The Chief Economist at BERL (Business and Economic Research Limited), Dr Ganesh Nana, was a speaker on day one of the TacklingPovertyNZ workshop. You can view this presentation on our YouTube channel or play below.
Dr Nana gave participants an economic perspective on how to tackle poverty and emphasised the need for New Zealand to have a grown up conversation, reflecting on data and evidence. Dr Nana explored different approaches to tackling poverty and explained the metaphor of having an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, or having a fence at the top of the cliff when deciding policy. He explained that we should not continue to focus on short-term solutions without acknowledging necessary long-term solutions.
About TackingPovertyNZ
The TacklingPovertyNZ workshop brought together 36 young New Zealanders between the ages 18 and 25 to prepare a youth perspective on the issue of poverty in New Zealand and how we might, as a country, go about tackling it. Participants spent most of their 72 hours in Wellington working hard at Treasury, in order to present their findings to MPs and other guests at the finale at Parliament on Wednesday, 9 December 2015. Every year, the McGuinness Institute has worked in collaboration with the New Zealand Treasury to create a place for young New Zealanders to explore complex public policy issues together. The workshops have always proved exciting, enjoyable and insightful. The McGuinness Institute would particularly like to thank the staff at the New Zealand Treasury for their continued support and encouragement. This initiative is ongoing and we will be releasing further developments in the next few weeks on the TacklingPovertyNZ website.