Eguria

THE GLOBAL POVERTY TRAP Uruguayan historian Eduardo Galeano once wrote, ‘The division of labour among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing.’ The global division of labour has relegated the poor to the rule of perpetual loser. They are caught by forces at local, national, and global levels that combine to form a three-tiered trap. At the local level, elements of the poverty trap include skewed pattern of access to land and other assets, physical weakness and heightened susceptibility to disease, population growth, and powerlessness against corrupt institutions. These are reinforced at the national level by innumerable policies – from tax laws to the structure of development investment – that neglect or discriminate against the poor. And at the global level, the poor are held down by the devastating combination of oppressive debt burdens, falling export prices, and rising capital flight. All these factors and forces, like diabolical counterparts to Ada...