Freedom From Want / Freedom from Poverty

Freedom from want was first articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his famous 1941 Congressional address as one of the "Four Freedoms" all human beings should enjoy anywhere in the world.

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want--which, translated into universal terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation."

Seven years later, Eleanor Roosevelt and the other drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights incorporated the four freedoms into the preamble of Declaration, which proclaimed "the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want" as "the highest aspiration of the common people". The language of the UDHR affirms that these four freedoms are interdependent, and that the right to an adequate standard of living and to freedom from want is as equally essential as other individual freedoms. Article 25 of the UDHR spells out what this right consists of:

“ 1.Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.” (Article 25)

Where ‘freedom from want’ stands today

Sixty years on, the UDHR’s vision of a world in which “all enjoy freedom from want and freedom from fear” remains as elusive as ever. The “distant millennium” which Roosevelt spoke about has come and gone. Eight years into the 21st century, the pledges made by all nations to guarantee the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living contrast harshly with reality.

Today, over 1 billion people live inpoverty, on the margins of survival on less than US$1 a day. Some 70% are women. More than 9 million children die each year (more than 26,000 a day) before the age of 5. The vast majority of them die from malnutrition and preventable diseases related to poverty. The number of undernourished in the developing world actually increased from 823 million in 1990 to 830 million in 2004. In developing countries, 1 in 5 people do not have access to safe water, and roughly half are without adequate sanitation. Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, and yet earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than 1% of the world's property. There are 42 million people living with HIV and AIDS worldwide, and 8,000 people die every day of HIV related diseases in some of the poorest countries. Over 11 million children in Africa have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS, a number that is expected to reach 20 million by 2010.

Development statistics demonstrate that economic disparities almost always correlate with gender, racial and urban/rural inequities, as well as disparities between nationals and non-citizens.

Why is freedom from want still an unfulfilled promise?

Despite considerable progress over recent decades in understanding and framing development from a human rights perspective and advancing legal enforcement of economic and social rights, human rights considerations barely feature in the framing of economic policy at the domestic or international level. In most parts of the world, governments have failed to include wealth redistribution policies alongside strategies for economic growth.

At the national level, political elites are held captive by powerful economic constituencies or are short-sighted in their approaches to development for reasons of political expediency. This has grossly undermined poverty-reduction efforts and has perpetuated or exacerbated inequalities in many countries. At the international level the economic orthodoxies promoted by global financial institutions in the 1980s and 1990s have also produced widening inequalities within and between states, and have done little to effectively reduce poverty and foster sustainable development.

The Millennium Development Goals set attainable objectives in key areas related to freedom from want, including reducing by half the number of people living in extreme poverty, reducing maternal and child mortality and promoting gender equality. However, many states are still way off track in meeting their commitments by 2015.

While poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional problem, the failure to tackle it effectively has one clear underlying reason: a lack of accountability. Many governments still see the reduction of poverty as an act of charity, or a desirable aspiration in times of growth. Freedom from want will only become a reality when poverty is understood and tackled as a denial of fundamental human rights, and when governments are held accountable politically and legally for their failure to address these violations.

This includes the accountability of richer nations to promote freedom from want in poorer countries. Although responsibility for respecting, protecting and ensuring economic and social rights falls primarily on national governments, poverty and related human rights violations can only be ended with a massive shift in mindset regarding the responsibilities of those living in the rich world. That poverty and inequality persists on such a massive scale is obscene in a world with unprecedented wealth and resources.

Opportunities Ahead

The MDGs provide new avenues for enforcing accountability both at the national and international levels. They have helped renew civil society scrutiny on states towards achieving their development goals. They have also provided an entry point for enforcing developed countries’ obligations of international assistance.

In the midst of the current financial, food and fuel crises, accountability (strengthening regulations) of public and private economic agents has become one of the issues most frequently raised in policy debates. This offers new opportunities for addressing the responsibilities of state and private actors (including companies and financial institutions). In light of the current context, the coming years will see increased opportunities to “universalise accountability” and to introduce concepts of redistributive justice in international debates on development cooperation and the terms of international trade. There will also be greater opportunities to infuse human rights considerations into national and global debates on poverty eradication and development cooperation, particularly in the context of evaluating whether governments will meet their MDG targets by 2015.

If freedom from want is to be more than just an aspiration for the next millennium, some important challenges need to be met by advocates and activists working for human rights, development and social justice.

New interdisciplinary tools need to be explored to enable human rights activists to critique and engage with economic and social policies, so that human rights can become practical guiding principles for the delivery of essential goods and services, from housing to education to health. Promoting accountability in the field of economic, social and cultural rights, and in particular rights related to the protection of the environment, involves developing the framework for understanding intergenerational rights – the obligations one generation owes to another. Globalizing accountability also involves promoting the notion of transnational obligations– the accountability of the richest states and of the international community as a whole to cooperate in realizing economic and social rights around the globe.

Freedom from want is the unfulfilled promise of the UDHR. It is now time for it to be made the human rights priority of governments and people everywhere.

“Extreme poverty to me is the greatest denial of the exercise of human rights. You don't vote, you don't participate in any political activity, your views aren't listened to, you have no food, you have no shelter, your children are dying of preventable diseases - you don't even have the right to clean water. It's a denial of the dignity and worth of each individual which is what the Universal Declaration proclaims” (Mary Robinson)

Human Rights Ahead (HRA - www.hrahead.org); Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR - www.cesr.org)

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