Based on the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force on January 1, 2016. The SDGs run for 15 years and contain the following 17 overall goals:
- End poverty
- Achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture
- Healthy life for everyone
- Education for everyone
- gender equality
- Water and sanitation for everyone
- Sustainable and modern energy for everyone
- Sustainable economic growth and decent work for all
- Resilient infrastructure and sustainable industrialization
- Reduce inequality
- Sustainable cities and settlements
- Sustainable consumption and production methods
- Take immediate action to combat climate change and its effects
- Preservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources
- Protect terrestrial ecosystems
- Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
- Strengthen the means of implementation and global partnership
Poverty, Poverty Reduction & Income Distribution in the Philippines
Inequality in income distribution is high. The rich are getting richer and the poor are suffering more and more from the corruption that is rampant in the country. Despite strong economic growth at times, the Philippine government has not succeeded in reducing poverty in the country. According to the World Bank, on the contrary, it has even risen steadily in recent years – contrary to the general trend in the region that poverty is declining. One reason for this development is the comparatively high population growth of 1.9 percent (around two million more people per year). At the end of July 2014, the birth of the hundred millionth Filipino was celebrated in the media.
During the tenure of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (January 2001 to the end of June 2010) not only did poverty in the country increase. In addition, the Arroyo government failed to advance the democratic and market-economy transformation. Rather, threatening erosion tendencies can be seen in the democratic standards of the political system, while market and social development is stagnating. The Philippine state is still weak.
As long as political dynasties continue to determine events in the country, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation, corruption will persist and the course will be set for radical change in the economy and society. Ironically, these listed structural weaknesses of the Philippine state also formed the humus on which the wealth of the already rich increases in a miraculous way. Under the administrations of President Macapagal-Arroyo and President Aquino alone is the number of billionaires in the archipelago, according to the Forbes list, and their total wealth has grown considerably. With the consequence that the 50 richest Filipinos alone have assets that correspond to about a quarter of the gross domestic product. There are also 12 Filipinos on the current Forbes billionaire list.
According to politicsezine, poverty varies from region to region in the Philippines; it is much higher in rural areas than in cities. The poorest province is the autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which should be transferred to a new autonomous authority by mid-2016. Armed conflicts and their economic costs – especially for the poor population – are the subject of the Philippine Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program. It is based on the concept of human security and admonishes as necessary steps peace-creating, conflict-avoiding and rights-securing processes.
According to the Human Development Report 2016, the Philippines ranks 116th out of a total of 187 countries listed. For comparison: In 2005 the country was ranked 84th, in 2002 ranked 77 and in 2001 ranked 70th In a regional comparison, for example, Thailand (rank 89), the PR China (rank 91) and Indonesia (rank 108) do better. while the Philippines are listed ahead of Vietnam, Timor-Leste, Laos and Myanmar in the HDI ranking. Regularly published in the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
The End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT) campaign, the Osnabrück-based children’s aid organization terre des hommes, which also offers travelers online information on the problem of sexual exploitation of children and portraits of street children, is devoted to the topic of poverty, sexual exploitation and children in the center Bahay Tuluyan presents a specific project against child prostitution, as well as in Olongapo City beheimate PREDA Foundation Inc. under the long-standing energetic leadership of the Irish priest Shay Cullen.
Unemployment remains a pressing and – given the rapid population growth – an increasing problem. According to government calculations, 7.2 million Filipinos were unemployed in December 2017, and 10.9 million were unemployed in May 2018. Every year over a million people leave the country to look for work abroad – and the number is rising. The government specifically promotes the posting of guest workers (OFWs) abroad in order to relieve the domestic labor market and earn foreign exchange.
“(Above all) the remittances from Filipinos living abroad,” notes the Bertelsmann Foundation, “have helped to strengthen private consumption and compensate for the lack of a public welfare system. This form of economic development is proving itself to be hunger in the face of persistently high unemployment and poverty as unsustainable. Socio-economic barriers, a low level of public investment in education and research as well as restrictions on the market economy system reduce the competitiveness of the Philippine economy and hinder the establishment of new companies. ” Due to the migration of qualified skilled workers abroad, they are confronted with the problem of finding well-trained staff in the country itself.
Numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country and exposed fighters from civil society, who since the end of the Marcos dictatorship in such socio-politically sensitive areas as street children, child prostitution, slum children, children traumatized by war, education and upbringing, rural development, indebtedness, Respect for human and civil rights, the environment, health, women, nutrition, urban poverty, etc. are skeptical and assume that the government in 40 out of 80 provinces was able to come close to realizing the MDGs. The economist and pollster (Social Weather Stations, SWS), Mahar Mangahas, analyzed in an MDG scoreboard their achievements and deficits that can be ascertained in his opinion.
