The United Nations Should Prioritize Global Poverty Reduction Over All Other Issues

Resolved: When in conflict the UN should priotize global poverty over environmental protection. I will make the following definitions clear. Poverty is defined by the World Bank as a state of living in which capable of adults live on less than 2.50 US dollars per day. Protection is defined by Websters dictionary as the act of being protected; being safe; or out of harms way. My partner and I stand in firm negition of the resolution for the following reasons. Contention One: Environmental and agricultural sustainability must precede poverty reduction efforts in order to ensure stability. Desertification is quickly reducing the amount of arable land in developing nations, especially in India and sub-Saharan Africa. Desertification is swiftly progressing due to unsustainable agricultural methods being practiced in those nations, such as overgrazing and improper irrigation and fertilization methods. Luckily, sustainable agriculture is easily maintained, self-incentivizing and requires little funding to carry out. Subpoint A: Sustainable agriculture is necessary to support persons in developing nations. According to a United Nations University conference on desertification, if current trends continue, Africa will only be able to feed 25% of its people by 2025. Even if poverty is eliminated, the reduction of poverty will be irrelevant if there is no food to be bought. Likewise, 47 % of India's once-arable land has been rendered inhospitable through desertification. If agriculture cannot be up kept in these developing areas, food supplies will decrease, food costs will increase, and the inhabitants will sink into deeper and deeper levels of poverty. Subpoint B: Agricultural stability precedes economic stability in developing nations. In many developing nations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, a majority of inhabitants work as subsistence farmers. The majority being occupied with farming, there is little economic stimulus for modern markets for people to purchase their own food. Until local agricultural methods can be improved in order to provide an adequate surplus to feed people working outside of the agricultural industry, economic development will be severely hindered. Contention Two: The United Nations lacks the necessary means to ensure global poverty reduction. Critics of the UN are quick to point out that it is plagued by having too little funding and power to get much of anything done. As it stands, there is no reason to believe that efforts by the UN aimed at reducing global poverty have any chance at even putting a dent in the problem. Subpoint A: The UN is inadequately funded too significantly reduce global poverty. The UN's unadjusted budget leaves the UNDP, the suborganization responsible for dealing with poverty, around 6 billion dollars to work with for the next two years. Even if the UN were to devote all of these resources exclusively to poverty reduction, ignoring the other Millennium Goals, it wouldn't even come close to making an impact on global poverty. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation alone has an endowment of 30.2 billion dollars; the UN has so little funding that it shouldn't waste its time on a problem that is already being tackled on a much larger degree by countless charitable organizations. Subpoint B: Corrupted administrations and lack of transparency in developing nations severely hamper the effects of poverty reduction. A study conducted by political scientists Knack and Brautigam strongly correlates high aid levels with government deterioration. Furthermore, the often-corrupt governments responsible for allocating aid lack the transparency necessary to ensure that the money is getting where it needs to go. The same aforementioned study also drew direct connections between high aid levels and elevated in transparency levels. The amount of power that the UN can exert on a sovereign nation is basically up to the nation in question, and, as such, the UN lacks authority to assure that its funding will be used to feed the hungry as opposed to lining some greedy dictator's pockets. In conclusion, as opposed to resorting to irrelevant appeals to the emotional aspect of poverty, you, the judge, need to look at the facts. Not only is protecting the threatened environments of developing nations more beneficial and cost-effective than attempting to reduce poverty, but the funds that are allocated to reducing poverty will be so greatly affected by monetary and authoritative barriers that their results will be rendered negligible. Its because of these reasons you must vote CON. Thank you.