“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age…. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Millions of concerned citizens for a more just
world will be Standing Up and Speaking out
on October 16th and 17th to maintain momentum and pressure on leaders in both
rich and poor countries to honour the commitments they have made to end poverty
and to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The growing movement of
people are no longer prepared to stay seated or silent in the face of poverty
and inequality.
The Stand Up Speak Out
initiative is planned to coincide with the International Day for the
Eradication of Poverty. In 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed up to the MDGs,
a global plan to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Yet, every day, 50,000 people
die as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between rich and poor is getting
wider. “We need you to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT to make governments honour their
commitments – it will not happen without all of us taking a stand.”
For this year’s Stand Up, the floating community
on Peace Boat’s 59th voyage - a
Japan-based NGO that promotes peace and sustainable development -will gather
again on the top deck, rain or shine, to join millions around the world to
Stand Up and Speak Out against the persistence of poverty. On Oct. 17, the Evangelical
Lutheran Church will also join the Millennium Campaign. More than 23 million
people in 87 countries took part in a similar action last year, earning a
spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest single coordinated
In
Mauritius, our relatively strong growth performance has brought
significant welfare gains to the population. Yet a small but significant
proportion seem to be benefiting the least from the economic and social
progress and many pockets of poverty of worrisome magnitude in some suburban
and coastal regions have surfaced. Based on the 2001/2002 Household Budget
Survey, the percentage of the Mauritian population living in households below
the half-median monthly income is estimated at 8.9% while those living in
households below the half-median monthly expenditure represent 8.1% of total
population.
The top-down approach
adopted for the design and implementation of social aid programmes has not been
successful enough to make a meaningful dent on poverty. It was therefore necessary to shift to a new
approach that could provide the steps to give households and people a start in
the economy, ladders to help them climb out of poverty, security ropes to
prevent them from falling back too deeply and a safety net as a measure of last
resort. New poverty alleviation programmes were formulated with the collective
participation of various stakeholders comprising the private sector, Government
and NGOs. These programmes provide for a combination of different approaches
for the different levels of poverty, jettisoning the old top-down system for a
multi-dimensional approach to poverty - more targeted, community-based and
participatory. In line with these new approaches, necessary structures were put
in place to provide the appropriate framework conducive to facilitate the
integration of the vulnerable segment of the population into the mainstream of
productive activities. Economic
empowerment of the poor for their integration in productive activities through
better access to the education, health and credit facilities and strengthening
of capacity-building were the key elements of the poverty programmes. Some of the activities were: training facilities;
provision of additional low-cost housing schemes for the very poor citizens and
homeless; improving access to preventive and curative health care; streamlining
of social aid programmes to ensure efficient use of government resources; provision
of free meals in some very poor deprived areas; facilitating reach to leisure
and recreational amenities to the poor; and expansion of micro credit schemes. And the
latest that is being added to this list is the empowerment programme . What ,
then, is the problem ?
Despite the multiplicty of
programs and organisations, the results have not been forthcoming; we have failed to reach the poorest ; The situation
has continued to worsen -increrased income and educational inequities, social
exclusion and marginalisation especially in some geographic areas,
dysfunstional families (often female-headed) with large numbers of neglected
children, alarming increase in the number of drop-out kids and increase in
juvenile crime and high unemployment levels. The problem of poverty is not a residual
phenomenon likely to disappear with increased spending on uncoordinated and
non-targeted programmes. Simply shovelling
money is not gong to reduce poverty. It
is imperative to continuously revisit the design of these programmes so as to
render them conducive to the needs of the people. We have to continuously ask ourselves whether
the projects are relevant for the ultra-poor and their ability to overcome the
poor’s vulnerability and social exclusion.
How do we better track and report on poverty reducing spending ? How do we strengthen the ability to track
poverty reducing outlays, reduce duplication and ensure greater harmonization
of poverty reducing initiatives ?.
We should not allow the poverty issue to be sidetracked
and distorted once again in favour of
the middle-class ; we have doubts about the new holy grail- the Affirrmative Actions
and the Equal Opportunity Act- which will supposedly succeed in nailing grinding
poverty. Will they ? Or will they only cater for the better off within the
poor-the lower middle class- while for many of the poor a simple acccess to many of the various progarmmes and institutions
will remain as difficult and time-consuming as of now; Approval procedures are
lengthy and cumbersome; There is very little possibility of support even for
emergencies; Very
poor households cannot even pass the
initial screening tests; so of which opprtunities are we talking about?
If we choose not to
abandon it to the experts in their mere reflections during fleeting moments of
a “Poverty Show” we would propose,, first of all, that the programs be
tailored to what poor people want not what government thinks poor people want or should demand; the
government considers in right earnest that the poor should benefit from social
infrstructure which indirectly might generate income earning opportuniyies for
the poor. But not all of the poor would want to become self-employed
entrepreneurs; the poorest may not even use the created social infrastructure.
Participation is laudable but the poor can particiapate only if thre is an open
dialogue with them and seek therir views on programs and policies that are best
suited for their condition. There is no real genuine dailogue with the poorest
segments of the society - so it is not surprising that we have a situation
where thew poor is further alienated from the program designers and
implementing agencies. Recommendations on how to tackle poverty cannot be made
sitting in an office, at the university or in seminars. A first hand field
experience is necessary to first understand the dimensions of poverty before
suggesting remedial actions. Who has first hand field experience ? Surely the socail facilitators,
extension workers, social workers or NGOs that are based in the area and have extensive
local knowledge of the people and the area are crucial for effective
productivity reduction
; they deal with the poorest, the
marginalised, the rejected ones. They are the privileged ones who have the
trust and confidence of the beneficiaries, know their needs and can liaise with
other agencies and government and at regular intervals carry out independent
evaluations on the effectiveness of the programs which could also be utilised
to make modifications in the programs . This will ensure that the poor are lifted out of poverty rather than being kept out of
it. But it also the responsibilty of all of us to take the individual commitment
to ensure the fight against poverty becomes the nations’ priority by
continuously mobilising and organising to give a strong voice to the poorest of
the poor. A committed
columnist , Jean-Clement Cangy, reminded us this week that « Le Combat contre la pauvrete se gagne dans
des actions constantes en faveur des plus demunis «
