Award Winner for Volume 15
The Geo-Economics of Deprivation: Re-Thinking Philosophical Perspectives and Proposed Solutions on Global Poverty
Global poverty continues to threaten human development with an unprecedented rise in hunger, malnutrition, disease, squalor, unemployment, and limited access to patented seeds and medical supplies. A moral imperative for intervention-based action is clear, but the attributive actors remain a source of debate. Scholars like Thomas Pogge, Allan Buchnan, and Charles Beitz, who are proponents of global redistributive justice argue redress should come from main culprits behind global poverty, namely, shared International Financial Institutions (IFI’s), World Trade Organization (WTO), and Multinational Corporations (MNC’s) who forcefully dominate economic, health, and trade policy and unilaterally impose their agenda on poor countries. To the contrary, this work argues merely name-shaming shared structures and calling for global institutional reforms is only part of the actual progress needed. Moreover, it maintains there is no use for global equal opportunity without a balanced sense of responsibility that highlights the complicity of domestic third world leaders; inculcates the right ideals and moors that enshrines a “home-grown theory of justice;” and expands the internal capacity of domestic institutions to complement and consolidate improvements at the global scale. Where this is absent, we perpetuate a false dichotomy between domestic and global structures in our bid to understand how they contribute to poverty and the applicable solutions needed.
Oluwatosin Akande is a professional policy analyst, M&E specialist, and development economist with 14yrs cumulativeexperienceacrosstheU.S., U.K., and Nigerian governance and economic development sector. This includes research experience and multiple project work experience with consultancies (RED Universal Consulting, Coffey International Development, PriceWater HouseCoopers-PwC, and Convention on Business Integrity). Further experience is with multi-lateral institutionsincludingUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA); Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); UK Agency for International Development(DFID-UKAID), European Union (EU), United Nations Development Program(UNDP), and the World Bank (WB).