Do we know what poverty is?

I had a cousin who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father was a Proctor who owned land and had a wide practice in the civil courts. Everything my relative wanted, he virtually got. In the village where he grew, there were many who, by my cousin’s standard, were extremely poor.

My cousin led a life with a lot of comforts when gradually his father started getting into debt and disposed of the substantial wealth they had. From a rural ‘walauwa’, my cousin with his parents moved into a small rented house in the Metropolis.

Given their social standing, my relatives simply couldn’t face the world. And my cousin suddenly felt what abject poverty was. It was a case of riches to rags. On some days, he later told me, his family hardly could have one meal.

There must be many who have tasted poverty later in life like my cousin. But, there are thousands of families among us who have never been lucky to have even the minimum of comforts. They have been born poor and

 continue to be so.

Having wealth and losing all that is one thing, but not being able to have even one good meal a day from one’s young days, leave aside everything else, warrants serious focus on our part. These are the people who need the assistance of the government and NGOs to get out of poverty.

For decades, we have been discussing about poverty and how to reduce it or even alleviate it. Year after year, even with so many welfare measures, we don’t seem to have found the way to get people out of poverty.

This may be because either we have a false notion of how many people are below the poverty line or we have not understood what poverty is all about, what causes it and how people can be assisted out of it.

A recent publication of the Department of Census & Statistics, Time Trend of Poverty Indicators on Population / Employment and Socio-economic Situation, 1981 - 2004, provides valuable information about poverty.

According to this publication, in 1990/91, 26.1% of the population had been below the poverty line whilst in 2002, it has declined to 22.7%. This is an improvement, without doubt.

Incidentally, Official Poverty Line (OPL) is defined as per capita total expenditure per month to meet minimum requirement of nutrient plus other basic needs. In simpler terms, it just means that some families do not even have an income to meet the cost of basic food and other minimum requirements.

What are the reasons for 22.7% of our population to be below the poverty line? When we look at incidence of poverty, there is a very interesting co-relation to educational level of the people.

As per statistics of year 2002, of those below the poverty line, 39.1% have had no schooling at all, while 29.6% have had education only up to Grade 5, meaning they have only completed primary school education.

17.7% below the poverty line have had education from Grade 6 - 9. Interestingly, those who had had better education, G.C.E O/L and above, constituted as little as 4.4% below poverty line.

From this data, we can infer that better education can help people come out of poverty. One way of reducing or alleviating poverty is to ensure that 100% of our population completes education up to G.C.E O/L. There is another aspect we mustn’t overlook.

The vicious cycle of poverty is such that the reason for 39.1% of those below the poverty line for having no schooling might have been largely due to inability to go to school because of poverty.

Had they somehow gone to school, they may have got out of poverty. Poverty affects one’s level of education and on the other side of the coin, the level of education has a great impact on one’s poverty.

Opportunities to be employed come with the level of education also. Today, whether it is in the public sector or in the private sector, even for unskilled labour, education up to GCE O/L is necessary.

As discussed in this column over and over again, one cannot ignore the fact that quality of our education needs to be improved.

Knowledge, skills and attitudes which form the essential components of education need to be crafted in such a way that those who obtain education in our school system are also able to be employed without much difficulty which will largely help alleviate poverty.

When one examines the employment dynamics for the period 1981 - 2004 presented in the same publication referred to above, some interesting aspects can be discerned. In 1981, unemployed, as a percentage of the total labour force, was 17.9%.

Through the years, it has come down and in 2004 unemployment stood at 8.5 %. In 2006, unemployment has been at the lowest, i.e. at 6.5%. As seen earlier, the percentage of population below the poverty line has declined from 26.1% in 1990/91 to 22.7% in 2002.

As less people become unemployed, there also seems to be a situation where less people are below the poverty line. More than in any sector, people who are below the poverty line seem to be finding themselves opportunities to be self-employed.

Over the last decade, self-employed persons as a percentage of the total employed have been around 40%. In the 1980s, not many people had been self-employed, i.e., just about 15%.

There is no doubt that the issue of poverty has to be grappled with. For this to succeed, a rational approach has to be adopted. What has happened over the years does not seem to be rational, and as a result, many who are not eligible to receive any assistance from the government, continue to receive assistance by way of Samurdhi, earlier known as Janasaviya.

There are many stories that even those who own private buses, small businesses and even others who obtain a regular income receive Samurdhi benefits from the government. While this must undoubtedly stop, those who are in real need must certainly receive relief assistance from state coffers.

What needs to be done is for the Department of Census and Statistics to mount an islandwide survey, in the way they do the census, to find out the real poor and those who need assistance.

Once the data is available, a well compiled data base organized on the basis of Grama Niladhari divisions aggregated into Divisional Secretariats can be prepared, which can serve many purposes.

Having identified those who are below the poverty line, it is important that for each family, an employment oriented approach is identified and implemented. Every family must have some government official who will become responsible for the improvement of the status of that family.

As presently done, Samurdhi officers should be given the responsibility of improving the income of the family under their charge and taking the family out of poverty over a given period of time.

This way, some of the funds we now spend for Samurdhi beneficiaries can be eliminated as these people will get out of the status of being poor after their income level improves.

Sri Lanka being an agricultural country and as per the statistics pertaining to year 2002, the proportion of irrigated lands out of the total area of land was 36.1%. Over and above this, there are many lands that could be used for cultivation of a variety of crops such as vegetables, fruits, flowers etc.

All these have a commercial value and each poor family can earn a reasonable income which will help them to get out of the poverty status. The present grow more food campaign could have a specific component directed towards those below the poverty line.

They need to be mobilized for the agricultural drive even if they do not have their own lands. They can be used as agricultural workers.

Similarly, meaningful self employment projects that are sustainable need to be identified for the benefit of the poor. By and large, in the past, self employment projects have failed due to a variety of reasons.

One of the main reasons for failure is the mismatch between the implementer and the nature of the project. Abilities and skills of the implementer have to be carefully assessed before a project is funded and given to a potential beneficiary. Also, projects that have sustainability and commercial viability should be identified.

Micro-financing is another important ingredient for the success of self employment projects for the poor. The poor cannot provide co-lateral, and therefore, strategies adopted in the Grameen Bank methodology should be adopted here too.

There are many schemes that have worked and are working well in the field of micro-finance and we could learn from them. But, the most important aspect is to be bold enough to change our existing systems that have not produced the desired results.

Although there are many other aspects that need to be discussed, it suffices to say that our poverty reduction/alleviation strategies haven’t worked well. Occasionally, one gets to hear of success stories; but, they are few and far between.

Many multi-lateral agencies have provided grants and loans for this purpose, but such funds have only succeeded in fattening pockets of officials and consultants. What need to be implemented are schemes that elevate the well-being of the poor and not those that make the poor poorer.