The Destabilising Poverty Crisis

Extract

The opening address at the 18th World Conference of the Society for International Development (S.I.D.), Rome, 1 July 1985

Together with the Catholic Bishops of the United States (in their first draft of the pastoral letter on the economy) I would like to affirm:

‘Every perspective on economic life ... must be shaped by two questions:

— What does it do for people?

— What does it do to people?

The poor have a special claim on our concern because they are particularly vulnerable...’

This World Conference is at the same time an opportunity and a responsibility. It is an opportunity to take up again one of the most difficult of world debates: the relation between the North and the South. And it is a responsibility because even though this Conference is one of analysis and dialogue we must take steps so that its influence goes beyond this level. We have reached a point in history where debate and dialogue without international action have become an offence and an insult to those who are suffering in North and South because of international economic policies. This morning I would like to speak of the meaning and the validity of the topic that was given to me. We all, rich nations and poor, want poverty to be the centre of world concern. But, in my view, the reasons for our concern are fundamentally different. And it is this that I would like to develop in the first part of my presentation.