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It is a triumph of Western culture to produce people who think their own economic situation depends on their "needs", assets, prices they face and so on, while other people's prosperity (and their own if they are making a point) can be judged by looking only at income.
The central problem is not the World Bank "poverty" claims. It is the widespread use of "income" (often in fact spending) estimates to make unsupported claims about economic gains and losses to people. Claims on "income inequality" or "real income" can have similar problems.
Academics - perhaps nearly all of them - are making a serious error in concentrating on "SDGs". In 2015 leaders reaffirmed the broader UN development agenda, which includes adequate water and sanitation for all humans by 2025 and by 2020 in "least developed countries".pic.twitter.com/3a4XtCaDi5
Although Fukuda-Parr and Hulme mention that UN members later reiterated the Millennium Declaration, it seems difficult to find any account of global goals which states the correct position: UN members routinely reaffirm existing development agreements.
The misleadingly-named "MDG" framework, whose official list falsely claims the 1990-baseline targets are "from the Millennium Declaration", was largely redundant because UN members reaffirmed the Declaration.
It is highly convenient for politicians and civil servants that academics in general promote some easier targets, rather than what leaders and governments actually agree. Academics in this area generally look at administrative history - what politicians want them to look at.
I have compiled a 2500-page reference work on global goals and large-scale social science. Histories of global goals often make assertions without quoting the resolutions, or attempting to put agreements in context. This work presents governments' actual words.pic.twitter.com/uhZHuHH5Ou
I have myself repeated propaganda, assuming that the academic and campaigning consensus on global goals was based in reality.https://twitter.com/mattberkley/status/1001622383252443136 …
This from the ECOSOC President is a correct statement of what nations have agreed, in General Assembly resolutions, to follow up. But they are not doing it. Instead, children are being taught about easier targets as if they are some kind of advance. https://twitter.com/UNECOSOC/status/1083386044224077826 …pic.twitter.com/cKESdImw3F
The Lancet, which continued to understate Millennium pledges even after its claims were disproved, appears to have omitted other key agreements related to public health.pic.twitter.com/oAu5VQVd5W
In 2011, charities campaigned for the 2020 goals.pic.twitter.com/5E7Jug9bJJ
Governments at the 2011 conference made a 'solemn commitment'. The General Assembly endorsed its outcome.pic.twitter.com/0rjrDJ40Y4
A similar point can be made about human rights agreements. It is sometimes said that timed goals are less ambitious than those. It is, in my view, crucial to keep in mind that nations do not only set goals, but continually reaffirm existing agreements.https://twitter.com/mattberkley/status/993568121628880896 …
When considering official statements about progress, I suggest it is wise to bear in mind the truthfulness or otherwise of official statements about goals, and whether the statements are misleading. In order to do this, it is necessary to look at the actual resolutions.pic.twitter.com/Sbh6JCWGM7
I have written since 2003 on the key error of claiming economic gains and losses from "income" "data", ignoring costs, assets... http://www.mattberkley.com/socialscience.htm … Some influential policy conclusions fall apart when we consider real life. From 28 November 2003: https://web.archive.org/web/20070223160812/http:/www.addistribune.com/Archives/2003/11/28-11-03/Discoverer.htm …pic.twitter.com/wiMFDf4AxJ
I personally have no qualms with an income/exp focus. After all, income remains an important dimension and people travel the globe in search of it. As I argue in #povertyasideology, the problem is with the use of thresholds, which also applies to "multidimensional" pov measures.
I would generalise that claim to include “absolute" measures of poverty, including multidimensional, which have a tendency to underestimate the reproduction of poverty over time in contexts of structural transformation, etc. At least, that’s what I argue in my book…
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