above: it places zero value on the welfare value of even a very short life being extended. In different countries, poor people live for different lengths of time; and life length changes over time.
10. All economists’ statements as to economic benefits to people during a period, based on statistics for declared income, suffer from this flaw:
Income, even where adjusted by
a) age structure,
b) death rates, and
c) trends in prices paid by the people being studied,
is only one of several key aspects of economic welfare.
A lower declared income is consistent with a higher degree of economic power, capabilities, status or welfare:
a) If you have a large house, you are, most people would think, richer than someone with no house and slightly more income.
b) If you want to become more prosperous, there are at least two ways you can achieve this: 1) increase your income or 2) decrease your expenditure. But the minimum cost of living in a place is not a matter of choice. That is not only because of prices. The cost of living includes both relative prices and relative need for extra items of expenditure.
For instance, if more items of expenditure are needed in cities and a higher proportion of people, as time goes by, live in cities, then the cost of living has gone up more than the consumer price index. The cost of each of the extra items (which may include water, rent, transport, fuel and so on) may even fall - which would bring the inflation rate down. Then the cost of living according the consumer price index would have fallen. But in reality it has risen. The cost of living is the cost of living, not the cost of items irrespective of which items are necessary.
To make credible and reasonably scientific statements as to economic gains and losses - rather than gains and losses in purchasing power of income, which is what the adjusted statistics would refer to - an economist would have to take into account all the key aspects of economic welfare.
Many people might think that for an economist to claim that “assets have no importance in economic welfare” would not correspond to reality.
Many people might also think that for an economist to claim that “changes in the list of necessary items of expenditure have no importance in economic welfare” would not correspond to reality.
And yet economists’ use of income statistics to infer the direction and level of changes in economic welfare depends logically on both claims.
The assumption is this: “Changes in declared income show a proportional benefit or loss to people, in the same direction”.
Many people might think that is not rational.
Here are three question for theorists of welfare economics:
1. Given the omission of data on key aspects of economic welfare above, in what way would it be accurate to say that income statistics measure a) welfare outcomes or b) economic-welfare outcomes in the aggregate to real people?
2. Is omitting changes in any of the following not a serious omission?
a) assets, including gifts and inheritance;
b) debts
c) undeclared income including employment perks and monetary gifts
d) inflation to the poor
e) extra items of expenditure
f) age structure
g) life length
3. What, if any, would be a practical and cost-effective way, in the real world, of measuring enough of the key variables that a reasonable person would say that economic welfare had been measured?
[End of email 2003 to Martin Wolf of the Financial Times]
.....................................................................................
"an impressive reduction in the
proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty"
[not clear why the writer ascribes the word "poverty" these
statistics, since poverty is lack of resources to meet needs, and the dollars a
day omit changing need]
" (judged to be an income"
[most of the statistics are on spending and/or the guessed value of own
produce]
"below $1.25 a day at 2005 dollars adjusted
for purchasing power)."
[not clear that the World Bank has attempted to estimate purchasing power at prices faced by the
poor for any year from 1981 to 2030 inclusive. Also no reason given for thinking that
"income" equals profit or economic gains.]
"This has fallen from 32
per cent in 1990 to 16 per cent in 2010."
Martin Wolf
May 1, 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3db94564-ebe2-11e4-b428-00144feab7de.html
"[the Asian Development Bank]
argues, more weight needs to be given to the fact that food prices have
outstripped general price rises over the past decade. ….Using more realistic assumptions, the ADB estimates
that, in 2010, there were 1.75bn Asians living in poverty, a full 1bn people
more than hitherto assumed."
"Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s chief economist, rightly warns against
mechanical extrapolations. In the case of average PPP prices, he says, these
are not
easily applicable to the very poor, who spend a much larger proportion of
their income on food. The fact that, say, air travel or cinema tickets are
cheaper than previously thought may have absolutely no bearing on an extremely
poor person’s life."
"When it comes to numbers, we need to be both more rigorous about
definitions and more modest about claiming accuracy. Gargee Ghosh, director of
development policy for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, warns against a
“sense of false precision”.
August 27, 2014
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66c2df68-2d35-11e4-aca0-00144feabdc0.html
Note: Using average prices is exactly what the World Bank and Mr Wolf have done
– and anyone else, such as other writers at the Financial Times, who claim on
the basis of official statistics to know, or imply that there are reliable,
"poverty" trends.
In response to Mr Wolf's article, the manager of the Paris21 Secretariat –
an organisation for international co-operation on statistics - wrote:
"While the article does a good
job of describing the challenges of “rigorous definitions, extrapolations and
estimations”, it misses the root cause of the problem: the deplorable state of development data at large when it comes
to quantity, quality and timeliness of nationally produced data. "
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c9c7382-31f0-11e4-b929-00144feabdc0.html
"PARIS21 was established by the United Nations, the European Commission,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the
International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank."
…………………………………………………….
Financial Times error
that the World Bank "increased" the international line in 2008
"The bank’s poverty line was
introduced at $1.01 in 1990, based on 1985 PPP figures. When the bank increased it to $1.25 " [!]
in 2008, classifying an additional 400m people in the developing world as
extremely poor…"
World Bank eyes biggest global poverty line increase in decades
9 May, 2014
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/091808e0-d6da-11e3-b95e-00144feabdc0.html
It is not the case that the World Bank "increased" the line to
$1.25. The Financial Times ignores
inflation.
What actually happened in 2008 was this:
The World Bank decided prices were higher in poor countries relative to the US,
than they had assumed.
They also changed the sample of national lines used to determine the global
line.
Thirdly, in a decision bound to confuse the public, they began talking about
"dollars" worth less than the old ones.
The new "dollars" were based on 2005 prices rather than the old 1993 prices.
It is hard to think of a reason for decreasing the value of the
"dollars", apart from reducing the World Bank's own embarrassment.
If they had used the old "dollar" as in the Millennium pledge and the
MDGs, it would have been more obvious that the "purchasing power
parity" estimates had been drastically revised, because then the new
estimates, now being based on $1.82 or $1.46 in US 2005 prices rather than
$1.25 (see below), would have been increased by far more than 400 million.
But even if they did not keep using the 1993 "dollar" line the public had already been told
about, it is hard to see why the new level based on the new sample of countries
could not be expressed in the same units.
They could have said "we have revised the global line to 92 cents",
which would show the public correctly that the line had been decreased because
things were thought more expensive in the US than had been thought before – or
we might say more appropriately given the fact that more people live in poor
countries than the US, that things in the US were cheaper compared to in poor
countries, than economists had assumed.
Instead of saying "we have reduced it to 92 cents" they called it
"$1.25" by taking 2005 as the base year for price inflation.
The line used from 1999 to 2008 was $1.08 using 1993 US prices and 1993
"purchasing-power parity" estimates.
The line used from 2008 to now is $1.25 using 2005 US prices and 2005 "purchasing-power parity" estimates.
The World Bank decided the new PPP estimates were better than the previous
ones. The standard practice was to apply
these estimates based on surveys done around 2005 to all past years.
There is no particular reason to also change the base year for inflation.
The adjustments for inflation are done using national CPI rates.
In US dollar terms, the line was not "increased" but
"decreased". The Financial Times has conflated two
different index years.
The $1.25 is after adjusting for US inflation until the new "purchasing power parity" base year of 2005.
Adjusting for US inflation, the "dollar" of 1985 would be nominally "worth" – remember the World Bank do not estimate prices faced by the poor and their claimed poverty trends over time are based on potentially unreliable national rates in the countries concerned - $1.82.
The "$1.08 at 1993 PPP" which the World Bank used from 1999 to 2008 would be nominally "worth" PPP $1.46 at 2005 US prices.
The "$1.25" now used, adjusted for US inflation, would nominally be "worth" 69 cents in 1985 or 92 cents in 1993.
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
I do not know why the World Bank World Development Report
2000-1 claimed that the original $1 at 1985 PPP, after eight years of
inflation, was equivalent to only $1.08 in 1993 PPP:
"In 1999 the same lines were converted into 1993 PPP including food, rent,
and prices, and the new line was
obtained as the median of the 10 lowest poverty lines. That line is equal to
$1.08 a day in 1993 PPP terms (referred to as "$1 a day" in the
text). This line has a similar purchasing power to the $1 a day line in 1985
PPP prices, in terms of the command over domestic goods."
The statement about "command over domestic goods" is in itself misleading.
The composition of the "baskets" used for cross-country estimates
of purchasing power (substantially based on guesses and value judgements, for
example about housing conditions) are likely to be inappropriate for earlier or
later years, when people buy different things.
So there is a problem applying the 2005 estimates of cross-country purchasing
power to 1981, 1990, 2000, 2015 or 2030 – even aside from the problem that the
PPP rates are not about prices faced by the poor.
There is another problem, which relates to the composition of the national CPIs used to calculate inflation – even aside from the fact that these too are not based on prices faced by the poor.
Since the things people buy and the quantities bought (or needed, since it may be prices which the poor cannot afford which are important in determining a component of their "welfare") vary over time, the CPI "baskets" may need updating; but it is perhaps unrealistic to expect this to have been done in an adequate way.
Financial Times
promotes the wrong idea that the World Bank "raised" the poverty line
significantly in 2015
Financial Times wrongly ignores inflation, giving a false impression that "$1.25" (in
"purchasing-power-parity" dollars anchored to the US consumer price
index for 2005) is more than
"$1.08" (in "PPP" dollars anchored to the US CPI
for 1993):
"When the World Bank last tweaked
its poverty line from $1.08 to $1.25 a day in 2008 it announced that it had
found 400m more people — or the equivalent of a third of the population of
China — than it previously expected living in extreme poverty. "
Similarly, the Financial Times confuses the original "PPP dollar"
based on the 1985 US CPI with the proposal based on the 2011 US CPI:
"A new line of about $1.90 would be the bank’s biggest revision
since it first introduced its $1-a-day measure in 1990."
Poverty: Vulnerable to change
23 September 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f599b75c-6042-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html
An update for inflation is not a revision.
The line has been revised, but not in line with US inflation - which
would make the original line equivalent to $2.09 in 2011 US dollars.
Financial Times
makes claim without data on inflation faced by the poor and on basis of data
known to be unreliable:
"In Africa the percentage of the
population living on less than $1.25 a day has
fallen below 50 per cent in recent years."
Poverty: Vulnerable to change
23 September 2015
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f599b75c-6042-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html
…………………………………………………….
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For more evidence: millenniumdeclaration.org