What the Poor Say

In the past people were at ease (Mertaha) and money was valuable (El-Felous Kan laha eema), but now it is not. Bong Meghezel, Egypt.

Now there are hungry children, and before it was not so evident. There are children that knock on your door and ask for bread, children without shoes. This one would never see before. La Matanza, Argentina.

If we knew that there would be an end to this crisis, we would endure it somehow. Be it for one year, or even for ten years. But now all we can do is sit and wait for the end to come. A woman from Entropole, Bulgaria.

 

A large majority of poor people consulted felt they were either worse off or no better off today than they were previously. There were exceptions -- associated with broad positive changes in Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh (although in the latter case positive changes for the poor were adversely affected by the devastating floods of 1998). There were also exceptions at the level of individual communities, due to the positive effects of new infrastructure in parts of urban Brazil, tourism in Jamaica and export zones in Sri Lanka. In countries that had suffered civil disturbance or war, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somaliland and Sri Lanka, poor people considered themselves much better off than during the periods of unrest, but had not regained their pre-disturbance levels. In Malawi, the gain in political freedoms was felt to have improved poor people’s wellbeing, but had on the whole not been matched in other domains of life. The experience of the majority of those who participated in the Consultations was that the quality of their lives has become worse, not better.

Economically, there was a widespread, if not universal, sense that opportunities were unevenly distributed, and that those who started with advantages had been able to exploit them, while the poor found it difficult or impossible to do so. In terms of security, conditions for poor people had become worse in most countries and at most sites. Heightened insecurity variously affected livelihoods, property, and personal safety. In discussing institutions, poor people did not give high ratings to government officials and political leaders, and NGOs were mentioned less and less highly rated than might have been expected. Poor people indicated repeatedly, and in many contexts, that they trust and rely on their own local, informal institutions for support in crisis and in daily life, and rank them high in importance even while recognising their limitations. The message from the poor is that outside organisations and development policies designed for their benefit have been less significant than is usually assumed by those who work in development agencies.

The reasons for the lack of opportunities, increased insecurity, and flat or downward trend in wellbeing differed by region. There were, however, common themes: people said that they miss out on many opportunities because of the need to have "connections" and because of their lack of information, assets, credit, skills and business acumen. Repeatedly, their message was that "it is the rich who benefit" from policy changes. Particularly in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Latin America, poor people spoke about macro-economic and political change. In Africa and East Asia, poor people tended to emphasize rising costs of living and prices and, in South Asia, economic and social issues at the family and community level. In Africa and Asia, the poor also discussed the uncertainty of depending on rainfed agriculture and land-related issues.

The Consultations showed that these disadvantages are compounded by a combination of "time poverty", physical weakness, lack of energy, and powerlessness. Together, these multiple disadvantages not only hold poor people down, they make them vulnerable to losing even what they have. Analyses of life stories of men and women who had fallen back into poverty confirms the precariousness of small gains that are vulnerable to big slides back downwards. The most common triggers for the descent back into poverty were illness, injury, or death of a close family member. These had an especially large impact on households in Africa and Asia. Other triggers included a decline in economic opportunities, the cost of raising children, old age, cost of living increases, natural disasters, divorce and desertion (for women), declining profitability of agriculture and business, lower wages, theft, civil conflict, indebtedness, and many others. Life story patterns showed that the poor with few assets would, with great effort, slowly creep upward, only to be plunged back into poverty by illness, loss of employment, poor crops or, for women, desertion. There is usually nothing to prevent them from falling into the abyss. And when they do fall, there is often nobody waiting to catch them at the bottom or to lend a hand as they attempt to start over.

A major trap for the poor is simply where they live. A resident of Nova California, a slum in Brazil, said "The sewage runs in your front door, and when it rains, the water floods into the house and you need to lift the things…the waste brings some bugs, here we have rats, cockroaches, spiders, and even snakes and scorpions." Only too often, the poor live on marginal land, ill-served by transport, water or other amenities, isolated from information and subject to environmental hazards, inadequate shelter and insecure rights.

Some slum areas in Sofia, Bulgaria are polluted and stink, as there is no garbage collection or other communal services. The Roma feel they are "treated like dogs." In urban slums in Dhaka, Bangladesh, shanties of bamboo have been constructed on raised platforms over a big ditch, which is used for all sorts of waste disposal. When babies fall into the ditch they sink and are lost. In slums in Argentina, oil spills send fire down the clogged up canals along which the poor live, and factory waste clogs up drains. In slums in Malawi, the physical conditions were so bad and hopeless that the poor said, "the only way we can get out of poverty is through death." Residents of such areas not only have to put up with these living conditions, they find an "area stigma" attached to them that deters potential employers.

Next: Four problems with the system: Corruption