Global lies?

A partial history of UN development goals,
and some global social science

Claims by world leaders, academics and others
on global goals, progress and policies

compared to

original UN resolutions, other documents and meanings of words

*****

Governments spend billions of dollars on "development" research.

Suppose tax money misleads citizens about progress.

Suppose tax money misleads citizens about the promises.

World leaders, academics, and others often tell a different story from official documents on global goals, progress and some influential large-scale social science.

"Article 25.

Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions:

(a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs"

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Adopted by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI), December 1966
Entered into force 23 March 1976
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx
https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2520999/volume-999-i-14668-english.pdf

Status of ratification and reservations by nations:

https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&clang=_en

A few problems in global development

- If the poorest die, economists say people did better:
the basis of some policy advice from rich countries

- "Ending extreme poverty by 2030" is in fact based on an idea which is partly inhumane:
if you are forced to spend more, you "rise out of poverty".

- The official World Bank "poverty" research team have said that countries "frequently change the questionnaires"; also, the figures are not based on either inflation rates faced by poor people or changing needs, assets or debts. But the concept of poverty is clearly about whether things are enough, not whether their level is high or low independent of need. Strangely, none of this stops the World Bank and others misleading the public that they have figures on poverty trends.

Governments mislead in UN resolutions that some goals agreed in 2015 for 2030 are "supremely ambitious".

The existing goals agreed before 2015 include safe water and sanitation for all by 2025, and by 2020 in the poorest countries.

In 2011 the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries agreed the goals for 2020.

At the 2012 UN sustainable development conference, countries agreed it was important to base new goals on Agenda 21 - which contains the goals for 2025.

In 2012, countries promised to achieve Agenda 21 in full.

In 2015, leaders reaffirmed all the relevant conference and summit outcomes - which includes Agenda 21 and the Least Developed Countries goals.

In 2015, 2016 and 2017, UN member governments reaffirmed Agenda 21 in the UN General Assembly, in resolutions with no country voting against. Yet they are not reporting on the more ambitious agreed goals. They are having it both ways.

Nations are in fact violating their agreements to "implement", "follow up" and "review progress on" existing goals.

The UN resolutions clearly say that the Economic and Social Council and the all-country High-Level Political Forum should follow up all the conference and summit outcomes

- not just the "SDGs" for 2030, some of which are easier.

In 2017, five UN agencies reported the wrong numbers for "food insecurity".

The numbers they are supposed to report would be embarrassing, such as about 10% "moderately or severely food-insecure" people in the United States.

The FAO wrongly claimed that "severe food insecurity" is the SDG indicator.

UN agencies are not independent, and nor are the World Bank or IMF. Their governing boards are from member governments, who are accountable to their citizens for how they act towards the agencies.

Governments, schools and universities give a wrong impression that leaders in 2000 pledged to achieve goals in 25 years, when numerous documents show the pledges were for 15 years.

The wrong impression is in heads of state and governments' 2015 Summit declaration and in speeches at that Summit.

Authorities mislead the species that the whole UN development agenda was just some weaker, narrower goals for 2015 rather than those actually agreed in resolutions.

They mislead even though nations reaffirmed the actual commitments at the 2005 and 2010 summits, at the 2012 Rio conference, and in numerous General Assembly resolutions.

The words "Millennium Development Goals" themselves mislead.

Official FAO claims of success on hunger pledges depend on an indicator and targets which were not agreed:
millenniumdeclaration.org/hunger.pdf

It was pointed out in 2015 that the FAO was misrepresenting an agreed target. An FAO statistician with a key role in monitoring global progress responded. He emphatically contradicted, without evidence, the earlier documents which disproved his point: the FAO did change to an easier target than the World Food Summit had agreed in 1996.

UK schools have been teaching clear falsehoods about commitments in UN resolutions. UNICEF has been actively involved in these falsehoods.

School examination boards, both for the UK and for other countries, mislead on UN pledges

School examination board misleads on safe water

The BBC Editor's Choice web page on global poverty and its award-winning World Service statistics programme "More or Less" gave a fictional account of the World Bank research method.

They misled that the World Bank estimate inflation faced by the poor.

Instead of answering the complaint on this, the BBC Trustees misled the public about it.

Many Oxford Reference books understate UN commitments

China, Russia, the UK, the UK parliament "scrutiny" committee and the BBC overstate success on child survival promise

Amazingly, the same news organisations which in 2000 correctly reported Millennium Summit commitments, in 2015 understated them:
poornews.org

It seems most relevant articles in the Lancet mislead on world leaders' promises of 2000: poorscience.org

In 2015 the Lancet was informed that, in addition, its editor and ombudsman had misled in the same way.

After this, the Lancet has carried on misleading its readers that nations had agreed 25-year targets when the truth was 15. The Lancet ombudsman's published report makes no reference to his own error or the fact that I suggested it would be more suitable for someone to adjudicate who had not made it.

In 2017 the Lancet Commission on Pollution:

1) spread baseless propaganda about an "MDG" target for "safe" water being met using the wrong baseline and the wrong definition, and

2) gave a false impression of both pre-2015 and post-2015 sustainable development goals - in line with the usual propaganda version making recent governments look better, misleading the public that goals are new or ambitious compared to the past.

............................

UN Statistics Division information on "Millennium" Development Goal indicators

UN Statistics Division information on Sustainable Development Goal indicators

Computers now do the work of millions of clerks, accountants, researchers and so on.

Taking that into account:

What should we reasonably expect as progress on human nutrition?

.........

When governments allow citizens to be misinformed
about
pledges or progress,

what human rights agreements
are not broken?

Governments and world leaders at the UN
keep recommitting to previous agreements,
such as goals to meet by a particular date.

Are they acting in the spirit of the promises
by

giving up on goals whose deadlines have passed,

rather than

trying to meet them
as soon as possible
and telling us about progress?

Some important claims about international pledges and human progress, repeated by world leaders, prominent academics, school examination boards and others, do not in fact have support from the original documents.

Some ways to use this material:

You might like to search for issues or names using your computer.

The evidence is mostly in date order, so you can find some documents that way.
The draft index may help.

Partial, detailed list of contents including some internationally agreed goals

Partial index

Acknowledgement

I appreciate the great efforts by many farmers, labourers, mothers, fathers, and workers and volunteers in many spheres of activity who have worked attempting to make the world better for the creatures who live, and may live, here.

It is clear that efforts and agreements between nations, and within them, have achieved much in recent generations for the human race: food for a vastly increased population, improved survival chances, advances in legal protection, and cultural shifts towards more equality of treatment for some groups in some respects or in some situations.

We all make mistakes, and we all give in to temptation.

The fact people make mistakes does not necessarily mean they have done anything wrong, or failed.

I have made mistakes similar to some I have identified. I have had deep moral failings. I have been part of the same cultural-intellectual-social-political-moral problem.

In 2002 the work of Thomas Pogge and Sanjay Reddy reminded me of at least one concern I had in 2000 about influential policy recommendations by economists, which included that they did not look at prices faced by the poor.

In 2013 I became aware of what leaders had pledged in 2000 at the Millennium Summit, through observations by Thomas Pogge. I do not know whether I had seen related observations by him previously.

2018: "World's Largest Lesson" continues to push propaganda to children

I like the idea of people working together to improve life for all sentient creatures in and on the earth.

(It is very difficult to predict the long-term effect you have. It may be very difficult to predict the short-term effect. It is difficult to be sure about other beings' experience. Even if you could be certain about that, it would be difficult to define or add up happiness or well-being.)

I also like the idea of people being told the truth about global goals and large-scale research.

Otherwise, people are more likely to get the wrong ideas about governments' successes and failures, and the wrong ideas about policy successes and failures; and to have their democratic power taken away.

If governments allow people to be misled on government pledges, and on human progress, what human rights agreements are not broken?

......

Apart from governments, UN agencies and the BBC, some organisations which have been linked to The World's Largest Lesson or Project Everyone:

Can you see anything questionable here?

https://twitter.com/TheWorldsLesson/status/864185986892406784

The World's Largest Lesson authors say some bizarre things:

1. The authors claim to know about poverty from what people spend but not their needs.

Why are they saying a definite number of people are in extreme poverty?

The official numbers are on a fixed amount of money per person, not adjusted for people's needs.

Is poverty not where your needs are greater than your resources?

Why do Project Everyone and UNICEF assume poor people need the same in different years?

2. The authors claim to know about countries' performance on water safety - but it is not clear there is any research on such a trend.

The UN agencies have been reporting trends using statistics on type of source, not quality or safety.

3. The World's Largest Lesson does not say when countries are supposed to have halved the proportion without "safe" water.   Is it based, like the other claims, on the idea that the 147 countries agreed to halve the proportion from the 1990 level?

The Millennium pledge was from the 2000 level.   Contrary to the standard belief, the "MDG" water target proposed in 2001 says nothing about 1990 either.   After the easier "MDGs" were proposed, the General Assembly specifically agreed a baseline of 2000 for water in December 2001.

4. It is not clear why the authors say progress was "a result of the MDGs" or why they call the numbers "what was achieved through the MDGs".

5. Why did they write the year 2000 for the "MDGs" being agreed?

I have looked at the resolutions the UN Statistics Division and academics talk about, and cannot find any references to "Millennium Development Goals" in any documents of 2000.

The Millennium Declaration says nothing about that easier 1990 baseline, and nor, as far as I know, did any of the 180-plus speakers at the Summit.

So it seems that the World's Largest Lesson misleads that the easier targets are what leaders agreed in 2000.

The problem is not just this material or this organisation.

The problem is that this kind of misinformation is widespread from governments and commentators.

The same material appeared in a course for teachers in September 2017 co-authored by UNICEF, with thanks to UNESCO:

https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/courses/SDG

Below: In the same course, The World's Largest Lesson confuses:

a) the generally easier "MDGs" proposed by the Secretary-General in 2001 - to which member states responded in resolution 56/95 of 14 December 2001 not by endorsing them, but instead asking UN civil servants to publicise the Millennium Declaration,

with

b) world leaders' formal pledges in the Millennium Declaration which they or their successors reaffirmed in 2005 and 2010.

In fact even without mention of the year 2000, the words "Millennium Development Goals" can give the same wrong impression.

The suggestion below is interesting because if the ideal was to tell people what nations had agreed at the millennium, there seems to have been a general failure, including by these authors.

It is strange that governments and UN agencies have used the public's money to deceive them about leaders' commitments.

The quiz answer below reminds me of the Global Citizen Festival in 2015, when the BBC broadcast an actor on a stage saying, basically, "you can't fight for your rights unless you know what they are".

He was speaking in a programme which included the false implication that world leaders in 2000 had adopted the easier targets.

The World's Largest Lesson, the misleading "No Going Halfway" film shown around the world and the Global Goals website are produced by Project Everyone:

Below: In the same course for teachers, the World's Largest Lesson makes the new Sustainable Development Goals look newer than they are.

The "MDGs" were only part of the agreed agenda before the SDGs. It is striking, if you look at previous summits and resolutions, how much nations were already committed to or aiming at - in some respects going back decades:

Is "integrating" economic, social and environmental dimensions, with concern for people, planet, peace, prosperity and partnership, "new"?

Let's look at some evidence.

It should perhaps already be clear that the UN has since the start been about "people, peace, prosperity and partnership". The symbol is a dove.

"The General Assembly...

Taking note also of Economic and Social Council resolution [...] on the convening of a United Nations conference on environment and development...

...the major cause of the continuing deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of production and consumption...

...poverty and environmental degradation are closely interrelated... environmental protection in developing countries must...be viewed as an integral part of the development process...

Decides that the Conference, in addressing environmental issues in the developmental context, should have the following objectives:..

...action to deal with major environmental issues in the socio-economic development processes of all countries....

...sustainable and environmentally sound development with special emphasis on incorporating environmental concerns in the economic and social development process"

Suppose a teacher in Nigeria or India took the course.

How long ago would they think that resolution was?

It is Resolution 44/228 from 22 December 1989.

http://www.un-documents.net/a44r226.htm

[the UN web address says 226 rather than 228]

Here is another pledge from a UN resolution.

"We pledge ourselves individually and collectively
to undertake the measures necessary to implement the Strategy.
...six interrelated goals must be met.

They are:

(a) A surge in the pace of economic growth in the developing countries;

(b) A development process that is responsive to social needs, seeks a significant reduction in extreme poverty, promotes the development and utilization of human resources and skills and is environmentally sound and sustainable..."

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 45/199
International Development Strategy for the Fourth United Nations Development Decade
21 December 1990
http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/45/a45r199.htm

From Agenda 21, agreed by governments at the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development for "now and into the 21st century":

"integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them
will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all,
better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future."

"3.4. The long-term objective of enabling all people to achieve sustainable livelihoods
should provide an integrating factor that allows policies to address issues of development,
sustainable resource management and poverty eradication simultaneously.

The objectives of this programme area are:

(a) To provide all persons urgently with the opportunity to earn a sustainable livelihood;"

United Nations Division for Sustainable Development
Agenda 21
Chapter 3

http://web.archive.org/web/20090420073407/http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21chapter3.htm

117 Heads of State or Government at the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 1995:

"19. Poverty has various manifestations, including
lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods;
hunger and malnutrition;
ill health;
limited or lack of access to education and other basic services;
increased morbidity and mortality from illness;
homelessness and inadequate housing;
unsafe environments; and
social discrimination and exclusion."

Public money deceiving the public, 2017:

The above is more propaganda making current governments look better than they are.

It is hardly difficult to see that social, environmental and economic policies affect poor people. If you think about it, it may seem ludicrous to suggest that before "now" it was not "recognised".

And it is.

In 1992, UN member states at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development agreed Agenda 21.

It includes goals for 2025. Its first section is 70 pages on "Social and Economic Dimensions".

"156. Because health. nutrition and general well-being depend upon the integrity and productivity of the environment and resources, measures should continue to be developed and carried out to promote the environmental and ecological soundness of developmental activities."

Resolution adopted by the General Assembly
35/56. International Development Strategy
for the Third United Nations Development Decade
5 December 1980
http://www.un-documents.net/a35r56.htm

The kinds of misleading information put out by UNICEF and Project Everyone are widespread.

Above: Strange statement, in view of the course's - UNICEF's:

- misrepresenting data as on "poverty" and "safe water",

- understating the pledges of 2000, and

- falsely presenting key aspects of the 2016-2030 agenda as new.

Below: The World's Largest Lesson confuses the World Bank "international" or "purchasing power parity" dollars with real US dollars worth far more.

So, other things being equal, this greatly overstates what poor people can buy.

But in any case it is not hard to see that it is not wise to use these statistics as showing "poverty". Other things are not equal, because for one thing the World Bank use statistics which do not include the value of living in your own house rather than having to pay rent. It is far from clear how meaningful comparisons can be made of the value of housing in different environments.

The passage is liable to mislead in claiming "poverty" is "measured" by money without consideration of needs.

Would it not be more accurate to say

"extreme poverty, currently not measured as people living on..."?

Perhaps you understand these two images from the Global Goals website better than I do.

I don't see how "1.8 billion" fits with "9% of the world population".

Can you say what might explain the chart below?

The "poverty" and "undernourishment" indicators are in the Sustainable Development Goals framework.

A different official method, Sustainable Development Goals indicator 2.1.2, is based on eight questions to individuals: "moderate or severe food insecurity".

The Secretary-General's 2016 SDG progress report estimated that 20.5% of adults were in that category in 2015, up from 20% the previous year (though the statistics may not be reliable enough to be sure about that).

If it applied to the same proportion of children, that would be about 1500 million people.

That is not far from double the usual UN figure for "undernourished" people (around 800 million).

In September 2017 the FAO updated the "undernourishment" statistics above. They stated there was a recent rise in the "undernourishment" numbers.

They did not report the new SDG indicator - "moderate or severe food insecurity" - and did not explain why, instead reporting "severe" food insecurity.

The global hunger figure emphasised by the UN is around 11%.

For the United States, the latest official figure for adult "moderate or severe food insecurity", for 2014 - for the official SDG indicator - is around 10%.

So is the UK figure, given in an FAO "technical report" of 2016.

https://gsa.github.io/sdg-indicators/2-1-2/

Voices of the Hungry, FAO Technical Report 1. August 2016
http://www.fao.org/3/c-i4830e.pdf

The 2017 report from the Secretary-General and the main UN 2017 nutrition report (The State of Food Security and Nutrition) have no numbers for the SDG "food security" indicator - even leaving out those which did appear in last year's report.

That is perhaps surprising. For one thing, people might be interested to see baseline estimates for the start of the SDG period 2016-30. (It may be more honest, though, for some indicators to say there is no reliable baseline.)

The nutrition report (which does not in fact have much detail on nutrition in the human species) has figures for "severe" food insecurity among people rather than on the actual indicator, "moderate or severe".

In the 2017 report, the 2014 and 2015 percentages are higher than those given in 2016 for those years. Perhaps that is because the new figures are for children as well. Perhaps the FAO have assumed that if adults lack food, children are likely to be even worse off.

The figures for adults in 2014-2015 are both 7.7:

(2016 Statistical Annex to UN Secretary-General's progress report on SDGs)

The figures for people of all ages in 2014-2015 are 9.2 and 8.8:

(2017 State of Food Security and Nutrition report from five UN agencies)

So the UN estimates for the actual SDG indicator - "moderate or severe", among all people - for 2014-5, which for unnamed reasons the agencies have not published, may be higher than the 20% and 20.5% given for adults.

(I do not know why the new figures indicate a fall from 2014 to 2015. As in other contexts, it is not clear what the uncertainty figures in brackets for individual years tell us about the UN's assessment of uncertainty about the trend, which might be more helpful [provided we can trust what the figures are telling us.])

How do the statistics in the UN reports relate to the agreed targets?

One of the Millennium pledges was to halve the proportion of people who "suffer from hunger".

Clearly, that would include more than just people who are chronically, severely lacking in calories, or just those who are "severely food insecure".

So these "severe" statistics do not relate well to the Millennium pledge.

What about the 2016-30 Sustainable Development Goal targets?

"2.1 By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all....to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round

2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition..."

Perhaps some of the leaders are not really leaders, but doing what they think other people want.

It is not clear what the five UN agencies, or the Secretary-General, are telling us about progress overall on the actual targets mentioned by national leaders.

Note: Eight yes/no questions may not be enough to give precise estimates.

The questionnaire does not give much information on nutrients, and does not ask whether family members died.

I do not know whether people may end up giving different answers over time from the answers people gave in a similar situation before.

The inhumane idea that if you are forced to spend more, you rise out of poverty

"Income [?] share held [!] by lowest 20%

Definition: Percentage share of income or consumption [! – in fact spending] is the share that accrues to [!] subgroups of population"

Poverty - Source and Definitions
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/EXTLACREGTOPPOVANA/0,,print:Y~isCURL:Y~contentMDK:20522391~menuPK:1202036~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~theSitePK:841175~isCURL:Y,00.html

Above, the World Bank claims to "define" what people earn as what they spend.

They say the "inequality" measure is on "income share held by the poorest 20%".

But most of these numbers are on what people said they spent.

Too often, as in the second definition above, economists and others call the numbers "consumption", which they clearly are not.

Where people pay for things, these numbers do not attempt to describe what people consume, but what they spend. They also include researchers' guesses on the money value of what researchers decide are relevant such as what people gather, fish, hunt or farm for themselves, even though there may be no relevant market nearby to value the items.

The economic researchers claim to have values for what people consume, even though the WHO and UNICEF researchers have admitted for years that there are few reliable numbers on water quality.   That seems like a basic omission.

Or the economists, politicians, journalists and others call the numbers "income" when they are not.

Or if the researchers claim on the basis of some of the hundreds of millions of illiterate people saying how much they spent on every item in the last few weeks, that their spending has risen, they call this "rising out of poverty".

This kind of lunacy infected policy advice from rich countries and intergovernmental organisations, to poorer countries.

The strange ideas seem to affect many claims on "inequality" as well as on what people for some reason call "poverty" and which policies are "good for the poor".

Tax money from citizens has been spent on academics, civil servants, travel, conferences, publications, websites, broadcasts and "think-tanks" with the result of misleading the public -

- using a "measure of poverty" which none of the people paid to use it would in their right mind ever apply to themselves.

"The idea of "leave no-one behind" makes sense, if, at least:

1) people do not die before they get the chance,

2) they do not suffer permanent serious injury from malnutrition or other cause before they get the chance, and

3) they are not misled enough to exclude them from informed decisions."

Discuss.

"People talk about better data for the SDGs.

But who will watch for misuse of data?"

Submission to UK House of Commons International Development Committee
Published by the Committee on 15 September 2015.
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/international-development-committee/uk-implementation-of-the-sustainable-development-goals/written/21249.pdf

In the document, I showed the UK's parliamentary "scrutineers" the text of what leaders had pledged in 2000 on saving lives.

It was more ambitious than the "MDG" targets proposed in 2001.

It is not clear when nations may have agreed the "MDG" targets.

The same parliamentary committee, in its final report for this inquiry, and in a new report of November 2017, in effect again understated world leaders' commitments.

.......................

"The phrase "Millennium Development Goals" has misled hundreds of millions of people.

Those targets are generally easier than the solemn pledges at the Millennium Summit.

They are easier than some agreed goals from UN meetings.

Leaders explicitly reaffirmed the other targets and promises in 2005 and 2010.

So it is not clear why people think the narrow "MDG" targets were the UN agenda.

Perhaps even more misleading is the policy and publicity focus, which persists after 2015, on gradual progress towards goals

- rather than rights for all humans, which were a large part of setting up the UN in the first place and have been emphasised by leaders in declarations ever since."

Discuss.

The discussion below may raise choices about future education and government.

Are children now being disabled by their education from acting as citizens in a democracy?

If information is a significant part of poverty, are governments and institutions increasing poverty, even among those who do not think they are poor?

There are more examples.

………………..

Have you heard of the Millennium Development Goals?

What do you think they were?

Who agreed them?

Have you heard of the Sustainable Development Goals?

How are they different?

Are you sure the UN development agenda has been just the "MDGs" and SDGs?

You may be surprised to learn that the so-called "Millennium Development Goals" were not what was agreed at the millennium.

Here is what leaders said at the 2010 Summit on the "MDGs".

You may like to read just the highlighted words.

"We underscore...all...conferences...and...commitments...
...these...commitments...constitute the ...framework....
We...reiterate...these...commitments".

That seems quite clear.

World leaders in 2010 said their commitments are from all the conferences and summits, not just the "MDGs".

They said those commitments were the UN framework for development.

Leaders are, unsurprisingly, supposed to be ensuring quality education.

So children must be being taught about these promises – is that right?

It is "right" in a moral sense, if you believe it is right for leaders to be honest and helpful.

But it is not true.

In 1995 the biggest gathering of national leaders in history at the time agreed something very sensible.

Leaders in 1995 said that poverty is partly being deprived of information.

It seems governments have been depriving you, or your parents, or your children, of information.

Would you say that is oppression?

Is it deprivation?

Is it inequality?

Is it corruption?

If you look at the contents pages for the document you are reading now, you can see some commitments by governments to the species.

Frankly, the more I see humans deceiving each other – knowingly or not – about these serious matters, the more I wonder whether we are worth more than other animals.

I think it is at least worth taking care of other creatures just in case.

Here is text from a web page for a 2007 UN report saying what the agenda was.

If you like, you can read the text highlighted in blue.

Those words are quite similar to what leaders said in 2010.

The conferences and summits would seem to include human rights agreements, because those would seem to be in the "economic, social and related fields", the phrase which leaders used in 2010.

The agreements at conferences also include goals for 2010 and 2015 which are more ambitious or wider than "MDG" targets, and goals for 2025 more ambitious than "SDG" targets.

So it is not clear to me why members of parliament, or academics, or charities, or other people, have been telling you about some goals and not others.

This seems obvious:

If leaders make a pledge, then a similar pledge, and one is to achieve more progress, then the easier target (here, in several cases an "MDG" target) is other things being equal far less relevant to holding governments to account.

Also, when people say "the SDGs are better than the MDGs because of x", I wonder why they seem to compare the wrong things.

The comparison seems to ignore much of what governments were already committed to before the 2015 summit – which may imply obligations now.

The first extract was from the 2010 Summit.

What did leaders say in 2015?

"We reaffirm the outcomes of all major United Nations conferences and summits..."

means that in 2015 leaders reaffirmed existing promises, including those of the 1990s and earlier, which went beyond the "MDGs".

But leaders at that September 2015 summit also took the view that some promises did not expire until 31 December 2015.

So why did leaders not mention them, make or talk about efforts to meet them, or authorise public statements about progress on them?

Even if the commitments had expired, the General Assembly had in any case explicitly set itself the task, including in the agenda for the 2015 meeting, of implementing and following up the conferences and summits.

So how were leaders in 2015, and how are governments now, fulfilling their stated intentions, which might reasonably be seen as promises to the people, by avoiding any reports about key dated and undated commitments and goals?

....

Is reviewing progress on commitments and aims not an essential part of democracy, and learning from the past?

Why did leaders and their governments not mention some key promises, before, during or after the September summit?

.....

Where is the progress report on the promises and goals for 2015?

....

How does it make sense to "reaffirm" the promises which are about to end, but not tell people what they are, or how they think the species has done on those promises?

Is that not more like not reaffirming the promises?

One of the promises, agreed at a huge conference in Mexico in 2002, was to publicise the agreed goals from previous conferences and summits.

Have governments done that?

No.

Are governments doing that in 2020?

No.

Do you know what your government has actually been promising you?

......

Leaders in 2015 mentioned goals for not just 2030 but also 2020 and 2025.

(Some of these goals already existed.)

But what about the other current sustainable development goals for 2020 and 2025?

Some goals for 2025 were agreed in 1992. They were in Agenda 21.

The 2011 Conference on Least Developed Countries agreed goals of water and sanitation for all by 2020.

Strangely, leaders in 2015 left these out, and instead claimed to agree similar goals for 2030, but as usual, reaffirmed conference outcomes - which includes Agenda 21 and the Least Developed Countries conference.

These leaders, like those before them, have kept reaffirming in effect,

"all the major conference and summit outcomes and commitments"

or

"the internationally agreed goals, including those in the Millennium Declaration",

or

"the internationally agreed goals, including the Millennium Development Goals".

Agenda 21 is one of the conference outcomes, and so are the goals for 2020.

Also, some commitments reaffirmed by leaders in 2005, 2010 and 2015 clearly do not "expire".

....................

What did leaders say in 2005?

That is from the 2005 World Summit outcome document. It looks as clear as the 2010 and 2015 commitments.

Why have I put a line through part of the text?

Because it is liable to mislead.

Leaders in 2000 agreed pledges, including 15-year pledges.

These were generally more ambitious than what are for some reason called "MDG" targets, some of which were for 25 years.

You may have been surprised to learn that the so-called "Millennium Development Goal" targets were not agreed at the Millennium Summit.

They were proposed in September 2001, and are of more dubious status in UN resolutions.

On 14 December 2001, instead of agreeing the "MDGs", UN member countries responded to the Secretary-General's "Road Map" containing them by reaffirming their actual 15-year pledges and other pledges more ambitious than the "MDG" targets.

The prime ministers, presidents and so on said at the 2005 summit:

"we resolve...To...implement...strategies to achieve the...agreed...goals...including the Millennium Development Goals".

Leaders' promise here is odd, because it is not clear which meeting if any had "agreed" the "MDG" targets at all.

In any case, we can ask, as with the 2015 summit:

How could nations

agree easier targets than the formal pledges in the Millennium Declaration,

yet at the same time

reaffirm the more ambitious pledges?

That would be like saying in 2000

"I promise to give you ten pounds"

and then saying

"the target is five pounds, and I reaffirm the original promise".

But it may not be clear what leaders meant by "Millennium Development Goals".

It may not be clear what citizens (the people to whom the commitment was made) thought leaders were saying.

The US made contradictory statements, but at times insisted even after the 2005 summit that it had not agreed the "MDG" structure.

It said that when leaders agreed statements about "Millennium Development Goals" they meant the goals in the Millennium Declaration.

Perhaps the differences about that are the reason for leaders' very odd language in 2005:

"goals…agreed at the Millennium Summit that are described as the Millennium Development Goals".

It is odd because that Summit did not agree goals usually "described as the Millennium Development Goals" - meaning the targets for 2015.

Leaders' words could mean the undated goals such as "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger".

But people often think "Millennium Development Goals" means the targets.

At the 2005 Summit George W. Bush did mention commitment to the "MDGs".

That sounds like a commitment to the unagreed "MDG" targets as well as the agreed goals from the conferences and summits.

Now, you may like to look again at the first quotation above. Leaders in 2010 referred to the "MDGs" being agreed at a conference or summit. Again, I do not know what they mean.

If you look at the 2015 summit declaration, you can see that leaders in 2015 misled citizens.

They did so not just by avoiding mention of their specific commitments in the Millennium Declaration and other documents, and avoiding other targets, but also by giving the wrong impression that what was agreed in 2000 was the generally easier "Millennium Development Goal" targets.

The Millennium Declaration was partly a 15-year plan, and said nothing at all about 1990-2015.

.......................

Did charities forget about the global commitments the UN was supposed to review?

"At its substantive session of 2001, the Economic and Social Council recommended that the General Assembly examine how best to address the reviews of the implementation of the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits of the 1990s, including their format and periodicity (Council resolution 2001/21).

At its fifty-sixth session, in 2001, the General Assembly decided to include the item entitled "Integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic and social fields" (resolution 56/211) in the provisional agenda of its fifty-seventh session.

At its fifty-seventh session, the General Assembly decided to include the item in its annual agenda and invited the Secretary-General to submit a report on the subject (resolution 57/270 B).

The General Assembly considered this item at its fifty-seventh to sixtieth sessions (resolutions 57/270 A and 57/270 B, 58/291, 59/145, 59/314, 60/180, 60/251, 60/260, 60/265 and 60/283 and decision 60/551 C [page 154]).

At its sixtieth session, the General Assembly held a High-level Plenary Meeting from 14 to 16 September 2005 in New York with the participation of Heads of State and Government and adopted the 2005 World Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1).

At the same session, in implementing the provisions of the 2005 World Summit Outcome, the General Assembly established the Peacebuilding Commission (resolution 60/180) and the Human Rights Council (resolution 60/251). ...

...in...2006, the General Assembly decided to dedicate a specific meeting focused on development, including an assessment of progress over the previous year, at each session of the General Assembly during the debate on the follow-up to the Millennium Declaration and the 2005 World Summit Outcome; and requested the Secretary-General to report on progress made in the implementation of the development outcome of the 2005 World Summit in the framework of the comprehensive report on the follow-up to the Millennium Declaration and the 2005 World Summit Outcome (resolution 60/265).

Document

Report of the Secretary-General on the role of the Economic and Social Council in the integrated and coordinated implementation of the outcomes of and follow-up to the major United Nations conferences and summits, in the light of General Assembly resolutions 50/227, 52/12 B, 57/270 B and 60/265 (A/62/89-E/2007/76).

...

Notes by the Secretary-General transmitting:

Updated report of the Secretary-General on the role of the Economic and Social Council in the integrated and coordinated implementation of the outcomes of and follow-up to major United Nations conferences and summits, in the light of General Assembly resolutions 50/227, 52/12 B and 57/270 B (A/60/275)

...

Reports of the Secretary-General

The role of the Economic and Social Council in the integrated and coordinated implementation of the outcomes of and follow-up to major United Nations conferences and summits, in the light of General Assembly resolutions 50/227, 52/12 B and 57/270 B (A/61/90-E/2006/84)

United Nations
2007
http://www.un.org/en/ga/62/plenary/followupconf/bkg.shtml

In the Sustainable Development Goals for 2016-30, world leaders have agreed Target 16.10:

"Ensure public access to information

and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements".

They also agreed to provide quality education.

Are young people taught enough about agreed human rights, government commitments to the species and human progress, enough that they have a "quality education"?

They are in fact being misled on both government pledges, and progress – including by "The World's Largest Lesson".

How can people "address" the "challenges that face the world" if the are told a lot of rubbish about poverty, safe water, and government pledges?

Cambridge International Examinations board misleads, for 2017-19:

The baseline of 1990 is nothing to do with the Millennium Summit.

The idea that its 15-year pledges are "known as the Millennium Development Goals" repeats propaganda understating the actual promises.

It has occurred to me – what do the people who know about the falsehoods but promote or allow them, think about their own children being deceived?

"Two years ago at the UN millennium summit, world leaders set themselves the task of halving global poverty over the next 15 years"

The Guardian
2002
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2002/aug/22/worldsummit2002.earth4

Why do UK school examination boards mislead on safe water,

when even the Guardian and the BBC have sometimes been right - the UN claims of progress are not based on safety?

Also, the belief of the vast majority of academics, teachers and others seems to be that the "MDG" target for halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water said something about 1990. It doesn't.

Is it true that before 2015 the emphasis was on "developing" countries' action?

Leaders at the 2005 World Summit said:

The Millennium pledge was to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger.

Was it "almost met" as people have been led to believe?

The headline UN claims do not even attempt to estimate numbers "suffering from hunger" but those with chronic, severe lack of calories – fewer people.

Clearly, you do not have to have a chronic or severe problem to suffer from it.

The FAO has used another indicator, "prevalence of food inadequacy". It does not attempt to estimate numbers "suffering from hunger" either, since it is also only on lack of calories.

But since it is on a higher level of calories than for a "sedentary lifestyle", at least it seems more relevant than the headline MDG or SDG numbers.

We might think "inadequate food" is more relevant to the pledge about "suffering from hunger".

(Like many concepts used for statistics - and in the case of "suffering from hunger" not used in these calorie-based estimates - the notion of precise numbers "suffering from" has no objective basis.)

The FAO are well aware that their numbers are not reliable, though they are not exactly clear about this in what they say, in view of how the information is likely to be used.

But in case it is of interest, here is a chart:

The numbers are from FAO's February 2016 set of indicators:

http://web.archive.org/web/20160317090710if_/http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/ess/foodsecurity/Food_Security_Indicators.xlsx

Can you see the "almost halving" since the start date for the Millennium pledge of 2000?

The FAO claims that the pledge's start date was the easier baseline of 1990.

But that is just the same rubbish they said about the World Food Summit pledge of 1996.

If a politician or civil servant says something big, even if it seems everyone else accepts it, you might want to look it up.

In some ways, has government honesty got worse?

On 9 October 2017, UN member states discussed "implementation" of goals agreed at major United Nations conferences and summits – as usual.

Governments have agreed to work for transparency and accountability; to promote democracy and provide quality education.

Instead, the "quality education" includes widespread falsehood about progress in the species, and world leaders' pledges.

A basic requirement of democracy is that citizens know about government pledges and results. It is being subverted.

The UK, for example, spends hundreds of millions of pounds on research. It misleads on its own promises. The UK Government has misled on the state of knowledge about what are undeniably important aspects of the progress of humans.   Academics have spread misleading information about UK promises to the poor.

In 2015, world leaders adopted an agenda for the next 15 years. But at the same time they avoided a large part of the official agenda: to follow up their existing promises.

In the Summit declaration, and in their speeches, instead of "transparency", they misled the public on those pledges.

The authorities claim to work on a "data revolution" but they, along with many academics, "think tanks", journalists and charities, repeat propaganda with no basis in the research or UN resolutions.

It is a human rights scandal, defrauding billions of people of access to information and of "genuine political participation".   It is not hard to see the risk to sensible decision-making, or informed elections of governments.

I believe the basic picture is obvious from the official documents.

The honesty gap is a huge flaw in political culture and the "development agenda". In money terms, and relative to sums spent on other things, correcting misleading information costs very little to put right.

Is the official story that governments have been making global goals more ambitious, actually true?

The agreed UN development agenda for the 21st century was never simply the "MDGs" or the "SDGs".

It is, as the General Assembly has repeatedly stated, all the relevant documents and commitments from the various conferences and summits.

Other Assembly resolutions and agreements such as those on human rights are also clearly part of the agreed agenda.

United Nations Development Agenda
Development for All: Goals, commitments and strategies agreed at the United Nations World conferences and summits since 1990
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
2007
http://www.un.org/esa/devagenda/UNDA_BW5_Final.pdf

Note: It might be argued that the agenda included, and includes, pre-1990 agreements on human rights and other matters.

"Major Conferences and Summits

2015

Third International Conference on Financing for Development
United Nations Sustainable Development Summit
General Assembly High-Level Meeting on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+10)

2014

World Conference on Indigenous Peoples
Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States

2013

United Nations Forum on Forests 10

2012

United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)

2011

United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries.

2010

United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals.

2009

United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development.

2008

Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus.
High Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals.

2006

High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.

2005

2005 World Summit.
10 Year Review of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme for Action.
10 Year Review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
Phase Two of the World Summit on the Information Society.

2004

10 Year Review of the Barbados Programme of Action.

2003

International Ministerial Conference of Landlocked and Transit Developing Countries.
Phase One of World Summit on the Information Society.

2002

International Conference on Financing for Development.
World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Second World Assembly on Ageing.
Special Session of the General Assembly on Children.
World Food Summit: Five Years Later.

2001

Third UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries.
Special Session of the General Assembly for and Overall Review and Appraisal of the Implementation of the Habitat Agenda.
Special Session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS.

2000

Millennium Summit.
World Education Forum.
Social Summit +5.
Special Session of the General Assembly for the 5 Year Review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

1999

Twenty-first Special Session of the General Assembly on the International Conference on Population and Development.

1996

Second UN Conference on Human Settlement (HABITAT II).
World Food Summit.

1995

Fourth World Conference on Women.
World Summit for Social Development.

1994

International Conference on Population and Development.
Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Development States.

1993

World Conference on Human Rights.

1992

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
International Conference on Nutrition.

1990

World Summit for Children.
World Conference on Education for all.
Second UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries.

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/what-we-do/conferences.html

Note: The list for some reason omits previous major conferences.

Apart from large-scale brainwashing, why do these books not describe the actual global commitments and agenda, in the Millennium Declaration and other conference and summit outcomes, including human rights for all, which already existed before the SDGs?

Suppose you made a statement about poverty.

And it is based on what some other people said, without you having a solid idea of why they said it.

Are you doing social science, or journalism?

Or, if you are called a social scientist or journalist, are you failing to carry out your basic functions?

If you would not make the statement about yourself in the same position

- or would not if you took an easy step to discover the truth about the method –

then that is clearly not journalism.

It is not reporting facts, and it is not reporting coherent opinion.

Nor is it social science.

Nor is it, if you are a politician,

"transparent", or
"good governance",
or a meaningful part of "accountability"
or a
"data revolution".

It is something else.

Information poverty

is poverty,

and

causes poverty

This document is about, among other things,

"information inequality",

the evidence for some government commitments

the evidence for some aspects of human progress, and

how billions of people are being misled by claims that rob them of political power –

a fundamental element in, and arguably in perpetuating, the failure of resources to give people opportunities: what people call "poverty".

Not just broken promises.

Untruths that promises were kept.

Untruths about the promises.

2008: UK Government gives an impression liable to mislead by understating its Millennium pledges.

Why,

apart from propaganda,

do people talk about "Millennium Development Goals"
which UN resolutions in 2000 and 2001 did not specifically mention,

rather than what governments actually promised

in the conferences and summits,
and in UN General Assembly resolutions?

If you would not apply the method to yourself
in the same circumstances,

then a claim about poverty or inequality

is clearly not "scientific" but incoherent.

It is hypocritical, discriminatory, misleading.

If you are in a position of responsibility
and make the stupid statement
when people may take it as implying something significant about policies to help the poor, or progress reports,

then it is anti-democratic, and anti-human rights.

Would it be wise or stupid to say this?

"I know that
someone in another country
is better off now
because
some other people say so,
and I don't know
how they decided".

If you do not know what the method is,
then making the statement
about even a single other person
would make no sense.

But for some reason people seem quite happy to tell the public, or their students, how many poor or extremely poor people there are in the world, or how the supposed number has changed, without apparently having much of a clue what their statement is based on.

What might be some reasons for this strange behaviour?

Is not making the statement
about large numbers of people

irresponsible

and,

given that such statements can start or prolong good or bad polices,

potentially dangerous?

Who said this?

Absolute poverty is
a condition characterized by
severe
deprivation of
basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and
information.

117 Heads of State and Government,

in a 1995 summit document

constantly reaffirmed by states and leaders ever since.

Is it not a denial of human rights

for countries to misrepresent the number of lives they promised to save, and other pledges?

Is it not a denial of human rights

for countries to talk about goals,
and not the rights they agreed?

Harmful myths and a way forward

Some common ideas about UN pledges have no support in the UN resolutions.

The truth of what is in those documents is important to understanding what the Sustainable Development Goals are, and to understanding what it has meant when leaders made promises.

The truth of what is in the documents is also important for understanding some ways in which governments mislead the public.

If they have told us falsehoods about their pledges and progress in the human species, what else is not true?

I suggest it is time for a revision of what "governance" means in practice.

- and the same for "transparency", "accountability" and "participation".

Accurate information on pledges and progress from governments and academics would seem essential for democracy.

There is a disturbing tendency among not only the public, but also academics, charity specialists, journalists and others

to simply accept what those in authority say – in their simplest and most misleading versions - about what their commitments are, or about progress on them.

The reality is far more interesting.

People sometimes say,

"What was the effect of the MDGs?".

When we consider that nations keep reaffirming pledges in the Millennium Declaration and elsewhere,

we might think that this is possible:

that the easier, wrongly-named "Millennium Development Goal" targets proposed in 2001

(which nations did not accept then but instead reaffirmed the more ambitious pledges of 2000)

made progress slower.

What are the Global Goals?

In September 2015, UN member states' leaders agreed Sustainable Development Goals.

But they already had sustainable development goals. These included goals in agreements of 1992, 2002 and 2012.

For some reason, people, including world leaders, have said how the new "SDGs" are better than the so-called "Millennium" Development Goals (some of whose targets, despite the name, were put forward later than, and were easier than, what leaders agreed in the Millennium Declaration).

But this can mislead.

It is easier for governments if people think what they are doing is new and better than before.

Politicians in power like it if people think their policy is better than the last government's.

In reality, in 2015 governments were already committed to far more than the MDGs.

The MDGs basically relate to paragraph 19 of the Millennium Declaration.

It has 31 paragraphs.

In several important ways, the MDG targets are easier and narrower than what leaders actually pledged in the Declaration - which was itself easier than some earlier goals and principles including "human rights" or "Health for All by the year 2000".

I don't know why people are so exclusively interested in the "Millennium" targets or the "SDGs".

You could say "they have been influential, because governments and their agencies publicised them".

But that would be to avoid holding politicians to account for the promises. It is like saying to someone who owes you £10 but keeps telling people it is £5 which they have paid, "yes, you have fulfilled your promise".

In sustainable development, the Millennium Declaration is only part of what UN member states were already formally committed to and officially aiming at before 2015.

"The SDGs are a backward step, not only because

they distract from governments fulfilling their existing commitments as soon as possible after 2015,

but also because

they are hopes but previous summits made pledges."

Discuss.

.................................................

If these things are not true,

what else is not true?

Would you say one person

- such as you - was better off if their

income

rose,

without looking at whether they

need

to spend more or less on

child care,

accommodation away from home,

transport,

food,

water,

education, or

medicine?

If you don't know
what a person needed for rent, transport, medicine, water, and so on,

why would you just ask what they spent,
then say how much richer or poorer they became?

So why do people make these claims about hundreds of millions of people?

Can you think of any other problems
with saying a particular number of people have
"risen out of extreme poverty",

if the method is mostly based on asking a small sample of people - many illiterate - how much they spent in the last few weeks, and guessing at the value of what they grew, hunted, fished or foraged in the last few weeks?

Suppose a government – or a local council - made a 15-year plan, then later said it was a 25-year plan.

Would you laugh?

In 2000 Tony Blair, as UK Prime Minister, promised with other leaders to meet targets in

15 years,

and to do other things including upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Later he wrongly claimed the agreement was the generally easier, narrower

25-year

"MDG" targets.

Civil servants proposed those to UN member states in 2001. Adding progress in the 1990s makes targets easier to reach.

Did countries agree the "MDGs" in 2001?

No. They responded on 14 December 2001 by instead reaffirming the pledges of September 2000.

As a result, Mr Blair's claims here about global pledges and success are, if we go by the actual pledges and the actual official research, rubbish:

What is the factual basis for Mr Blair's statement that "many" "Goals" "set out by the U.N. in the year 2000" were "substantially met"?

How many, exactly?

How many can you think of?

What is the reason for your answer?

Your tax pays for what is called social science.

Is it humane?

Are we agreed that poverty (apart from poverty relative to others) is where your needs are more than your resources?

If not, what would you say it is?

Can you say it in one word?

Five?

Fifty?

.................................................................................

Nearly all the world's governments have agreed the aim of "ending" the proportion of humans "living on under $1.90 a day" by 2030

(Or "reduce" it, if they are talking about the aim of the World Bank, whose governors have traditionally been mostly finance or development ministers.)

Here is just one part of how crazy that is.

The "extreme consumption poverty" is supposed to be where people lack the basics.

If you think about it, or even if you don't, it may be clear that "the basics" is vague.

Even "basic" food is a subjective idea.

How long is the food supposed to keep you alive? A day? A year? Sixty years? With what likelihood? Is that with the assumption that no big crisis will happen from crop failure, flood, management of the economy, war, civil war, epidemics and so on?

But the idea is worse than that.

It looks at what people say they spent, but not what they need.

No-one with any sense would agree to using that method for themselves or anyone they cared for, if they knew what it was.

"...an overarching question: What would Committee members want as the basis for policy decisions about themselves, if they were poor?"

Question to the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee
Document published by the Committee
2011

I originally described the above as "written evidence" because that is what such committees call documents sent for their inquiries, and verbal statements.

I changed it, because the committees call it "evidence" even if in reality people give opinions, without evidence – or make factual claims, without any or any good evidence.

I have been struck by how often academics writing about important matters – claims about progress in the species, or pledges by its political leaders – simply repeat what someone else has said, rather than what is true.

The scale of factual claims without evidence, on matters clearly important for holding governments to account, has surprised me.

I have complained that the BBC has often broadcast factual claims without any support from evidence.

Instead of addressing the actual complaints, the answers from the BBC have been to an astonishing degree largely repeats of the same problem: assertion – claims about what the relevant facts were about the world, what the complaints were, what the BBC had broadcast or published, what the complaints procedure was – without evidence and without any actual basis in fact.

Back to the strange method of making claims about poverty (or inequality):

Let us consider the position of someone, perhaps a university professor, who knows what the above method in "economics" is for claiming particular levels of progress on "extreme poverty".

Or someone who knows what the method is for the traditional large-scale studies by economists recommending policies for the poorest people.

I do not understand why those people would discuss the results as if they are on "poverty" or "benefits to the poor".

The idea fails the most obvious, basic and ethical test of social science – whether it is based on the reality of people's lives.

Why is that not taught in the first week of school courses?

How is it that you can get a PhD in economics, or a job telling people about poverty levels, if you do not look at the most basic elements in your field?

Is it not obvious that you would not blindly say you were better off with a new job, without looking at whether you needed to pay more for transport, child care, or anything else?

Is it not obvious that if you are going to make claims about millions of people, you have to make sure they would make sense?

Is it not obvious that in order to make sense, and meet minimal ethical standards for research on other sentient creatures, they would have to apply to one person or a small number of people, who you cared great deal about?

You can look at this as a scientific failing, or a moral failing.

I suggest it is clearly both.

If people know needs are not considered, why do they make claims about poverty?

If people do not know the method, why do they make claims about poverty?

On the reporting of official global poverty claims

From complaint to the UK Press Complaints Commission about the Economist,
29 August 2013.

"...a rule without which social science cannot possibly be adequate:

that the method is one which they would use on themselves in a similar position.

Otherwise, it runs a strong risk of being inhumane.

But that would imply that the journalists would gauge their own prosperity or poverty by looking at their spending without considering

the prices they faced,

or

how much food they and their children needed, or

whether the water they bought was safe, or

whether they needed to pay rent or for transport to work, or

whether they lived on their own, or

how many people in the household shared food and fuel, or

whether their assets or debts rose or fell.

That is the macroeconomic method which was used."

That passage was in a footnote to the third point below:

"The Commission might conclude that one or more of the following statements are true, and/or are true of similar output from the newspaper. ...

The following are examples of problems...repeated across items in the newspaper's output:

1. The claims to show trends in consumption adequacy across time and different levels of "growth" misled, since

the newspaper does not have prices for clean water.

2. The newspaper misled in presenting statistics on people alive at different times as showing aggregate outcomes for people.

[Footnote reads: "This kind of statistic cannot on its own provide information on consumption adequacy, not least because the method counts the poor as having done worse if the poorest survive longer."]

3. The newspaper's use of social science failed what might be called the humanity test or the love test, since it is implausible that the journalists would apply the methods of inferring lack or economic gains to, or to set targets or policy for, people dear to them. ..."

.........................................

I suggest it is not difficult to see from the evidence that politicians, academics and journalists have said things which are untrue, which obstruct democracy by giving a false idea of progress, government commitments and the merits or otherwise of policies.

A second, perhaps deeper problem may be revealed by reactions to the truth. I am referring to matters where their existing output has clearly hampered the ability of the public to hold governments to account, by misleading people about pledges or progress, or both.

These responses have in my experience too often included, instead of upholding the standards they have promised the public,

- repeating the same falsehoods after they or their organisations have been correctly and clearly informed;

- in addition misleading the public about the information they have now formally, and verifiably, been given.

What kind of mental sickness

causes people to make claims

about other people's

poverty

based on the idea that

if they spend more they must end up richer,

with no thought for

whether their needs went up or down?

What exactly

are nations committed to
or aiming at

through the Sustainable Development Goals listed in 2015,

which they were not committed to
or aiming at already

by human rights agreements, the development agenda agreed at UN conferences and summits which world leaders reaffirmed in 2005 and 2010, and other resolutions and documents?

Can you think what might explain this?

"Let us resolve...To halve...

the proportion...

(currently 22 per cent)

whose income is less than one dollar a day"

UN Secretary-General, Millennium Report
2000

"The world has reduced extreme poverty by half...

in developing regions...

to 22 per cent

by 2010"

United Nations MDG Report
2014

"Globally,

the right to adequate food

has been a

legally binding human right in international law

for more than 35 years"

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
http://www.fao.org/human-right-to-food/en/

Apparently, some economists continue to confuse "the rise in the average" with "the average rise".

In reality they cannot know how much "incomes increase" for the poorest, or in a country, without looking at how many people survived the period. Unless mortality rates are stable and uniform, the concept of an "average rise" is incoherent.

As I explained to heads of university departments and other senior experts beginning in 2000, if the poorest die, the average rises.

These authors look at different populations at different times, then claim to know about average rises for the same people.

A further error was displayed when I told people about the problem. I was told "we need better data" or "we need to do research that is better than the World Bank's".

It is the responsibility of the scientist, not the sceptic, to show why they are justified, if they are, in inferring from one trend to another. The economist's traditional error of treating populations as if no-one is born or dies, merely assuming there is no problem, is not justified simply by convention – which might amount to the position that it is a sensible choice to ignore the mistake, because they keep making it.

"Incomes in the poorest two quintiles on average increase at the same rate as overall average incomes."

2013
http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-6568

3 August 2000
To: jmorduch@princeton.edu

...What strikes me is that in policy debates people look at "reducing poverty" without looking at how many people die in the interim.

This seems to me the worst flaw in simple economic analysis (Deininger, Dollar) - if the poorest die, the income figures look better.

……………………………….

The official MDG list, reproduced by the World Bank, the UK Government, and many other sources, falsely states that its targets are

“from the Millennium Declaration”.

In fact several highly-publicised "MDG" targets are easier than what leaders actually pledged in 2000.

In any case, UN member states' commitments and targets for 2015 went beyond the "MDGs" and beyond the Millennium pledges.

Concentrating on the heavily-publicised "MDG" targets appears to be a fundamental error by many academics, school examination boards and commentators.