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Column: Perspectives on Poverty
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The 'nameless' poor
 

This guest post comes from Dr. Haseeb Md. Irfanullah, who leads the Reducing Vulnerability and Natural Resource Management Programme of Practical Action in Bangladesh.

In good old days, there was something romantic about poverty! Just think about the emotion, passion, enthusiasm, desperation that could be seen in the world literature on poverty. And I am not only talking about poems like "O poverty, thou hast made me great./ Thou hast made me honoured like Christ / With his crown of thorns." (‘Daridro’ or ‘Poverty’ by Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh).

But, we not-so-poor people have harshly taken away that romantic bit out of the poverty. We have smartly designed development programmes to brush away poverty like an unwanted pest. We have identified standards and devices to filter out the ‘poorest’ from the ‘poor’ and the ‘poorer’ ones. We ask them all sorts of personal questions just after entering into their settlement or in their homes for the first time. And we ask a lot more after giving them a piece of information or a bag of seeds or a cow. So, in the business of community development, poverty reduction is a very serious venture; there is nothing emotional about it. (Although some of us may see the campaigns and slogans like ‘make poverty history’ or ‘put poverty in the museums’ expressing strong emotions!)

Over the last decade or so – thanks to the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs – it is the ‘extreme poverty’ we have been talking about a lot. And when talking about extreme poverty in a global context, you actually cannot overlook Bangladesh. As captured by a study on extreme poverty in Bangladesh, an extreme poor woman defined chronic poverty in an unassuming way “We who are always poor are invisible. For those who are always poor, what difference does a shock make − why will it make the leaders feel bad? For us, life is like mending a cloth − sticking patches and stitching − our sorrows and tears are invisible.” Despite being invisible, the extreme poor still make up 17.6% of the total population of Bangladesh and find a position below the ‘lower poverty line’ − as we often call it. (It is the ‘moderate poor’ who stay between the lower and upper poverty lines). The absolute number of extreme poor in this South Asian country is staggering 26 million. If this were the population of a country, that would have fall between Uzbekistan and Ghana as the 47th most populated country of the world!

Be in no doubt that being an extreme poor person of a country like Bangladesh is a very tough job. Of course it is because you have to rely upon much less than $ 1 a day, own no land, hardly have anything you can call an ‘asset’, barely have access to public services or very much susceptible to ill health and all kinds of shock and disaster. But, it is also because you have to prove your distress convincingly enough to be included in a development project for extreme poor or in one of numerous social safety net programmes of the government.

But, if you are a person who sometimes manages to climb just above the lower poverty line, I can assure you, your life is much tougher! It actually means that you are capable enough to push yourself just out of extreme poverty for a while, but may fall back losing what you have gained whenever a shock or disaster comes in your life. You simply swing between extreme poverty and moderate poverty. You do not have the certainty − or a clear identity for that matter − of being extreme poor. And it is bad!

It is bad because aid effectiveness is measured by what changes aid makes in people’s lives. If you cannot be defined, you cannot be targeted and if you cannot be targeted your changes cannot be measured. That is why, does not matter how tough it is, targeting the real extreme poor has been very important in the development projects. Criteria for selecting the extreme poor have, however, evolved with changing context and better understanding of the situation on the ground. But the ground reality often seems quite a ‘small influencer’ to guide the continuous evolution of poverty alleviation attempts; aid money and its governance play much bigger role for that matter. As we all have seen, international development discourses have not been the same since the Christmas of 2010 after Andrew Mitchell, the then British Secretary of State for International Development, uttered ‘value for money’. (I am, however, not sure if a 58-year old British comedy film with the same name has anything to do with this improvement in our development vocabulary!)

I am afraid, people swinging between ‘extreme poverty’ and ‘moderate poverty’ may continue being left out of extreme poverty initiatives. When you are in that group, you are not eligible for any in kind or in cash support provided to the extreme poor, or may not get the technology or knowledge offered to the moderate poor. You do not belong to a recognized economic class that defines you. You do not have a name!

But do we really need to define that group as a separate entity? Will it add any value to our efforts in eradicating extreme poverty now and in the post-2015 era? Or will it just be a mere academic interest?

As a botanist by education, I am very much used to the concept of giving each and every plant species of the world a specific botanical name. To me, rice is Oryza sativa, wheat is Triticum aestivum, potato is Solanum tuberosum. Then I listened to a severely distressed, lone young girl named Robin (played by Juliette Lewis) in the film 'The Way of the Guns' (2000). When asked, which name she called the baby she was pregnant with, Robin replied – "When you think about deaf people, people who are born deaf... who've never heard a spoken word. What do you think they call the sun or their mother... or their own reflection in the mirror? That's what I call it."

I never realized naming someone could be that tough.
Posted by Haseeb Md. Irfanullah in Poverty for column Perspectives on Poverty on Apr 12th, 10:42
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I spent an hour arguing over a Dollar
 

Not so long ago, I spent a year living and working in Ghana. It was dusty, the people were frequently confusing, and the local cuisine was a rich source of starch and oil. But it was a lot of fun, and I look back on the time (and the people I met) fondly.

While misunderstandings between the locals and I were a common occurrence, we collectively understood one thing very well: that taxi drivers are scum. There are no meters or fixed prices in Ghanaian taxis, and every discussion commences with an absurdly high initial price offer from the driver, and a similarly unreasonable lowball payment offer from the prospective passenger. Much arm-waving and feigned expressions of shock emanate from both sides, often for minutes at a time. The driver remains adamant that a 10 minute trip takes 30, while the passenger is convinced that peak hour is a myth created by taxi drivers to harm the nation. If you’re merely a bystander, it’s some of the best street theatre around.

After initial reluctance (read: middle class guilt), I took to the sport of bickering with taxi drivers most enthusiastically. There would be pretend walk-offs, raised voices, and allegations that the driver is a “foolish man” (which ranks highly among Ghanaian insults). As the title of this entry suggests, I did indeed spent 15 minutes arguing over a sum of money that was around a dollar. More than once. Unlike your average Ghanaian, the dollar wasn’t of particular significance to me. Food (bristling with starch and oil) would be on my table that night either way.

So why did I have so many bees in my bonnet? Why would a man even wear a bonnet, especially one that attracted bees?

Many times in the past, I had criticised western tourists in developing countries who indulge in haggling with local sellers over sums of money that matter a lot to the seller, and not at all to the buyer. It appeared to be little more than a disposable income power play, bolstering the ego of a tubby idiot with freshly braided hair and fake designer sunglasses. It effectively mocked poverty... sought to entrench it. Whether or not this scenario is a metaphor for quite a number of recent free trade agreements negotiated between a rich country and a poor country is a matter I’ll leave to you.

Back to the taxis and my bees. But I don’t want any more talk about my bonnet.

The economist-in-me-that-I-can’t-always-switch-off was wondering whether giving $5 for the $4 trip would mean that the new baseline price for everyone would be $5. Would my capacity to buy my way out of an argument affect affordable transport for everyone else?

Or maybe it wouldn’t affect cash-strapped local taxi passengers... perhaps the driver was only trying to game me because I happened to be white. If the colours or tables were turned, such a thing would be held up as scandalous racism. Do I want to reward someone’s notion that some people should pay more than others for an identical service, solely based on their appearance? Is it a taxi driver’s place to decide that I must? In my home country, this concept of fairness is legally enforced via the requirement for metered fares.

And so I spent 15 minutes haggling on the side of the road. Haggling to receive access to the same fair price that the locals paid. Haggling to be equal. It’s entirely consistent with the complaints that many developing countries have about the uneven playing field of global trade and protectionism.

But instead of opening up another area of dispute with the driver, I settled for my $1 taxi saving, and was driven to do you thinkthe pub.

What do you think - is it right to haggle over a dollar?
Posted by Michael Jayfox (Guest Blogger) in Poverty, Enterprise & Trade for column Perspectives on Poverty on Apr 9th, 09:22
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No parent should lose a child to malaria
 
Mary and Martha, shown on Friday on BBC1, is a new TV film written by Richard Curtis starring Hilary Swank and Brenda Blethyn.  The film tells the story of two women who have little in common apart from one terrible thing - they both lose sons to malaria.
 
 
Mary takes her young son from America to Africa promising adventure and fun, until he falls ill with malaria, while British mother Martha loses her son while he is volunteering in Mozambique.  Both mothers are inspired by their devastating loses to go on epic journeys to try and make a difference in the world.
 
Malaria No More UK Special Ambassador Jo Yirrell, is the British mum whose own story was a source of inspiration for the film and the character of Martha. In 2005, Jo tragically lost her 20 year old son Harry to malaria. He returned home from Ghana where he had spent four of the happiest months of his life volunteering in a school. Jo remembers: “He fell in love with the place, so much so that his first words on returning were: “I’m going back”. Harry had really found himself and his purpose in Africa”.  However, Harry had come home having unknowingly contracted the deadliest strain of malaria and after ten days fighting for his life, he died.
 
Jo channelled her grief into helping raise awareness about malaria and the opportunity to make malaria no more a reality in our lifetime.  Jo reflects: “No parent should lose their child to a disease that costs £1 to treat. I am honored to have helped inspire Martha and see a lot of myself in her, and just like Martha I got involved with the fight against malaria after my loss.  I hope that this important film moves, inspires and engages people across the world about our generation’s momentous opportunity to stop suffering and death from malaria”.
 
Richard Curtis says: “Jo Yirrell’s story was a direct inspiration for my film – not only her story – but also her amazing reaction to what happened to her, and her son Harry - the way she chose to use her experience and her grief to try to save the lives of other children. Parts of her are in the characters of both Mary and Martha.  I’ve also been inspired over the years by the work and determination of Malaria No More UK – I love the directness of the name and the organisation’s utter resolve to spread the message about malaria, how it could be stopped dead in its tracks if enough of us do our bit. Jo is an example to us all of doing just that.”
 
Jo’s experience illustrates the stark reality behind the fiction of Mary and Martha and, sadly, the impact of malaria is devastating for the people who live in malarial areas.  A child dies every minute from malaria and 90% of these deaths are in Africa.  But we are alive at a time when making malaria no more can be a reality - make sure you’re part of it.
 
Join Malaria No More UK and help make sure no parent loses a child to malaria.
 
This is a guest blog by Malaria No More UK. 
Posted by Philip Corden - GPP in Education for column Perspectives on Poverty on Mar 5th, 00:46
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No Dessert Until You Eat Your Vegetables
 

The image below delivers a pretty standard message from the social justice / international development community, and it makes me so furious that I choke on food that I successfully swallowed hours ago. It doesn’t even make sense that I could choke on such items, but such a rage defies physics.

Why does my food besiege me for a second time? Because pictures like this assume that the proverbial short guy is always disadvantaged through no fault of his own. That if someone or something is undersized, that we should pull out our wallets and buy them as many wooden boxes as they need to be just tall as lanky over on the left. Worse, the big fella has actually even lost his own box in the pursuit of this... this... “justice”.

There’s a tougher question to ask. “Is something behind the eight ball as a result of its own bad behaviour, and to what extent should we help it if it refuses to change?”

An example is a small, developing, island nation which spends 80% of its tax revenue on salaries for government workers. Thousands of these government workers are relatives of village elders and other government officials, parachuted into jobs because of who they know. It is not rare in numerous ministries to see workers asleep at their desks, if indeed they decided to go to work that day. These horrible inefficiencies are a key reason why the government can’t balance its budget, and is receiving “Budget Support” from numerous foreign government donors. This involves the foreign governments writing multimillion dollar cheques to the island nation, and the money being used as overpriced, corrupt welfare for the friends and family of powerful people. So is the budget support actually helping the recipient country? Yes and no... the cheques allow the salary scam to survive for another year.

So, tell me again. How many free wooden boxes should we give the short guy?

It’s often politically awkward for donor governments to impose reform requirements on recipient governments in return for aid money. The donor governments are variously accused of neo-colonialism, exporting political ideologies via blackmail, ulterior motives, or a lack of cultural sensitivity. But, where there’s a good argument for it, I want them to do it. A culture of laziness and nepotism isn’t a culture, it’s a bunch of people making excuses, and trying to hide behind an emotional concept that donors are reluctant to closely examine. Yet the recipients still want stuff for free. Not only do they want their dessert before their vegetables, they want to have their free cake and eat it. Cake contains as many as five of the six food groups, but in ratios that make it an irresponsible breakfast option.

If we’re serious about aid effectiveness, the blank cheques have to stop, and the tough conversations about governance have to increase. Why should a nation that became tall as a result of discipline and efficiency indefinitely subsidise a nation that refuses to make similar sacrifices (Germany says hi, Greece)? Is this seriously our best attempt at defining justice?

This is a guest blog by economist Michael Jayfox. All views expressed are his own.
Posted by Michael Jayfox - Guest Blogger in Aid for column Perspectives on Poverty on Feb 22nd, 01:55
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Flies, sandflies, and statistics
 
Hello, I have a confession. As a partially rehabilitated industry economist, I have committed outrageous sins.
 
Sins against data. Sins such as deliberately crude estimates in order to save time. Sins such as having a hunch, and then selectively quoting data that lends legitimacy to my hunch, while conveniently ignoring the data that would scuttle the whole thing. And sins such as using data that I know is hopelessly outdated or incomplete, but, in the absence of anything better, pretending that it’s solid.
 
I have sinned, and I cower at your feet.
 
While my sins have generally been inflicted upon large companies in wealthy countries (sorry again, pals), the international development community has problems that are hauntingly familiar to me. I used to think I was suffering if I couldn’t find German manufacturing data newer than 12 months old. But how on earth would I have gone about calculating educational attainment in the Sudanese countryside? Nobody knows how many people are actually there, schools may or may not be running, there are no standardised tests for achievement. Oh, hang on, part of Sudan is now no longer Sudan. Let me just drop that into my spreadsheet. Ok, educational attainment in Sudan is now up 3.2% in 2013, validating our investment of aid funds.
 
 
An article in Foreign Policy last week by Morten Jerven reminded us of an even deeper problem. Even the official statistics in many developing countries are rubbish. Either hopelessly out of date, of incorrect scope, or poorly gathered and presented. Ghana “revised” its GDP by 60% in 2010, Nigeria is about to do something similar. Any conclusion I could have reached have based on the old data is not worth the pixels it’s displayed upon, or the sheets of paper that I’m supposed to think about before printing upon. Back to square one.
 
There’s also an additional emotional hazard at play, too. I didn’t really care whether I made the German economy look good or not. The Germans are fine, and aren’t at risk of anything truly disastrous. People creating data in the development community are all too aware of the human suffering and peril being experienced behind many of their data sets. The temptation to “focus” the numbers to make a moral or ethical point is infinitely greater.
 
But bending numbers this way and that ends up making the whole thing unstable and internally contradictory, in addition to being dishonest. Credibility is vital in the development industry, and there are quite enough sceptics circling with their highlighters and Twitter accounts. It’s no secret that incorporating data into a report or discussion lends it extra gravitas, but it’s pretty tough to win back credibility after you’ve blown it on an ill-fated data bluff.
 
So, I ask you this. Is solid data a non-negotiable starting point for a solid argument? To what extent does the ethical obligation to effectively communicate poverty issues justify the creative use of vague data? Are there alternatives?
 
Photos, respectively: Adam Birkin, Jim Merithew/Wired.com
Posted by Guest Blogger - Michael Jayfox in Corruption & Governance for column Perspectives on Poverty on Feb 7th, 03:15
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