2021 World Day of Social Justice

Foyasal Khan & Nurgul Sevinc: Without tackling issues such as poverty, social exclusion, gender equality, unemployment, human rights, and social protections, achieving social justice is a daydream. To recognize the need to promote social justice, since  2009, World Day of Social Justice is observed on the 20th of February every year and the United Nations Organization (UNO) has chosen the theme for the year 2021 as “A Call for Social Justice in the Digital Economy”. In a Digital Economy (DE), digital computing technologies are overly used in economic activities.  In this economy, digitized information and knowledge is one of the key factors of production. DE raises productivity of all business sectors with spreading Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

On the other hand, social justiceis the manifestation of fairness in every sphere of a society that includes healthcare, employment, housing, and more. Four essential goals without which social justice cannot be achieved are: human rights, access, participation, and equity. A just society’s features are as follows, firstly, everyone’s human rights are protected and respected; secondly, everyone has an equal access to essentials like shelter, food, clothing, health, and education; thirdly, the marginalized and vulnerable can participate and raise voices in  societal issues; and lastly, “equity” is promoted over inequality and no discrimination is tolerated.

On one side of the coin, the digitization of the economy has contributed to economic growth in various ways including innovation in technology-led job creation, expansion of businesses, mobilization of business functions with the advancements in ICT, building a cashless society, and  bringing about broad sociological changes. The other side of the same coin is that DE is not entirely out of criticism because of the following reasons. Firstly, it is creating a digital divide through widening digital skills gap and differences across countries. Secondly, DE gives rise to an intangible capitalism which fosters inequality and social division. Thirdly, DE has created opportunities for companies to exploit labor forces through expanding global value chains (GVCs), bypassing labor laws, and intensifying the global competition for human resources. From the above discussion it is apparent that the Digital Economy is in deficit of upholding the principles of social justice. Hence, calling for social justice in the digital economy is very timely and appropriate.

At this stage, let us briefly explain the poverty alleviation efforts of the Muslim world. Most of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries, as the members of the United Nations, have signed to approve the 2030 agenda and are committed to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). Goal-1 is ending poverty in all its forms everywhere. The 2020 SDG Index includes 166 UN member countries. Out of 57 OIC countries, 55 are included in this report. Let us look at the performances of the OIC countries in the SDG-1 in the SDG index 2020 which is measured mainly based on two indicators by World Data Lab: estimated percentage of the population that is living under the poverty threshold of (1) US$1.90 a day; and (2) US$3.20 a day. For the sake of our discussion, let us divide the countries into four groups based on the normalized score as follows: Group-A represents the countries that scored in the >90 to 100 range; while Group-B represents the countries that scored in the >70 to 90 range; Group-C represents the countries which scored in the >50 to 70 range; and Group-D represents the countries which scored in the 0 to 50 range. Comparative performances of Non-OIC and OIC countries in SDG-1 are shown in Table1.

Table1. Comparative performances of Non-OIC and OIC countries in SDG-1

Source: Authors’ own calculation from the 2020 Sustainable Development Report (SDR).

In Table1, we see that in Group-A, there are 105 and 69 countries based on poverty headcount ratio at $1.90/day (%) and at $3.20/day (%), respectively. Out of them, 24 (22.86%) and 11 (16%) countries are from OIC. Group-B covers 16 and 25 countries based on poverty headcount ratio at $1.90/day (%) and at $3.20/day (%), respectively. Out of them, 5 (31.5 %) and 6 (24 %) countries are from OIC. Group-C represents 10 and 9 countries based on poverty headcount ratio at $1.90/day (%) and at $3.20/day (%) respectively. Out of them, 6 (60 %) and 4 (44.5 %) countries are from OIC. Group-D has 23 and 51 countries based on poverty headcount ratio at $1.90/day (%) and at $3.20/day (%) respectively. Out of them, 9 (39.13 %) and 23 (45 %) countries are from OIC. Overall, poverty alleviation scenario is lackluster in OIC countries in comparison to non-OIC countries.

Among OIC countries, the top ten performers based on poverty headcount ratio at $1.90/day (%) are: Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran, Algeria, and Albania, whereas, the least ten achievers are:  Mali, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Chad, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Somalia, Mozambique, and Niger..

Despite different policies and strategies adopted in the OIC countries to reduce poverty, it is still a serious problem and a great challenge for many of them. In a 2016 article, former IDB Lead Economist Professor Nasim Shah Shirazi showed that though the Muslim countries inherited very strong institutions of zakat, waqf and sadaqah for fighting poverty, few member countries (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Libya, Pakistan, and Sudan) have introduced the zakat system. Zakat is a private affair in other OIC countries. The same is the case with the institution of waqf. On this World Day of Social Justice, our expectation is that the OIC countries will take full advantage of the benefits for the digital economy to integrate zakat and waqf into their poverty reduction strategies to ensure social justice. Moreover, the OIC countries will enhance intra-OIC trade and cooperation. Thus, we believe that the OIC countries will emerge as high achievers in the sustainable development indicators in the years to come.

 Authors: 

* Foyasal Khan is a former Islamic finance consultant to UNDP and UNCDF Bangladesh and holds a Ph.D. in economics from International Islamic University Malaysia. He can be reached at foyasal.khan@gmail.com 

** Nurgül Sevinç is a PhD Candidate in Islamic Economics and Finance at the Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Turkey. She can be reached at nurgul.sevinc@izu.edu.tr