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07/12/2005
Today
anti-poverty rhetoric is widespread; it seeks to raise
the awareness of the problem while experts and
professionals are attempting to solve it. According to
John Friedman, as we attempt to solve the problem of
poverty, we claim to understand the meaning of poverty.
But do we? Our lack of understanding about poverty and
our attitude of ‘knowing how’ to solve the problem,
despite without having a clear definition of it, have
contributed to the deterioration of the past and current
condition of poverty.
Understanding poverty is a complicated task, as the
question itself poses a subjective nature of
interpretation.
In assessing these conditions, professionals (mostly
economists) often reduce the definition of poverty into
universal and standardized terms which often differ from
the perspective of the poor itself, where the realities
are often local, complex, diverse and dynamic.
Many attempts to overcome poverty have failed to address
the issue in the last few decades. In the year 2000, the
World Bank published The World Development Report,
with its ambitious intention to attack poverty using
various strategies to ensure the success of its mission.
The report seeks to expand the understanding of our
current knowledge of the concept of poverty. It includes
the Voices of the Poor or the section of the
gathering of information from 60,000 men and women
living in the state of poverty. However, instead of
emphasizing to the needs of the 60,000 samples of men
and women living in deteriorating social depravation,
the report reduces the definition of being poor as to a
US$1.8 per day measurement. If the report is read
carefully, no single person out of the 60,000
interviewed mentioned that they are poor because they
spent less than US$1.8 per day. Most of the issues
addressed by the poor were not even about money. It is
about access to basic services, such as healthcare,
clean water, education and other means that provided the
cohesiveness of social integration.
The report proposed three strategies to overcome
poverty: promoting opportunity, facilitating
empowerment, and enhancing security.
The first strategy did not differ much from our previous
ideas of development to overcome poverty. ‘Overall
economic growth is crucial for generating
opportunities’; the belief in ‘growth’ as a solution to
the problems of the poor did not disappear. Indeed
economist still endorsed the ‘myth’ of growth as a
solution of to the billions of poor, and it would take
them probably another one to two decades to realize that
they believe in empty dreams.
The second point is ‘facilitating empowerment’. This
could be defined as a process of bringing the ‘poor’
outside of their traditional realm. The poor people
have to be ‘removed from any social and institutional
barriers’. In other words the second strategy implies
invitation to the ‘poor’ to join the formal economy and
a dependent wage-labor economic sector, where everything
is valued but human life. Why should the informal
economy be formalized? It is the informal economy that
prolonged the survival of many ‘people’ in third world
countries as their formal economies are crippled down.
Instead, the promotion of informal economies should be
given priority.
The third and last strategy is ‘enhancing security’.
This includes reducing vulnerability to economic shocks,
natural disasters, ill-health, disability and personal
violence-is an intrinsic part of enhancing well being
and encourages investment in human capital and in higher
risk, higher return activities.’ This seems to
contradict the second point because while the latter
suggests the removal of social barriers, the former
emphasizes the importance to protect the ‘poor’. In
order to achieve the first objective and to ensure that
the ‘poor’ do not return to the informal sector,
providing security to the ‘poor’ was necessary by which
made the ‘poor’ dependent on the process of ‘growth’, so
foreign business investment can ensure the building of a
stable and market oriented society, and most importantly
the building of assets for the ‘poor’.
The World Bank Report shapes current understanding in
regards to the issue of poverty. The income level factor
in defining poverty has been transformed and modified
through time. However, it’s hardly been successful in
meeting the needs of the poor. The failure to define
poverty occurs because contemporary society limits
itself to see the question of poverty as an economic
problem, rather than a particular state of social,
political, psychological, and existential being that
defines the human condition at a given point in history.
Historical evidence illustrates that the very method
used to overcome poverty is indeed the very cause of
‘poverty’. For example, societies that adopted the path
of capitalism and development have increased their level
of poverty while at the same time using this same method
to overcome poverty, that have really contributed to
increase their poverty level.
It is paradox that the deprivation and well being as
perceived by the ‘poor’ have often been not considered
by those people who judged them ‘poor’ and had the noble
intention to help the ‘poor’ in the sake of the society
without thinking that their actions might worsen the
situation of the ‘poor’ itself. What they value and
choose often differs from those of many economists and
professionals. Income matters, but so do other aspects
of human well being, such as human dignity and quality
of life. And those other factors could be achieved
without ‘growth’ in income, just like growth in income
would not guarantee and improve prosperity.
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