The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which target the removal of poverty across the world were formulated and accepted by all governments in a historic meet convened by the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan in September 2000. The development of the MDGs was preceded by extensive discussion and preparatory work, as part of which one of the exercises carried out was a valuable effort on the part of a panel chaired by Mr. Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, to estimate the cost of meeting the MDGs and the increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA) that would be required for this purpose. The Zedillo Panel came up with an estimate of around US$ 50 billion per year as the additional amount that would be required for the developing countries to meet the MDGs by 2015. This was clearly not a large sum of money for the world as a whole, but it was never made available. Even more serious is the fact that the developed world has failed to reach the 0.7% of GDP benchmark that has conventionally been accepted as a desirable level of ODA for ensuring a healthy level of development in the poor countries of the world.

Across the world today there are 1.6 billion people who have no access to electricity. In recognition of this serious and continuing global crisis, TERI and I have launched a mission called “Lighting a Billion Lives (LaBL)”, by which those homes across the world which do not have access to electricity can be provided with solar lanterns using a market based approach involving local entrepreneurs in villages (http://labl.teriin.org/). This campaign aims to ensure that we light at least a billion lives which are in darkness. It is entirely feasible to reach this goal by 2015, the period when the MDGs are targeted to be met. To provide solar lanterns to the 1 billion people who would be beneficiaries of this mission would cost approximately US$ 20 billion globally as a one time investment.

We certainly live in a strange world. There is reluctance among the rich, not only in the developed countries, but also among the growing numbers of the rich in the developing world, to support programmes of this nature. However, we are prompt in arranging the bailout of failed institutions like banks and industries that are now the reasons for the economic crisis facing the world. At last count the estimated bailout packages in the US amounted to approximately US$ 1352.5 billion for 2008. At the same time, in Europe the European Commission has urged EU governments to jointly combat the economic slowdown with a package totalling euro 200 billion (US$ 256.22 billion) in spending and tax cuts, which is over and above funds provided by national governments on their own. One global estimate of all government funded bailout plans in the aggregate is put around US$ 2.7 trillion upto now.

It is ironic that the very basic elements of a strategy to remove poverty in the world are given no attention at all, but when it comes to staving off bankruptcies and failure of companies governments take instant decisions to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to enterprises which have not only failed themselves, but have brought failure to the whole world. Does this mean that human responses involving financial transactions on a large scale would only be triggered by emergencies and disasters? We have apparently forgotten the old adage of “prevention is better than cure”. A sum totaling US$ 2.7 trillion, if used judiciously, could wipe out poverty, eliminate hunger and disease, create new market opportunities, provide energy security, create solutions for meeting the challenge of climate change and possibly stamp out terrorism across the world. Once the dust settles on the current economic crisis would we take a different view of worldwide poverty? Would we mount new strategies for balanced and equitable growth? A new approach can help in meeting the threat of climate change and create a wide variety of universal benefits and potentially eliminate the most serious problems facing humanity. But we would need fresh thinking and vision to make this happen.