Reflection on World Poverty

Reflection on World Poverty

Contents
1. An Intolerable Contrast
2. Unequal Distribution of Income
3. The Problem of World Population
4. The World Food Crisis
5. The International Poverty Line
6. Not by Bread Alone
7. The UN Millennium Development Goals.
Universal Vedic Prayer
Asato Ma Sad Gamaya,
Tamaso Ma Joytir Gamaya,
Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya,
Om Shanthi Shanthi Shanthi.

O Lord, lead us from the Unreal to the Real,
Lead us from Untruth to Truth,
Lead us from Darkness to Light,
Lead us from Death to Immortality,
Oh God, let there be Peace, Peace, Peace.
I. An Intolerable Contrast
• The Rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16. 19-31)
Read in three parts – 19-22, 22-27 , 28-31
While we are listening, let us think of the situation in the world.
• Jesus paints two pictures – one man enjoying life – one man living in misery
- both die and the picture changes abruptly.
- why this reversal? what is the parable really saying?
- what sin had the rich man committed? his brothers?

Short break

• The Two Faces of India - 84 slides shown in 12 minutes .
- the first face that we are proud of (buoyant music)
- then these slides are shown alternately with the
second face that we are ashamed of (sad music)
o When are we going to put the two faces side by side
And see the contradiction?

Interaction: 1. What struck you most in these contrasts
2. What pictures would you like to include to make the slides better.
Note: A low-budget production, The Two Faces of India were seen by approx 30,000 students and young adults. The program and discussion have been recalled from time to time, even 20-25-30 years later.
“You used that contrast, I would like to use another contrast I have just seen.”
It had become their problem. It had altered their of looking at reality.
o I shared this idea with an American lady photographer as we stood on top of the south tower of Meenakshi temple, Madurai “That is a good idea,” she said. “May I borrow it?” Juxtaposing contrasts was new at the time, today many are doing it.

Group Exercise
o Note down three of the sharpest contrasts you have come across. Is there a causal link between the two faces?

Break

II. Unequal distribution of income

Capitalism, globalization, the World Bank, the IMF and WTO support an unequal distribution of the earth’s wealth.

How do we visualize this unequal distribution of income? The cover of the 1992 UN Human Development Report did this in a striking way. It showed a champagne glass, or a wine glass, which was very broad at the top but tapered down to a narrow stem at the bottom. It was divided into five bands, each representing 20% (1/5th) of the world’s population. This wine glass represented the world’s income and how this income was distributed. Just to give two statistics.
The richest 20% of the world’s population enjoy 82.7 % of the world’s income. But
the poorest 20% of the world’s people receive only 1.4 % of the world’s income. (The other quintiles are 11.7 %, 2.3 % , 1.9 %.)

Widening Gap

In 2001, Robert Hunter Wade, Professor at the London School of Economics, wrote an article for the IMF journal Finance and Development entitled ‘The rising inequality of World Income Distribution’. in which he cited the cover of Human Development Report 1992. He then asked the question, “Has this inequality increased or decreased in the past twenty years?” There was no easy categorical answer, because different experts have used different criteria to measure wealth and poverty. But Prof. Wade and others have concluded that inequality is increasing.

Prof. Amartya Sen, Nobel prize winning economist, says that whatever the trend, it is the sheer magnitude of inequality and poverty, on a world scale, that is unacceptable. The concentration of world income in the hands of the richest 20% is shocking and cannot be legitimized. (The contrast becomes even more shocking when we look at the top 5%, and the top 1%).The World Bank, IMF and other organizations have paid little attention to this reality, which affects the greater part of humanity. The World Bank even says that “this should not be considered negative”, which means it ignores the political instability it can cause and the flow of migrants (legal and illegal) to developed countries. It also ignores the economic base of terrorism.


UN Human Development Report 1992

Richest 20% receive 82.7% of the World’s Income
Poorest 20% receive 1.4% only


“The world has a lot of difficulties,” says David Kennedy, Prof. of History at Stanford University. “Many of them are environmental. But a lot of them are economic, political and cultural. One can sum up these complicated issues by pointing to the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ which is also referred to as the North/South divide. This points to the stark difference in the standard of living between the developed world and the developing world. If we don’t find a way to incorporate those who work for $ 1 a day, and there are at least a billion of these people, the world will be in for very tough confrontations.” (abridged)
Do reports on terrorist violence, connect these attacks with economic disparity? Do they link it with the cost of security to the West? The Canadian government has said it spent $1 billion to ensure the security of the leaders gathered for the G-20 Toronto Summit on 26-27 June 2010.

Earlier, economists had said that the prosperity at the top would filter down. But the UN Human Development Report ’92 says global economic growth rarely filters down,

The Swedish economist-sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, winner of the 1974 Nobel prize for economics, wrote a grim statement in The Challenge of World Poverty, Penguin, 1970.

“It has never occurred in recorded history that a privileged group, on its own initiative and simply in order to give reality to its ideals, climbed down from its privileges and opened its monopolies to the unprivileged. The unprivileged have to become conscious of their demands for greater equality and fight for its realization.” (p. 88)
If this statement is accurate and stands the test of further scholarship, what are its implications for various types of peoples’ movements? Do they have a correct assessment of the power of the privileged classes in economic, political and above all military terms? Are they fighting guns, tanks, bombs and missiles with bows and arrows, hoarse voices and weary feet? Are they merely creating more martyrs?

Break

III. The problem of World Population
Refer to UN Population Fund, United States Census Bureau.

World population : 6.83 billion – expected to peak at 9 billion around 2040

China : 1.4 billion by 2010, 19.6% of the world’s population
India : 1.18 billion 17.3%
Between them, China and India have nearly 37% of world population

USA 309 million
Japan 127 million
Germany 81 million
UK 62 million

The World Population is growing at 1.14% (75 million) per year
There is Negative population growth in Central and Eastern Europe.
Japan and Western Europe are moving towards negative population growth.
Population density per square kilometer- Bangladesh – 1069, India 353 , Holland 400.

Overview: World in 2008 6.8 billion
Africa 973 million
Asia 4,054 million
Europe 732 million
North America 337 million
Latin America 577 million
Oceania 34 million

27% of the world’s population is below 15 years of age

Overpopulation?

Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), an English political economist and demographer, published a treatise anonymously in 1798. It was entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population. He predicted that population growth would outrun food supply by the mid 19th century “because population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio.” His treatise raised a storm of criticism, and Malthus published five editions to answer these criticisms and convey his positions.

Karl Marx argued that Malthus did not fully recognize the human capacity to increase food supply, though Malthus had indicated that he was aware of this aspect. Engels criticized Malthus sharply and predicted that science would solve the problem of adequate food supply. The controversy raged on for decades, so that by 1885 James Bonar called Malthus “the best abused man of the age.”

In 1968 Paul Ehrlich made similar predictions in his book The Population Bomb. Critics were quick to point out that the predictions made by Malthus and Ehrlich did not happen in the way they had foretold. The Green Revolution improved crop yields beyond our fondest hopes.

But the questions Malthus had asked still haunt humanity. Researchers point out that our ability to grow more food is not limitless. The Green Revolution relies heavily on petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel driven irrigation. In spite of every effort to produce food more than one billion human beings are malnourished (FAO 2009). On 19 March 2009, the chief scientific advisor to the UK government, Prof.John Beddington, told a gathering of politicians and environmentalists that a growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030. World population will reach 8.3 billion, and demand for food and energy will increase by 50%, and for water by 30%. The poor will be the worst affected. This "perfect storm" could unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts, and mass migrations of people fleeing from the worst-affected regions. Unless something is done, John Beddington warned the world is heading for major upheavals which could come to a head by 2030. Asked whether he is a modern Malthus, he said, “Not quite, because I am reasonably optimistic.” We know the problems and we have the ability to generate solutions.
IV. World Food Crisis
The world has to find 70% more food for an extra 2.3 billion by 2050.
At present 1/6th of humanity, more than a billion people, are mal-nourished. (FAO 2009)

India’s Nutritional Status
There is much trumpeting about India’s growth rate – 8 - 9 % GDP growth.
But less is spoken about the darker side – one third of the world’s poor is found in India.
43% of its children are affected by malnutrition while
8 % by over-nutrition and obesity
- Hindus and Muslims tend to be malnourished. SC and ST are at greater risk.
- Sikhs, Christians and Jains are less prone to malnutrition.
2.1 million children die before the age of 5, which means 4 die every minute.

India and China
According to recent World Bank research, India has 456 million (42%) living below the international poverty line of $ 1.25 per day. (Martin Ravillion and Shaohua Chen, 2008)
It has 1/3rd of the world’s poor living on less than $ 2 a day. This is a higher proportion than sub-Saharan Africa.
- China has reduced poverty from 84% in 1981 to 16% today. (WB, TOI, 27-8-08)
- India is reducing poverty by 1% a year. What use is democracy on a hungry stomach?
China has been called ‘ the factory of the world’. Will China overtake the USA?
It is not likely. China represents 6% of World GDP. The US represents 24-25%.

Number of Billionaires in India

In the past year, the number of Indian billionaires, in US Dollar terms, has doubled. It now has 49 billionaires, coming after the US (40% of the total), China (89), Russia and Germany. The combined wealth of Indian billionaires is equal to US $ 222 billion.


V. The International Poverty Line (abridged from Wikipedia)

In August 2008, it was estimated that 1.4 billion of the world’s population were living below the ‘poverty line’, as newly defined by the World Bank. That meant they were living on less than $1.25 per day.
The ‘poverty line’ is the minimum level of income necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country . In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty-line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
In the past, the international poverty line was roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank came out with the revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity (PPP).
Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. This approach is needs-based in that an assessment is made of the minimum expenditure needed to maintain a tolerable life. This was the original basis of the poverty line in the United States. The calculation was later simplified to being based solely on the cost of food. But in developing countries, the most expensive of these resources is the cost of housing. Thus economists pay particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices, because of their influence on defining the poverty line.
The poverty line is a useful for assessing welfare and unemployment insurance.
Defining the poverty line
The poverty line can be defined in different ways:
• It can be based on social security and welfare benefits.
• A relative income. The OECD and the European Union uses 60% of national average household income as a basis
• A basket of goods deemed necessary to live at the socially accepted minimum. This is called a cost of basic needs poverty line, and it varies according to the price of food, clothing, and other items in the "basket".
• An absolute figure based on a national poverty line is found in some countries. It is fixed and it is adjusted only for inflation. When the World Bank calculates global poverty it uses the average poverty-line found among the poorest countries.
Absolute poverty
A measure of absolute poverty quantifies the number of people below a fixed poverty line. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, and technological levels. Such an absolute measure should look only at the individual's power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. Such a measure is possible only when all consumed goods and services are counted and when PPP-exchange-rates are used. The assumption behind such an absolute measure is that mere survival needs essentially the same amount of resources across the world and that everybody should be subject to the same standards, if meaningful comparisons of policies and progress are to be made. But there are also disadvantages. How compare the needs of a Norwegian in winter with those of a person in the tropics?
The term absolute poverty is sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of enough resources to secure the basic life necessities.
According to a UN declaration that resulted from the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, absolute poverty is "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services."
David Gordon's paper, "Indicators of Poverty and Hunger", for the United Nations, defines absolute poverty as the absence of any two of the following eight basic needs:
• Food: Body Mass Index must be above 16.
• Safe drinking water: Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby (less than 15 minutes walk each way).
• Sanitation facilities: Toilets or latrines must be accessible in or near the home.
• Health: Treatment must be received for serious illnesses and pregnancy.
• Shelter: Homes must have fewer than four people living in each room. Floors must not be made of dirt, mud, or clay.
• Education: Everyone must attend school or otherwise learn to read.
• Information: Everyone must have access to newspapers, radios, televisions, computers, or telephones at home.
• Access to services: This item is undefined by Gordon, but normally is used to indicate a complete range of education, health, legal, social, and financial (credit) services.
For example, a person who lives in a home with a mud floor is considered severely deprived of shelter. A person who never attended school and cannot read is considered severely deprived of education. A person who has no newspaper, radio, television, or telephone is considered severely deprived of information. People who meet any two of these conditions are considered to be living in absolute poverty.
Relative poverty
A measure of relative poverty defines "poverty" as being below some relative poverty threshold. For example, the statement that "households with an accumulated income less than 50% of the average income are living in poverty" uses a relative measure to define poverty. Measuring relative poverty is almost the same as measuring income inequality:
Measures of relative poverty classify individuals or families as "poor" not by comparing them to a fixed cutoff standard, but by comparing them to others in the population.
The term relative poverty can also be used in a different sense to mean "moderate poverty" – for example, a standard of living or level of income that is high enough to satisfy basic needs (like water, food, clothing, shelter, and basic health care), but still significantly lower than that of the majority of the population.
VI. Not by bread alone

 No man can live as an island. No one can isolate himself from the basic problems of humanity. “Not by bread alone does man live” (Mt 4.4) said Jesus to Satan who tempted him. His words are often quoted to point to the primacy of the spiritual over the material. But a man reminded his discussion group, that even to think and say those words to Satan, Jesus needed bread.
 When the Syro-Phoenician woman asked Jesus to cure her daughter, he said
Let the children be fed first. It is not right to take the food of the children
( the richest, the top 20%, the top quintile of the world’s population who enjoy 82.7% of the world’s income)
 And throw it to the dogs (the remaining 80% who receive only 17.3% of the earth’s wealth) Undaunted by these harsh words, the woman replied, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps. Usually Jesus had the last word. This is the only instance when someone got the better of him – and that too a woman, an outsider, a Syro-phoenician by birth. (Mk 7.24-30)

VII. UN Millennium Development Goals (adopted by 192 nations, 2001)
o Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
o Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
o Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
o Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Rate
o Goal 5: Improve maternal health
o Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
o Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
o Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
VIII.Documentary: BBC World Debate on UN Millennium Development Goals
The UN goals emphasize the role of education and the role of women
3rd July 2010 Alvino Noronha,cssr.