As the world observed the International Day for Eradication of Poverty, it is clear that our national reflections must be anchored in sobering reality rather than complacent rhetoric.
The World Bank’s latest revelations -- confirming that our GDP growth has slumped to a dismal 3.4% and that over 2 million additional people have been pushed into poverty over the past year -- expose what must be identified as a profound socio-economic crisis.
For a nation that long aspired towards double digit growth, to have been reduced to below 4% for consecutive years is a significant blow. We must also contend with the fact that nearly 62 million citizens live just above the poverty line, meaning a single health shock, price spike, or market disruption can plunge entire families back into extreme hardship.
To that end, poverty eradication remains a distant dream for our country, and that is the reality. However, addressing it, and ensuring that we pull people out of poverty every day instead, is an urgent national emergency.
For too long, our poverty alleviation strategies have relied on fragmented, leaky safety programs that frequently miss the poorest segments of society while misallocating resources. While we are looking to change that narrative with the Family Card program, we must ensure that we get this right.
It goes without saying that a nation striving for structural reform can no longer tolerate a system where wealth inequality widens while the vulnerable absorb the harshest blows of economic stagnation.
Reducing poverty must go beyond merely managing destitution for our population. While the short term requires us to pull more and more people out of extreme poverty, the end goal must be to fix our macroeconomic foundations, drive job creation, and ensure that economic recovery lifts every citizen, not just a privileged few.
The end goal must always be to become an equitable nation, not merely a prosperous one.