Morality and Poverty Issues (MPIs)

As one-fifth of the earth’s seven (7) billion people are still trapped in life –threatening poverty, Sachs (2005) and about 2.8 billion survive on less than $2 per day, Brown (2004). Green economics methodology reincorporates earlier moral concerns into economics, in particular social and environmental justice. Inclusiveness, equity and access are all foundations on which it is built. The 1989 UN Convention on the Right of the Child divides rights into protection, basic provisions of goods and amenities, and participation, which includes solidarity and community (UN office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, 1989, Preamble). Rights are defined as shared entitlements that promote equality, solidarity, social justice and peace, Kennet M and Heinemann V (2006). This no doubt differs from neoclassical concepts of rights and allocation of resources, which assume self-interested individualism and market competition as the starting point of rights, Alderson P (2006). Some of the issues to be engaged in this thematic area include social and environmental justice, inclusiveness, equity, human rights, gender mainstreaming, analysis of power relations and institutions, critique of trickle-down theories and wealth creation with local power decisions. Some goals and action agenda under this area include