The so called"experts"are mingling with an incredible variety of stakeholders all committed to reducing somehow the poverty levels around the world. So what's new?

We have heard all this before. In the last 10 years starting with Rio the goals have remained the same but on the ground at the village level it has made very little tangible difference. The language, the jargon and the faces have changed but the hypocrisy, the double-speak, the blatant dishonesty and style of breaking promises remain.

In the name of the poor games, are being played, deals are being made, funds are being collected, projects are being sanctioned and conferences are being held.

Speaker after speaker presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, directors general the whole lot will remind us if they have not done so already in previous forums how one billion people (surely less?) are suffering from lack of access to drinking water, sanitation, education, health.

You just name it and we have a problem. And the solution is give more money, provide more funds otherwise the battle against poverty is surely lost.

Create a sort of hysteria so that when the money does come (perhaps from 0.2 to 0.4 percent of the GDP) in the name of the poor it can all be spent on salaries, consultants, travel, prepare poverty studies, analysing how the situation has improved marginally and use (abuse) the powerful media to convince the donors with one minute spots costing thousands on CNN how the battle against poverty in being won.

Hidden agendas

This out-of-control juggernaut designed to erase, coopt, trample and destroy any new creative, innovative, low-cost idea coming from the grass roots that the "experts" themselves are incapable of thinking of fits in perfectly with Einstein's definition of insanity,"Endlessly repeating the same process hoping for a different result."

Fortunately, social entrepreneurs in their hundreds are descending on Johannesburg. They will bring with them lots of creative and innovative ideas that have worked, sanctioned and endorsed by the poor communities.

Unfortunately the people who will not be there to be re-educated will be those who sign the cheques the international and national policy makers and planners. They will all be huddled over the placement of words and paragraphs for days because that is their only reality.

It will, of course, be their loss. They would rather deal with operators with hidden agendas who are only there to see how many contracts they clinch and contacts they make the consulting firms and research organisations of the world-who survive on tenders and bids as if that is the only way to tackle the poverty of ideas and action.

What do words like"implementation" and "action"mean to such people? It means more seminars and more workshops and more dialogue and meetings. If for such action running into several billions of dollars on travel and printed reports this sort of money is available imagine how many rainwater harvesting structures could have been built, how many villages could have been solar electrified, how many trees would not have to be cut and how many thousands would have benefitted directly.

Absurd process

But this sort of connection is totally lost because the bottom line is they really do not want poverty levels to be reduced. So many jobs are at stake so it is important to keep the poor poor. Up to a point.

Or else there is no other way to explain why low cost community solutions are not being adopted and replicated all over the world. Ordinary people all over the world have come up with simple solutions.

Why have they been rejected? Does it have to get an endorsement from a corrupt bureaucrat or politician to certify it is worth supporting? Only then will the funds be available? What absurd process is this where the poor do not have access to funds directly and they are not allowed to do it themselves without national or international interference?

The issue of transparency and accountability is an ethical issue to the poor. But will it find place for honest discussion in any forum in Johannesburg?

The Right to Information campaign in India has got corrupt grass root bureaucrats and politicians worried and scared as they should be. But will this success story find place in the dialogue of "good governance" anywhere in the Sandton Centre? It remains to be seen. GVNN/The Earth Times

BUNKER ROY is founder of Barefoot College in India's Rajasthan state.