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5 Countries Committed to Ending Extreme Poverty

extreme_poverty
The end to extreme poverty will not occur solely as a result of charities, businesses or governments. Defeating extreme poverty entails changing the rules, systems and structures that are designed to keep people poor. Change must occur through a country’s specific policies and practices that contribute to keeping people in extreme poverty.

Countries should ensure that governments, businesses and individuals act to establish alignment in the vested interests of the world’s poor. If executed progressively and strategically, such systems, structures, policies and processes can make a change. Five countries have made a boisterous and public commitment to ending poverty – Brazil, Colombia, Malawi, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Brazil – The Bolsa Familia Program

Efforts to end extreme poverty in Brazil originated from Bolsa Familia. The program directly transfers cash to pre-designated households deemed impoverished. The decisions about allocation are based on assessments of the depth of poverty rather than household composition. Over 45 million people are currently enrolled in the program. As a direct result of Bolsa Familia, the number of those living in extreme poverty in Brazil has dropped from 20.4 million to 11.9 million.

Colombia – Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

In 2010, Colombia created a poverty reduction plan and multidimensional solution to address poverty. Their national development plan has three pillars: employment, poverty reduction and security. Due to a lack of successful poverty reduction results by the original program, adoption of a new poverty reduction strategy called the GOC occurred. According to the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, the strategy outlines the poverty index designed to monitor and measure different indicators of multidimensional poverty. This initiative will reflect the multiple deprivations that people suffer by identifying disparities across health, education and living standards. It will indicate the number of people who are poor on a multidimensional level and assist in allocating funds and determining efforts to eliminate extreme poverty.

Malawi – Malawi Growth and Development Strategy and the Farm Input Subsidy Programme

In 2002, the Malawian government launched the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy (MPRS), which had the express purpose of achieving “sustainable poverty reduction through empowerment of the poor.” In 2005, the MPRS was reorganized as the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS). Currently, the MGDS comprises the overarching policy framework for social and economic development to reduce extreme poverty. In 2005, the Farm Input Subsidy Programme was introduced as a measure to increase agricultural production. In an effort to ensure food security, the government provides subsidized agricultural inputs to farmers with smaller land holdings. This has matured into agricultural policy. An estimated 50 percent of the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget is spent on methods to reduce expenditures of research and extension. The subsidy program is now a firmly established pillar of Malawian agricultural policy.

The United Kingdom – The Department for International Development

In the United Kingdom, The Department for International Development (DFID) leads national efforts to end extreme poverty. Their primary areas of focus are creating jobs, empowering girls and women and saving lives. The DFID honors the international commitments and purpose to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Their objectives are achieved through the effective improvement of governmental transparency, openness and value of money and policy development on economic growth and wealth creation.

The United States – USAID

In the United States, the USAID is the leading agency that works to end extreme global poverty. Their philosophy suggests an interconnected world in which instability anywhere around the world can impact us domestically. Thus, the focus is on military collaboration in active conflicts, efforts to stabilize countries and the building of responsive local governance. Essentially, the main objective is to utilize the transition period between conflict and long-term development by investing in agriculture, health systems and democratic institutions.

In order to end global extreme poverty, we must invest in common solutions. If all countries make the pledge commitment to end 0.7 percent of poverty, we can end extreme poverty by 2030.

– Erika Wright

Sources: Global Citizen, Global Humanitarian Assistance, Global Poverty Project, UK GOV Rural Poverty Portal, World Bank USAID
Photo: The Atlantic

BRAC Graduation Model: Success in Fight Against Poverty

BRAC
Complex issues call for comprehensive solutions. The significance of this logic cannot be overstated when tackling the most multifaceted issues worldwide, such as extreme poverty. BRAC, a large Bangladeshi nonprofit organization working to support the rural poor, has recently actualized the benefits of such all-inclusive problem-solving.

In recent years, BRAC has implemented a new “graduation” program worldwide, in an effort to fight extreme poverty. BRAC’s carefully crafted approach targets the poorest households within smaller communities. Over a fixed period of time, the program provides these households with the wide-ranging set of services they need.

Beneficiaries of the program first choose from a list of productive assets, such as livestock or goods needed to start a small business. Then, the program provides appropriate training and support, life skills coaching, weekly consumption support, access to savings accounts, as well as health and information services.

The thinking behind this approach is that the most extreme cases warrant the most all-encompassing forms of aid. Providing the ultra-poor with a set of such complementary services lays the groundwork for self-employment activities. In this way, the program can additionally achieve its primary goal: increased consumption.

An MIT study analyzing the implementation of the graduation model in six different countries has evidenced the wide-ranging success of BRAC’s strategy. Randomized control trials conducted on more than 21,000 participants in Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Pakistan, and Peru reveal the program’s long-term impact.

Results of the study showed that, across the board, increased consumption was not only achieved but also typically maintained one year after the program’s end. In some cases, gains in areas like food security and household assets remained for as long as three years after “graduation”.

Although BRAC’s graduation approach is criticized for being relatively expensive; however, positive returns were seen in five out of the six countries. In short, the program benefits outweigh the costs. In all six countries, experimenters witnessed the program bringing dramatic improvements to the lives of the ultra-poor.

BRAC prides itself in creating a program that is not only comprehensive, but also “codified, scalable, and replicable”. The study’s results certainly serve as a testament to the model’s versatile workability. In fact, groups like Heifer International, Trickle Up, and Fonkoze are currently implementing the graduation model.

By following BRAC’s lead, such organizations have taken a major step in the worldwide fight against poverty. They have followed suit in combating a deeply complex issue with an astutely comprehensive perspective.

The world’s poorest people commonly lack more than just income. Typically, the ultra-poor face challenges that have to do with health, education, and, perhaps most importantly, morale. The most effective way of breaking the poverty cycle is to acknowledge each of these moving parts by attacking from all sides.

The study’s success story helps to show policy-makers what works. The wide-ranging needs of the world’s poorest people necessitate an extensive set of tools. With time, extreme poverty could very well become a thing of the past. With this goal in mind, however, we must remember to always look at the bigger picture.

– Sarah Bernard

Sources: Humanosphere, World Bank, MIT
Photo: Erol Foundation

Malnutrition in Burkina Faso

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Burkina-Faso, one of the most severely impoverished nations in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, was hit hard by the Sahel food famine of 2012, which, all told, left an estimated 18.7 million people in the midst of an extreme food crisis.

This land-locked African nation gets barely 31 inches of rainfall a year, and without access to the ocean as a source of critical marine protein, the vast majority of Burkinabés practice subsistence farming, despite the omnipresent threat of drought and crop-failure.

Inadequate rainfall and other climatic shifts continue to plague the country’s efforts in food security, increasing the rate of desertification and further threatening the well-being of its citizens and the viability of its economy.

Today, nearly half of Burkina-Faso’s citizens live in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $1.25 USD per day. Lack of access to adequate nutrition and clean drinking water is just one reason that a baby born in Burkina-Faso, having survived the 8 percent chance of dying as an infant, can expect to live only to be around 58-years-old, an entire 2 decades below the global average.

The World Food Programme additionally reports that one-in-three babies born in Burkina-Faso suffer from growth retardation due to undernourishment, while half of the nation’s mothers are anemic.

As is the case with many impoverished nations that lack access to adequate family planning and health services, Burkina-Faso’s population is growing rapidly, with the World Health Organization estimating its expansion at 3 percent annually.

As the cycle of poverty is perpetuated by population growth and the near non-existence of formal education- the WHO says only 3.2 percent of men and just 1 percent of women have completed any secondary education–and has contributed to Burkina-Faso’s being ranked number 65 out of 78 countries on the global hunger index, which tracks undernourishment, infant mortality, and infant health at birth.

In 2012, in the thick of the Sahel drought that sent the Sub-Saharan region into a period of heightened malnutrition, one Burkinabé farmer Hamadouin Tamboura told Al Jazeera, “We work hard but gain little. We don’t have what we need, it’s not easy at all. The soil is poor and so are we. We don’t know what to do, but still we try anyway.”

“Our animals are also suffering,” said Tamboura, “We haven’t got enough to eat, so of course they haven’t either. Animals cost lot of money to feed. There’s not enough water, no pasture, even the grass is finished. The animals are eating paper and plastic, which upsets their insides.”

Just two years later, however, Reuters reported the country’s subsistence farmers had developed new techniques to reclaim 10 percent Burkina-Faso’s previously “unproductive lands”. Techniques such as collecting water in reservoir ditches in anticipation of sporadic rainfall has allowed the country’s agricultural sector–which accounts for 35 percent of their GDP–to remain viable in the face of climate change, to which Amanda Lenhardt, research officer at the UK-based Overseas Development Institute, told Reuters Burkina-Faso is “one of the world’s most fragile areas”.

USAID has partnered with Tuskegee University in Alabama and the International Institute of Water & Environmental Engineering to help provide rural residents in Burkina-Faso with better access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation techniques, as well as the agricultural techniques farmers need to withstand the rapidly changing climatic conditions.

– Amanda Burke

Sources: Care, THP, Index Mundi, WFP 1, IFPRI, WFP 2, Al Jazeera, Reuters, USAID
Photo: Flickr

Brothels Bred from the Broke

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In many parts of the world, including the United States, brothels exist. They have astounding symmetry in areas with high rates of  poverty and gender inequality. Workers receive little to no pay. Often former victims of human trafficking and prostitution become brothel owners. Women make up the majority of owners. The end of the road for women and children who have been trafficked for commercial sex purposes is usually a club or brothel.
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Sadly, what many do not realize is that the women found in brothels are often not forced, but only do so as a result of economic desperation. However, some of the younger victims are held captive, sold by their families or born into the brothel.

Born into the Brothel refers to children of brothel workers, whose other female family members have been brothel workers. These children grow up living in the brothel. Recruitment for brothels is often easy due to the extreme poverty and vast need for economic resources. Essentially, brothels target low income areas as a primary source for recruitment.

Brothels generally avoid areas with a high concentration of NGOs and law enforcement. Therefore, rural areas absent of NGOs are now being targeted by brothels. In these areas, there is a lack of law enforcement involvement and organizations to empower women. The recruitment efforts are based on the use of economic exploitation.

Recruitment is often done by elderly women who are either former brothel workers or came from impoverished communities. Now, having obtained their own brothels, they exploit their own past experience of economic need. These women send older prostitutes back to their own villages or villages known to be poor to recruit new staff for their establishment.

Recruiters have direct and personal knowledge of an area, and know exactly which families to target. They are aware of who is struggling the most, which families have too many daughters and which families have had the death of a parent or a marital breakdown.

According to reports from UNICEF of the women that end up in brothels in Asian countries such as Nepal, 86 percent did not know that they were going to become apart of the sex market when they left home. Furthermore, of those victims, 82 percent were promised jobs that did not include working at a brothel in prostitution. Families that covet advanced earnings due to economic need, willingly send their daughters. In regions such as Southeast Asia, husbands are permitted to sell their wives to brothels legally. Rural areas have become breeding grounds for girls who become forced into the sex industry. The supply is continuous due to the cycle of poverty in these regions.

– Erika Wright

Sources: Hist-Chron, UNICEF
Photo: Flickr

Causes of Poverty

Poverty is a global endemic, caused by a variety of factors that interact with one another. There are three types of poverty: extreme, moderate and relative. Extreme poverty entails lack of basic resources for survival including food, water, shelter and sanitation. There is a dire lack of education and health care among extreme poverty as well. Persons of moderate poverty have access to the basic means of survival, but just barely. Relative poverty entails low income compared to the national average income, and is highly prevalent in more developed territories. While poverty is experienced differently across time, space and culture, there are several causes that often overlap and create dire consequences.

Individuals are a noteworthy source of poverty. This is not to place the blame upon an individual who is born into or experiences poverty; “individuals,” in this context, refers to poor government practices, sadistic leaders, exploitation by peoples and governments and lack of collection individual actions. Social perceptions of individuals contributes to poverty, for cultural ideas about the relative worth of “others” places individuals in different social categories at birth which often determines the opportunities available to individuals in each group.

Causes of poverty that are primarily caused by people also includes corruption and decentralized civil society. Corruption is particularly harmful, for it inhibits development when leaders award themselves money that would otherwise be used for development projects. A history of colonization is a critical cause of poverty.

“Natural” causes of poverty include agriculture cycles, droughts, flooding, natural disasters and warfare. These phenomenons contribute to hunger and especially effect farmers. Limited resources and infrastructure to respond to such crises in developing countries also perpetuate inequality. Warfare has historically contributed to poverty, as it diverts resources from addressing poverty and structural issues to maintaining a robust military.

According to Global Issues, a significant cause of poverty is structural adjustment. Structural adjustment policies, influenced by globalization, are enacted by actors such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and prescribe conditions for loans. These policies cause a “race to the bottom” in which developing countries are forced to open their markets and compete with industrialized, developed economies. A reduction of resources for health, education and critical social services have increased poverty and inequality for people around the world.

Inadequate liberal practices contribute to poverty as well. According to Global Issues, “Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty … Many poor nations are dependent on farming, and so such food aid amounts to food dumping.” A lack of cohesion among aid, international organizations and the opinions of local culture is a significant cause and perpetrator of poverty.

In order to combat the root causes of corruption, numerous actions need to be enacted simultaneously. There ought to be an improvement in the government capacity to provide universal access to essential goods and services to an area, such as potable water, affordable food, healthcare, education, housing and other social services. In addition to rooting out corruption, there needs to be broadened access to education and technology among marginalized groups, especially among girls and women.

– Neti Gupta

Sources: GDRC, Global Issues, Poverties.org
Photo: Flickr

The Urbanization Paradox

Over the course of the last 200 years, the increase in average standard of living has largely mirrored increased urbanization. In 1800, just 10 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. The UN believes that this number will reach 55 percent in 2015. According to The Economist, 64.1 percent of the developing world, and and 85.9 percent of the developed world will live in urban centers by 2050.

Extreme poverty rates have declined precipitously over the last 30 years, and increased urbanization in developed countries suggests that this trend is likely to continue. However, while urbanization might spell economic progress in developing countries, it also poses environmental and humanitarian challenges.

Urban centers draw heavily on natural resources. The population density of urban environments brings challenges in terms of water availability, waste disposal and energy consumption. In cities like Nairobi, unplanned urban development has forced many into squalor – 60 percent of Nairobi’s urban population has been squeezed into five percent of the city’s total land mass.

What’s more, countless studies have noted that urbanization can exacerbate climate change’s negative impact on stream ecosystems. Urbanization can also exacerbate the risks posed by environmental hazards. Coastal cities are especially vulnerable to flash flooding – a risk that is rising along with the sea level.

Whether the environmental and humanitarian challenges of urbanization are met will depend largely on the responsiveness of local governments in meeting the individual needs of their communities. It will be up to local policy makers to maximize the benefits of urbanization while limiting the depths of its pitfalls. In doing so, local governments will need to draw on the ingenuity of urban planners, who face a diverse array of challenges in protecting their communities from environmental hazards and resource scarcity.

Like sustainable development models, sustainable urban planning models resist definitive archetypes, as renowned British architect David Adjaye has noted. “It has become clear that modern singularity must be refashioned into nuanced dialogues between geography, technology and culture,” said Adjaye. Urban planners will be called upon to architect fine-spun solutions, tailor-made for the communities that they serve.

However, it could be difficult for governments to resist the temptation of the short-term economic dividends of rapid, albeit unsustainable, urban growth. In addition, many developing countries may lack the financial resources and scientific expertise necessary to urbanize in and environmentally and humanitarianly sound way. Accordingly, it is essential that the U.S. government do its best to provide technical and financial support to urbanizing nations.

– Parker Carroll

Sources: EPA, Huffington Post 1, Huffington Post 2, IRIN, New Security Beat
Photo: Flickr

What Plagues Poverty in Palestine?

For years, the conversation on Palestine and its territories has almost exclusively focused on the relationship between Palestine, Israel and Egypt. For the 1.1 million Palestinians that live in poverty as a result of high unemployment, lagging wages and harmful inflation rates, Israel’s recent military actions in the Gaza strip have hardly encapsulated the extent of Israel’s effect on Palestinians.

Official statistics from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reveal the poverty rates to be 25.8 percent in the Palestinian
Territory, 17.8 percent in the West Bank and a staggering 38.8 percent in the Gaza Strip for 2011, the last year for which statistics are available.

While these rates sound high, there’s more to the story than the statistics suggest.

In a sobering July 2013 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, it was reported that “the Palestinian Authority suffered its most serious fiscal crisis since 2006” because of less foreign aid and “Israel’s withholding of Palestinian revenue.” In 2012, Palestine’s growth was halved from the previous two years to just six percent due to structural barriers imposed by Israel and the international market.

Israeli restrictions on the movement of Palestinian goods, for example, meant less money returned to the pockets of Palestinians, severely reducing growth and worsening already high rates of poverty. Furthermore, the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank left Palestinians with fewer options to physically export their goods, and many were simply incapable of accessing the same productive resources because of aggressive Israeli settlement expansion.

In the Jordan Valley, Palestinian workers are forced to take longer roads and go through checkpoints. These actions imposed by Israeli officials increase costs and decrease Palestinian competitiveness in the international market, ultimately reducing employment opportunities and deepening levels of extreme poverty.

Of course, not all of Palestine’s economic woes can be ameliorated with less aggressive Israeli policies. Low labor productivity contributes to poor Palestinian economic performance and leaves less money in the coffers of government officials, who spend large portions of the government’s budget on social spending. Illegal smuggling of economic goods is also a major drain to the taxable actions of Palestinian officials.

Overall, those living in poverty in Palestine make up a significant portion of the population, which consists of about nine million citizens.

While no World Bank data exists to detail the number of individuals living on two dollars a day or less in Palestinian-controlled territories, the research conducted by the United Nations and the statistics compiled by the Palestinian government provide a distressing picture of the state of the poor in Palestine. These poor are large in number, and if international donors do not pledge aid to assist Palestinians or if Israel adopts less-aggressive economic policies in the West Bank, the number of impoverished living in Palestine will surely increase.

– Joseph McAdams

Sources: UNCTAD, PCBS, Reuters
Photo: GIJN

10 Ways to Live on $1.25 a Day

$1.25 a day
The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on a budget of $1.25 a day. To promote awareness of this alarming statistic, many people participate in challenges to see if they can go a certain number of days “living below the line” of poverty. Celebrities like Ben Affleck and Sophia Bush, just to name a few, have participated in the challenge.

For anyone willing to try the challenge, here is a list of 10 possible food combinations, each totaling $1.25 or slightly less.

1. 2.5 oz of store brand lunchmeat + 4 oz of apple sauce = $1.24

2. 1.1 oz bag of corn chips + one banana + half of a 6 oz container of store brand flavored yogurt = $1.24

3. Protein bar = $1.25
Yes, some protein or granola bars can consume an entire day’s budget for the extreme poverty challenge, but only when they are not on sale.

4. Ice cream sundae cup + one banana = $1.25

5. One apple + 6 oz flavored yogurt = $1.09

6. One loaf of store brand white bread + one banana = $1.24
For challenge participants looking to extend the experiment more than a day, buying a loaf of bread for 99 cents is an economically intelligent decision.

7. 10 oz package of sliced American cheese + one chocolate chip cookie = $1.25
Much like the loaf of bread, a package of store brand sliced cheese, priced at $1, can last multiple days.

8. One candy bar + one quarter of a box of frozen spinach + half of a 6 oz container of plain yogurt = $1.24

9. One cereal cup + half of a cucumber = $1.23

10. Half of a can of chicken and rice soup + one bagel + half of an apple = $1.13

A common misinterpretation of the $1.25 statistic is that one American dollar will buy a lot more in an impoverished area than it would in the U.S. The conversion has already been taken into account, though, and tailored for the U.S. to understand better. So, for example, in Kenya, people living in extreme poverty are surviving on the food that approximately 56 cents worth of American currency would buy in their markets.

 — Emily Walthouse 

Sources: The World Bank, Peapod, Giving What We Can, Living on One, Home Shop
Photo: Flickr

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USAID and Clinton Launch Global Development Lab

On April 3, the U.S. Agency for International Development and Hillary Clinton announced the launch of the U.S. Global Development Lab, with the goal to end extreme poverty by 2030.

Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator, said at the launch that, “To solve our most intractable development challenges, USAID has established a new way of working, bringing on board the best and brightest staff and new partners, all working in concert to help end extreme poverty.”

In the new program, USAID is partnering with 31 universities, corporations, and foundations in the hope to use science and technology to help find methods of alleviating poverty. These partners are being called the Cornerstone Partners, as they come from a number of different fields.

The Cornerstone Partners include corporations like Cargill, Cisco, Coca-Cola, DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nike, Syngenta and Walmart as well as foundations and organizations like CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Plan, Save the Children, World Vision, the Global Impact Investing Network, the Skoll Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian Foundation, and the Gates Foundation.

In addition, many universities have decided to be part of the Global Development Lab, including the University of California at Berkeley, Duke University, Johns Hopkins Univesrity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute, Texas A&M University, and the College of William and Mary. Sweden has also decided to donate to the creation of the lab.

Together all of these groups have contributed over $30 billion in investments and have also provided technology, experts on the subject, and the capabilities to conduct necessary research and development.

Shah went on to explain the lab by saying that, “The Lab will engage a global community of inventors, academics, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders in science and technology to invent, test, and scale the most promising and cost effective solutions to end extreme poverty.”

Shah believes that Americans can lead the effort to eliminate poverty, but admits that it will take time. He hopes that by forming these partnerships and creating the Global Development Lab, USAID will be able to help construct the best solutions to worldwide problems.

Prior to being the USAID administrator, Shah served as the undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and has worked with Clinton before. One example of their work together was when Shah was applying scientific techniques to improve agriculture in conjunction with Clinton’s work on a global food initiative. Shah hoped to combine these efforts, and his operations in USAID work towards that goal.

The Global Development Lab will work on developing cost-effective products that incorporate the newest discoveries in science, but will also work on solving other problems, such as hunger, disease, and literacy. By bringing together the greatest minds from several different fields, the Global Development Lab will have all the necessary resources to reach its goals.

In light of the announcement, Lana Stoll of USAID said, “By tapping into things that really make America what it is, which is our entrepreneurial spirit, our scientific expertise, and our real commitment to help people, you have a real ability to accelerate our impact.”

– Julie Guacci

Sources: TIME, The Skoll Foundation
Photo: Still4Hill

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Best Solution for Poverty: Investing in Children

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Across the world, almost one billion children live in poverty. They live without access to proper nutrition, healthcare and especially, adequate education. Children are the future of the world and need to be nurtured to become successful. When children grow up with skills to join the labor force, they can help pull their countries out of poverty by making changes in the political system and economy. As educated citizens, they will be less likely to engage in unethical behavior and more likely to have fewer children. As a result, both mortality and overpopulation rates decline.

By ignoring children’s education, developing countries are also unaware of talented children.

Talented children are more likely to achieve higher degrees and may go into professions such as being educators, business leaders and scientific researchers. These children have the capacity to make huge contributions to society in various fields that will support economic growth in developing countries.

Therefore, nurturing talent, both physically and psychologically is a crucial to reducing global poverty in the long run.

From a physical perspective, children need to have a good nutritional diet so that they can be healthy both physically and mentally. Lacking necessary nutrition can cause children to develop slower and not be able to absorb education properly.

From a psychological point of view, education systems and societal support are the keys to unlock the full potential for young talents. Good education gives children the chance to prove themselves as well as the basic knowledge to pursue their dreams. At the same time, support from society gives them the motivation to overcome challenges in their daily life and strive to become a better citizen of the world.

– Phong Pham

Sources: Spring: Gifted Children, Spring, UNICEF
Photo: Borgen Project