The world is in a flux. Prosperity spreads in every corner. Thanks to the liberal market reforms of the 1990s spearheaded by the United States.
But the number of people with access to quality life is minuscule compared with investment flows, fanciful Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures in the past decade, state interventions, multilateral finance windows, and donor organisations, plus other fundamentals churned out by the agencies of the World Bank and the United Nations. Why? It is like the good life is within grasp, yet the arms cannot reach it.
Governments’ efforts over the years to rein in poverty are not yielding optimum results. Global population is on the rise, but that, to the majority of people, is not the reason why governments are not able to provide quality life. To development economists, that is not primarily responsible for the rampaging poverty in many parts of the world.
Defence swallows up budget
Only a negligible percentage of humanity can afford quality life. Some blame the plague of increasing numbers of people being pushed down the social ladder, especially in Africa and South Asia, on the suffocating laissez-faire that many economies embraced at the turn of the century. Yet it does not explain it all.
Perhaps one aspect of the subject being overlooked by analysts is the effect of human-induced problems, such as sectarian crises ravaging most parts of the world, from the Middle East to Africa, and their strain on fiscal programmes.
Nigeria for instance has been spending more than it budgeted for defence in the past four budgets because it needs to equip the security agencies to contain terrorists.
In the past three years, the United States has given $2.03 billion in aid to Nigeria to fight terrorism. The amount goes into projects that add no value to the productive chains that improve the quality of life. The same applies to countries in the Middle East and North Africa which spend much on armament as against economic projects that reduce poverty.
‘Chewing gum’ definition of poverty
The definition of poverty varies from place to place, time and society. The economist’s definition is different from that of the lay man, even one educated. The common denominator is the psychology of contentment.
Someone content living on $1 dollar a day or even less may not complain unless an economist triggers him. In other words, poverty is defined within a context, determined and measured by the characteristics of a particular society. A rich man in one place can be rated a poor man somewhere else.
Wikipedia says “poverty is general scarcity or dearth or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possession. Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the deprivation of basic human needs which commonly includes: food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education.
“Relative poverty is defined contextually as economic inequality in the location or society in which people live.”
UN prescription
The UN has been pushing initiatives for states to stem poverty. That was the main issue discussed at its annual gathering in September this year. The initiatives include deepening the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which countries have pursued since 2010 to eradicate poverty by 2010.
The aim of the MDGs is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote employment and empowerment of women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and establish global development partnership.
The UN at its 2012 gathering added “inclusive growth mandate” which required states to formulate economic policies that engage all segments of the population in development activities so as to reduce unemployment and absolute poverty.
The UN wants states to provide basic wellbeing – healthcare, food, education, housing – because the absence of these necessities at affordable prices hinder the fight to eradicate poverty or substantially ameliorate it by 2050.
Hissy numbers
The UN and World Bank estimate that 1.29 billion people lived in “absolute poverty” in 2008. About 400 million them lived in India and 173 million in China. Africa had the highest incidence of absolute poverty at 47 per cent.
Between 1990 and 2010, about 663 million people moved above the “absolute poverty” level.
The United Nations International Cultural and Educational Foundation (UNICEF) estimates that half the world’s children, or 1.1 billion, currently live in poverty. Annup Shah, a top World Bank official, said “almost half the world’s population, about 3 billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day. The GDP of the 41 heavily indebted poor countries (around 567 million) is less than the wealth of the world’s seven richest people combined.
“Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name. Less than 1 per cent of what the world spends every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by 2000, and yet it did not happen.
“One billion people live in poverty (one in two children) in the world, 640 million, live without shelter; 400 million have no access to safe water; 270 million have no access to health services; 106 million died in 2003 before they reached five years old (roughly 29,000 children per day).
“Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalisation are global decisions, policies and practices which are typically influenced, driven or formulated by the rich and the powerful – which can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions and influential people” whose activities contribute to the disquieting level of poverty in the world.
Causes of poverty in developing countries
The United Nations and World Bank have expressed concern that a host of factors aside bad governance create poverty around the world.
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, maintained that “unstable political structures hinder people from obtaining their fundamental human rights, among which include access to education, justice and shelter.
“Most nations’ justice system still deprives the poor their rights because of weak institutions and corruption.”
Other concerns include environmental hazards which expose a high percentage of populations to dangerous epidemics, straining healthcare systems.
Rachael Kyte, a senior official of the World Bank, noted during the 2012 edition of the International Day For the Eradication of Poverty that “conservation of biological diversity is essentially for poverty eradication. Environmental degradation actually holds back growth and drives up poverty.”
A study by the World Bank showed that in more than 20 countries, the average cost of environmental degradation is more than eight per cent of GDP.
Kyte argued that “humanity will not eradicate poverty without building shared prosperity, and that shared prosperity will depend on nature and the need for a more inclusive and cleaner growth going forward.”
Why some Nigerians live below poverty line
Poverty in Nigeria is complex but avoidable. Nigeria is made up of almost 250 mini-nations and languages coupled together in 1914 by Britain, then its colonial master.
This collection of nations has differing world views about life. Nigeria is diametrically Christian/Muslim, pro-Western values and anti-West, half pro-market reform and half anti-reform.
Half the country is steep in stoic Islamic piety that enjoins one not to worry much about material comfort, the other half is avidly pro-Western liberal ethos that brook no conscience about material pursuit.
A philosophy lecturer, Douglas Anele, explained that this is partly responsible for why the Nigerian government over the years has unreliable figures about how many citizens “are actually poor and those that can be said to be rich.”
However, international development experts say Nigeria is making a steady, stealthy and consistent progress towards genuine poverty eradication and economic growth, especially under the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Nigeria’s GDP of $510 billion covers catch-all-segments policy frameworks which attract investors in power, telecommunications, agriculture, oil and gas, industrial parks, et cetera.
Economists and global rating agencies believe that Nigeria will very likely attain the MDGs mandate to eradicate or more than half poverty indices by 2020 as these investment flows unleash potentials and create jobs.
Causes of poverty in Africa
Economists have long identified the causes of poverty in Africa to include unstable political structures, wars, refugees, food shortage, and a lack of social services.
Other causes identified by the World Bank include high cost of maintaining public officers, ethnic mix of populations which hinder development with frictions and blockages, ignorance, superstition, weak institutions, exploitation by institutional operators, military interventions, uncontrolled populations, a lack of family planning, Godless leadership, and corruption.
A woman, who identifies herself simply as Mulikat, who sells fish at Oyingbo market in Lagos pins the cause of poverty in the cities on the high cost of transportation and housing.
She ferries her sacks of dried crayfish from Ikorodu to Oyingbo market every day, rising up at 4am to catch the early morning train.
“Due to the high cost of transport and shops and rooms, most of the profit you make goes to the landlord and transport operator, so at the end of the month you are left with little or nothing. If the government can solve these two problems, Nigerians’ condition of life will very much improve,” she said.