On 25th of June, the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, developed by the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier de Schutter, was presented to the 62nd session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council. The roadmap proves through multiple alternative economic perspectives, including the Economy for the Common Good, that ending poverty does not depend on economic growth. Billions of people currently cannot meet basic needs as inequality continues to rise worldwide in inmid of a deepening ecological crisis.
400 contributors, including ECOnGOOD, worked over 18 months to understand how to reduce inequalities and not take GDP as the primary source of progress. The roadmap recognizes that there are ideas that already exist to transform economy and that poverty is shaped by political and economic choices.
“Poverty is not inevitable, it is manufactured”, shared Olivier De Schutter, whose mandate as the United Nations Special Rapporteur ended recently. He builds his Roadmap on innovative approaches such as Economy for the Common Good, Doughnut Economics, Feminist Economics, Care Economy, Social and Solidarity Economy, Buen Vivir, Ubuntu Economics, Ecological Economics and many others.
Besides referring to the book “Money: the new rules of the game” by Christian Felber, founder of the Economy for the Common Good movement, the roadmap includes ECOnGOOD among the concepts and proposals helping build a new vision for the future. “The proposal for a Human Rights Economy offers an opportunity to unify these complementary visions around a shared commitment to human dignity, social justice, democracy, and ecological responsibility”, Felber welcomes the initiative.
The Roadmap offers over 70 concrete policy proposals that tackle multiple aspects of the economy: social protection, labour rights, care, public services, climate action, taxation, finance and democratic participation. For Sophie Gripenberg, who was part of the consulting process on behalf of ECOnGOOD, endless growth can’t exist on a finite planet: “we welcome this roadmap as an important step towards a just transition rooted in the principles of democracy, co-determination, non-domination, and empowering people and countries to shape their own economic futures for the common good.”
The mandate of Olivier De Schutter has ended, but the new Special Rapporteur, Elena Carolina Díaz Galán, committed to continue the work.The initiated process will move forward also through the New Economies for Eradicating Poverty (NEEP) initiative, creating new opportunities for collaboration between governments, civil society, researchers and economic innovators.
ECOnGOOD invites you to co-sign the petition to show your support and to donate to our movement:
https://www.neep-poverty.org/sign-your-name-in-support-of-the-roadmap/
