This year's Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme once again highlights the huge inequalities in the world. For example, the world's richest 1 per cent receive as much income as the poorest 57 per cent.
The richest 25 million Americans are as wealthy as two billion people in the developing world. The report also shows how the world's poorest countries are already failing to hit the ambitious poverty reduction targets set by the UN only two years ago. Few countries are growing fast enough to achieve the target of halving the number of people in absolute poverty by the year 2015.
An important message in the report is that effective government is central to human development. It shows that democracy is no obstacle to high income and, more pertinently, that low income is no obstacle to democracy. Democracies are better at managing conflicts and avoiding catastrophes. For example, democratic India has coped better with threatened famines than undemocratic China.
However, the report stresses that there is no automatic link between democracy and equity or human development. It stresses the fragility of democracies, and the threat that many nations could lapse into authoritarianism because of economic inequities or corruption.
Ireland, which scores highly in the report for the state of its democratic structures, should remember that democracy cannot be taken for granted. In many countries, people have lost trust in their leaders and political participation is declining.
The report points to high levels of poverty and inequality in Ireland, compared to other Western countries. The data used are some years out of date, as the Government has been quick to point out. It is also unhappy with the report's use of the concept of relative poverty, which gives an indication of the divide between rich and poor. It prefers to talk about "consistent poverty", which can be relieved by providing people with basic necessities. The Government has concentrated on economic growth to relieve poverty. However, it is clear that relative poverty cannot be tackled by concentrating on economic growth alone.