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Points of View
Poverty
In the last twelve months, poverty reduction has sparked violent controversy of a scale rarely seen before. Globalization has brought a new urgency to the issue; there is concern that while it could open up new markets and opportunities to many, it might just concentrate wealth in the hands of the few. Environmental changes are concentrating minds, for poverty and environmental degradation seem to be closely linked. But who do we listen to when trying to understand poverty? To the voices of the poor themselves, through the participatory methods which can leave us floundering in the complexity of the issues? Or do we support the '$1 a day' approach to defining poverty, as a sharper stimulus to action? And at the end of the day, who is going to make the difference in poverty reduction; local people with local initiatives, large NGO's like Oxfam, or global bodies like the World Trade Organisation? Here are a series of points of view on poverty: what it is, and what should be done about it.
Poverty has many dimensions. The poor themselves report distress that
stems from low consumption, ill-health, lack of schooling, vulnerability,
lack of assets, low self-esteem, and disrespect from officials. People
who suffer from any one of these conditions tend to suffer from the others
as well. These conditions often reinforce each other.
Poverty is concentrated in low-income countries, but can persist in middle-income
countries that are very unequal, notably in Southern Africa and much of
South America. Poverty can exist in countries where income levels are
generally high, infrastructure and technology are well-developed, and
urbanization is advanced - for example, Latin America, the USA and South
Africa.
Rural Poverty Report 2001, International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD)
In rural Accompong in Jamaica the lives of all citizens are impacted by this
peace within the neighbourhood. Despite hard times and obvious poverty
among most of the households, an open welcome and hospitality to visitors
and strangers to the community gives a distinct feeling of well-being
and a good quality of life.
Jamaican research team, Voices of the Poor: Crying out for change
We will always need agriculture. People have got to be fed. But what
we need is not people living in subsistence agriculture on tiny incomes.
We need to have more agricultural processing so that people who work in
agriculture can get better wages, and their children can get better educated
and so on. But what I absolutely believe is that Globalization, the speed
with which knowledge, information, capital, and technology can move around
the world, this can be shared in a way that could give us the biggest
reduction in poverty, for the largest number of people, that humanity
has ever seen.
Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, UK
Government
The pavement dwellers, the poorest of the poor, are the most recent migrants
from India's rural areas to cities such as Bombay. Typically, they have
been pushed off their plots because of environmental degradation; drought
makes it impossible for them to eke out an existence on their land, or
to find work on the holdings of others. Their only alternative to starvation
is to trek to the cities, pitch a tent of rags on the most convenient
pavement they can find, and then look for ways to earn something to eat.
Most of the pavement dwellers live along or near the railway tracks, because
from there it is easier to travel in search of work and to sell vegetables
and fruit to middle-class commuters on their way home from office jobs.
Threats of overnight eviction triggered off many meetings…When a
woman at one meeting said, 'If they break our shelters, we'll have to
go back to the village', the others pounced on her. 'Go back to what?'
they demanded rhetorically. 'To starve like we did before? We can never
go back - no matter what they do to us.'
Darryl D'Monte, Against All Odds: Breaking the poverty trap
Much of Oxfam's work is about making livelihoods more secure. The more secure
people are, the better able they are to plan for the future by saving
and investing. Planning for the future reduces the vulnerability of households
which so often pushes people back into the poverty trap.
Reducing vulnerability to poverty…requires expanding the effective
freedoms available to poor people. In the urban informal sector, this
may require the abolition of petty controls on street trading…and
the provision of equitable and efficient public transport. In rural areas,
a choice of crop varieties and access to credit are two strategies that
can greatly enhance the quality of life.
Patrick Watt, Social Investment and Economic Growth: A strategy to
eradicate poverty
I think policy makers certainly have to be convinced of the importance
of poverty reduction and poverty elimination, and that it is, in the final
analysis, policies that impinge on poor people as much, if not more than
technologies. Within the context of appropriate policies, the sustainable
livelihoods approach is, in my opinion, a powerful tool for helping to
implement those policies in a way which will ensure poverty is reduced.
Mike Scott of the Department for International Development, UK
People tended to equate poverty with powerlessness and impotence, and
to relate well-being to security and a sense of control of their lives.
A woman from the community of Borborema established a connection between
power and control, and well-being. She argued, 'The rich one is someone
who says, 'I am going to do it,' and does it.' The poor, in contrast,
do not fulfill their wishes or develop their capacities'.
Brazilian research team, Voices of the Poor: Crying out for change
A key function of governments is the provision of law and order, and this is
also a priority for the poor. One of the findings of the World Bank's
Voices of the Poor report was that poor people attach enormous importance
to security - security from violence and security for their property.
Without this they find it impossible to improve their lives. The poor
worldwide also tend to be very distrustful of existing police and criminal
justice systems. Far from protecting people from violence, too often elements
within the police and justice systems are themselves sources of violence
and abuse.
UK Department for International Development, Eliminating World Poverty:
Making Globalisation Work for the Poor, White Paper on International Development
Effective poverty reduction requires resources to be allocated to the rural
and the poor. But far from implying a neglect of economic growth, this
can speed it. It is inefficient, as well as inequitable, to exclude people
from schooling or managing productive assets because they are too poor
to borrow; or because they are born in villages and hence lack urban facilities;
or because they live in remote areas with limited access to markets. Still,
reviving agriculture is not the whole, but only part of the answer to
end rural poverty. Agricultural change can work to reduce poverty, but
only when linked to social changes that give the poor power over the social
factors that shape, and far too often circumscribe, the horizons of their
possibilities, including their agricultural options and assets.
Rural Poverty Report 2001, International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD)
Labour intensive approaches are especially appropriate to rural poverty
reduction. Labour intensive development economises on capital and land.
Capital is always scarce in low-income countries, and land is scarce in
more and more of them. Developing countries, with high ratios of labour
to capital, also gain more from market liberalization if they encourage
labour-intensive production. Employment-intensive policies, technologies
and institutions usually help both economic growth and poverty reduction,
since the poor can usually offer only their labour. Thus, subsidies to
labour-replacing capital, like tractors, can harm the poor. Smaller farms
tend to use more labour and less equipment than larger ones.
Rural Poverty Report 2001, International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD)
What we are basically saying is that we should not focus our investment
and our attention only on population control. Because even if we control
the population and there is no significant increase in production, you
will still have a lot of people living in poverty. So we really need to
look at mechanisms by which we can begin to put those technologies which
have higher productivity onto African farmers fields and those are the
issues to which governments should give priority.
Dr Michael Foster, of Sasakawa Global 2000, Uganda
Long considered distinct issues…ecological and social problems are
in fact tightly interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The burden of
dirty air and water and of decimated natural resources invariably falls
on the disadvantaged, and the poor, in turn, are often compelled to tear
down the last nearby tree or pollute the local stream in order to survive.
Solving one problem without addressing the other is simply not feasible.
In fact, poverty and environmental decline are both embedded deeply in
today's economic systems. What is needed is…a synthesis of ecology,
sociology and economics that can be used as the basis for creating an
economy that is both socially and ecologically sustainable - the central
challenge facing humanity as the new millennium begins.
The Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2001
We know that cutting down trees will cause water shortages and that making
charcoal can cause forest fires, but we have no choice. Because we lack
food, we have to exploit the forest.
A resident of Ha Tinh, Vietnam, from Voices of the Poor: Crying out
for change
Creating livelihood opportunities involves more than employment creation, although
this is an important element of poverty eradication strategies. This is
because few people, especially among the poor, have a single 'job' on
which they are dependent for their survival. Instead, the majority of
people, in the urban informal sector and in rural areas, tend to survive
by a number of strategies.
Increasingly the word 'livelihood' better captures the 'complex and diverse
reality' of poor people's economic activities. Discovering ways of making
livelihoods sustainable and more likely to deliver an acceptable standard
of living is an urgent priority for governments and organizations committed
to poverty eradication.
Patrick Watt, Social Investment and Economic Growth: A strategy to
eradicate poverty
There is a particular responsibility on developed countries. There is
no sense, for example, in using development assistance to support countries
and then undermining this through trade restrictions and unfair subsidies.
All developed country policies towards the world's poorest countries should
be consistent with a commitment to sustainable development and poverty
reduction.
Open trade has a vital role to play in helping countries to reduce poverty.
But to maximise these benefits, poor countries need a rules based international
trading system, with continuing reductions in barriers to trade in both
developed and developing countries. Where there are no rules, the rich
and powerful bully the poor and the powerless. In a globalising world,
poor countries need effective, open and accountable global institutions
where they can pursue their interests on more equal terms.
UK Department for International Development, Eliminating World Poverty:
Making Globalisation Work for the Poor, White Paper on International Development
