The Poorest Billion: Trapped

“Chronic poverty is that poverty that is ever present and never ceases. It is like the rains of the grasshopper season that beat you consistently and for a very long time. You become completely soaked because you have no way out. …

… Some poverty passes from one generation to another, as if the offspring sucks it from the mother’s breast. They in turn pass it on to their children.”

- Group of disabled women in Nkokonjeru Providence Home, Mukono, Uganda (source: CPRC Chronic Poverty Report 2004-5, David Hulme)


According to the Chronic Poverty Research Centre's 2004-5 report, there are up to 420 million chronically poor people in the world.  This is not including all absolutely poor people, which could still number over 1 billion; it counts those who fit a certain criteria that, when one or more of the conditions are met, causes extreme difficulty regarding economic growth.  This report lists a few of the criteria as 1) capability deprivation, 2) low levels of material assets, and 3) socio-political marginality.  These are caused in part by geographic, spatial traps, such as land-locked states surrounded by other hostile or unstable countries, as well as shocks, such as famines or diseases like HIV, that keep the constitution of the society weak.


The CPRC's report shares several things in common with the businessfightspoverty.ning.com post by Mike Quinn.  His post, reviewing a book by Paul Collier, lists four factors as the cause of poverty traps: conflict traps, natural resource traps, being landlocked with bad neighbors, and having bad governance in small countries.  


Quinn in his post describes Collier's approach toward bringing the oppressed out of these traps as being actually not to focus on poverty alleviation, but rather on economic convergence, somewhat like Sachs in Common Wealth.


The key ideas that I took as meaningful from both these sources--the CPRC's report and the post by Mike Quinn--are that first, a large portion of the poverty stricken world is due to an array of causes.  There is no quick fix.  Before throwing money at the problem, the aid suppliers must study not only the region directly to be affected by the aid, but also the surrounding countries.  The matter of poverty has become so intricate that knowing both the internal and external causes for the specific area in question is vital before any aid can be appropriated effectively.  Next, both sources declare the need to offer more than a handout.  "Aid" will only be helpful to people who will take what they have received and run with it.  The root causes in a broken society must be addressed in a way that will give the people of that society hope and assurance that something better can happen.  For example, families need to know that if they actually do sacrifice to send their child to school, their child will have a chance to use that education.  Finally, they both show the importance of giving locals work.  Aid workers cannot go into a country simply giving handouts and expect things to change.  They can't even go in and set up a business and expect the locals to pick up right where they leave off.  If there is something we, as foreigners to any society under the poverty line, can do, it would be to work with the people, keeping them in the leadership roles and decision-making processes and taking a back-seat.  Then change can be permanent, and put an end to chronic poverty.