Poverty and Inequality - Essay Example

POVERTY AND INEQUALITY by [Enter your own presented to [Enter your [Enter your [Enter the of ] [Enter the name of the city, Enter the name of state] [Enter the due date] Poverty has always been a historic problem of mankind. It has not just economic, but political and social dimensions to it as well. The term poverty is used in relative sense rather absolute. Attacking poverty requires a practical definition and a benchmark for measuring poverty. International organizations like United Nations (UN) have always been a key player in policy formation of poverty eradication. UN defines poverty as “a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to; not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation (Gordon; 2005).” World Bank defines term ‘poverty’ in the following way, “Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life (World Bank; 2010).” Major causes of poverty includes food insecurity, low literacy rate or lack of learning opportunities, unemployment, mismanagement and corruption by government, lack of social and political empowerment of masses (Johnson, Mosley, Olsen; pg. 29; 2002). Moreover a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is required to set a benchmark for poverty. The Human Development Report, 1997, introduced a human poverty index (HPI) in order to deal with the ambiguous term. Three indicators of HPI (Alkire, Santos; 2010) are: 1. First dimension deals with survival: the likeliness of death at a relatively early age and is represented by the probability of not surviving to ages 40 and 60 respectively. 2. The second aspect relates to knowledge: the extent to which a community is involved in learning and education. 3. The third dimension relates to a decent standard of living. Hence poverty is characterized by health, education, standard of living which includes housing and violence. Poverty in a particular community is a variable parameter, which is affected by globalization, debt, government services, which includes economic, social and political freedoms of people in community. One of the parameters that can play a vital role in poverty eradication is empowerment of masses as explained in quote of Chipika. “The more socially empowered the poor are, particularly in circumstances of poor endowments and entitlements, the more they will resort to forms of resistance to press for faster action. On the other hand, the more socially empowered poor people are in circumstances of relatively fair access to assets and resources, the less likely they are to resort to resistance, and instead concentrate more on beneficial resource use activities.” The World Bank’s 2002 Empowerment Sourcebook defines empowerment as ‘the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives (World Bank, 2002).’ Empowerment is characterized by access of people to information, technology, public decisions, political process and most of all justice. In context of poverty, empowerment is defined as ‘extent to which poor people can have a role in defining and shaping the governmental policies directed to poverty reduction.’ When poor are given political voice in public decisions they can help Government in following ways, 1. Government will realize a need to quickly form a policy in favor of poor. 2. Their dialogue will help the National authorities to deeply understand the true problems that a poor population is facing and it will help in setting priorities for policy making. 3. Public participation will also ensure monitoring and implementation of public policies. Social movement in an urban conurbation near Buenos Aires in Argentina, which is attempting to improve the livelihoods of both chronically poor and new poor* through ‘community’ or ‘social’ currencies The same movement got spread to other parts of Argentina and other parts of world (Johnson, Mosley, Olsen; pg. 159; 2002). Social empowerment can be made possible by access of population to technologies, information and education. Access of population to Facebook and other social media networks are one of the best examples. Facebook and twitter played an important role in Egypt revolution 2011. Anti Hosni Mubarik pages were created by Ghonim, who is a Google Inc. marketing manager in the Middle East. Ultimately they won resistance to press for action to remedy their situation (Wordpress API; 2011). Giving social empowerment and freedom to act on one’s own will provides freedom to civil society and other organizations like NGOs to work for poor independently with any impediments from governments. NGOs work on non-profit ideology for the benefit of mankind. They offer good social services than banks by offering more dynamic schemes of livelihood and investing more in educating poor. Hence they are vital for awareness among individuals for their basic rights. Korten’s (1990) view is that empowerment can be done only in limited areas and requires the continued presence of the NGOs. In his book: Getting to the 21st Century, Korten appeals to NGOs to consider “four generations” of development strategies The first strategy is the relief and welfare role of the NGOs in delivering direct basic needs and requirements. The second is the use of community development projects for poor to meet their own needs. The third strategy is development through the creation of institutions which help local development. The fourth is the development of people’s movements.’ Women empowerment is one of the major aspects of empowerment of population. Women easily become fall a victim to poverty in many aspects of their lives, especially maternal and child health. In third world countries like India they are denied of their rights. Women account for more than half of the world population, so empowering them and providing them the opportunities of education and livelihood can accelerate poverty eradication. In the third UNFPA/China country programme cycle 1990-93 issue of women rights was addressed and consequently, women were able to attain a higher level of autonomy due to greater access to resources and knowledge. So what women did was they formed their own women empowerment NGOs and other social organizations so that they could lobby government to start projects specifically to uplift women from impoverishment (UNDP, 2003). However this quotation of Chipika implies a scenario is in which people don’t have a good access to market , information, assets , wealth and people are empowered socially and politically then they will resort to resistance for their rights. Resistance can be in form of violent demonstrations. They will not have any asset to establish a local business or other microcredit schemes so they will impress local government to provide them with funds and assets for business establishment and other livelihood activities. So their first priority will be to get money and other benefits from government. They will expect from government to provide them with all the necessities in order to bring them out from miseries .They won’t act efficiently for their poverty reduction like developing goods for local and international market for profit. Because such projects require investment of money .So the first step the population resorts to is demonstrations and in some cases in can be armed resistances like armed struggle of IRA (Irish republican army) is for meant for winning the rights of Irish community in UK (Durney, pg. 8; 2004). Second part of this quotation highlights a scenario in which people are given empowerment and liberty in a scenario where people have an access to wealth and other resources. For example people have an access to money, market, internet and all the other opportunities to start their livelihood. All these good endowments are a part of their social and economic liberty. Then people will try to invest more of their effort in making livelihoods and uplifting themselves from poverty by using existing resources. For example if people have an access to local and international market then they can develop a product that can earn a profit and serve their purpose for poverty eradication. Ecommerce is another good example. If people have an access to internet then they can buy and see stuff directly to consumer, which can increase the profit margin. Hence they don’t resort to violence and demonstration rather people effectively use their existing resources for poverty elimination. When poverty reduction is viewed through an empowerment lens, it becomes evident that social and political empowerment is one of the biggest weapons for poor to lift them from abjection and impoverishment. Practical public policies and good governmental institutions are required to address the root cause of poverty. Having control over the everyday affairs of one’s own life is a basic right of an individual. Empowering people is a gradual and continual process which requires consistency in good policies of government. As described earlier empowerment of masses ensures socioeconomic rights and good standard of living consequently it public awareness makes masses bold enough to take necessary measures to work for their economic uplifting. On 67th UNESCAP session , Thai Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva (2011) while talking about the empowerment of people said, “I believe that the consequences of the crisis (economic crisis of 2008) can be abated if we have prepared ourselves well in advance so that our people can be better equipped and enjoy social protection against the uncertainties that may come in the future.” References Gordon, David. 2005. Indicators of Poverty and Hunger. UN Headquarters. New York. World Bank. 2010. Poverty and Inequality Analysis. [Online]. Available: Retrieved 2011-05-27. Johnson, H., Mosley, P., and Olsen, W. 2002. Poverty and Inequality. Milton Keynes. United Kingdom. Alkire, S. and Santos, M. E. 2010. Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries. (In United Nations Development Program). Human Development Research Paper. World Bank. 2002. Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook. [Online]. Available: < http://www.handicap-international.fr/bibliographie-handicap/6SocieteCivile/Advocacy/NARAYAN_draft.pdf> Wordpress API. 2011. Big role by Facebook and Twitter in Egypt revolution. [Online]. Available: < http://wordpressapi.com/2011/02/13/big-role-facebook-twitter-egypt-revolution/> Korten, D. C. 1990. Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda. Kumarian Press Library. West Hartford. Durney, J. 2004. The Volunteer: Uniforms, weapons and history of the Irish Republican Army 1913-1997. Gaul House. United Nations Development Program. 2003. Empowering women: China. [Online]. Available: Xinhua News Agency. People Empowerment to be Key to Counter Crises: Thai PM. [Online]. Available: < http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/23/c_13889810.htm> Read More