Post-2015 Development Agenda
Debate between Rushanara Ali and Tony Cunningham(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir Tony Cunningham
Does my hon. Friend accept that there is an interconnection with, for example, education? If we are to get more and more children into school, we need to address gender and disability issues.
Rushanara Ali
I totally agree. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith mentioned, we need to highlight that issue. We also need to recognise that disability rights are anathema in many countries. We have a responsibility to share the learning on some of the things that have been successful in our country. The rights agenda goes beyond one group and includes those with disabilities and other groups that are particularly marginalised.
Despite economic growth in middle-income countries, we know that in countries such as, say, India there are still some 400 million people living on less than $1.25 a day and more than 800 million people living on less than $2 a day. There are important questions to explore on how we can enable countries such as India to do more for themselves while ensuring that we do not pull out our aid efforts, which would leave large numbers of people in more challenging, difficult circumstances.
We should continue to support efforts to lift those people out of poverty and, over time, allow those countries to take more responsibility. Although there are pressures on such middle-income countries, we need to ensure that our efforts and focus remain on the poorest. Even if the Governments of those countries do not act and respond to those challenges in the immediate future, we should work with them to enable them to do so.