In devising the post-2015 framework, the international community needs to move beyond narrow econometrics toward a broad rights-based agenda rooted in the human rights principles that it has already endorsed, and to couple this with rigorous monitoring and accountability mechanisms, writes Roberto Bissio of Third World Institute and Social Watch.
Despite significant macroeconomic growth over the past 10-15 years globally, especially in many developing countries, the progress of key social indicators has slowed down since 2000. To a considerable degree this is the result of growing inequalities between and within nations. Additionally, the dominant criterion for measuring poverty, the US$ 1.25 per day limit, is inadequate and needs to be changed: US$ 1.25 per day only indicates that a person does not live in a situation of ‘extreme poverty’.