In 2010, the United Nations celebrated achieving its Millennium goal for poverty eradication – to halve extreme poverty between 1990 and 2015. Its website claims that 700 million fewer people lived in conditions of extreme poverty in 2010 than in 1990. Alarmingly, though, 1.2 billion people worldwide are still living in extreme poverty.
In the Pelham Goddard and David Rudder composition, ‘Dus’ in dey face’, they speak about the obsessed steelband men (and women) who, intent on winning the annual Panorama competition, have no time to eat and exist on nuts and corn in their all night sessions. For those who live below the poverty line, this option might even be considered a luxury.
Gregory Aboud, businessman and guest speaker at the opening of the Conference on Poverty and Opportunity drew reference to it as he suggested that the system – not the market – is bad and pointed out that other countries have managed to break the poverty cycle. An efficiently run state, one whose public servants are accountable and held accountable, is required for free markets to yield development was his position.
Secondary and university students, UWI academics and interested persons had gathered at the St. Augustine Campus on April 15 to examine the phenomenon of poverty and possible avenues to create opportunities to lever out of it.
This was not the first time that the Sociology Unit had provided a platform to discuss critical issues. Clement Sankat, Principal and Pro Vice-Chancellor, made the point that these activities offered an opportunity to policymakers to listen, to learn and to inform the process.
Professor Sankat noted that with an “upsurge in the use of illicit drugs, crimes and other potentially destabilizing factors of society, one must seriously consider that as poverty increases there is the likelihood that individuals will turn to crime. Solving poverty therefore is not merely about giving charity, rather it is about giving opportunity.”
“One sure way of getting out of poverty is through education and training and hence we must do all that we can, to give at least the children of disadvantaged homes an opportunity for schooling beginning with early childhood education. I am therefore a big supporter of our country’s effort to build our capacity in early childhood education,” he said.
The 2015 participants were set on changing the conversation. They sought to answer questions such as why does poverty exist. What are the consequences and challenges (social, economic and political, the fear of “stepping out’) of poverty? And, how can the cycle of poverty be broken? Public sector and private sector perspectives spotlighted avenues available to persons to create opportunities to take themselves out of poverty.
David Balfour, PhD student, clarified that objective. The conference, he said, was about identifying opportunities so that poverty does not mean helplessness or hopelessness. “It also means opportunity. The poor not only need a hand out, they need a hand up.”
Traditionally, women and children are the most vulnerable. One student, Katherine Inniss, spoke of the ‘new poor’ of this century. Poverty has become one of the main threats to the wellbeing of an aging population, linked to low income, lack of pension benefits, low literacy, poor health and malnutrition (unfpa 2012). Inniss addressed issues such as costs associated with health care, caregiving and living in one’s own space. Add into the mix, environmental shocks (natural disasters), recreation and leisure and income security.
Another speaker, David D. Ramjohn of Synergy Resources, summed it up best:
“There is no single magic bullet that will eradicate poverty. We need a, focused, coordinated, comprehensive, judicious system of context-based and outcome-driven policies and programmes that capitalize on the strengths of the private and public sectors as well as civil society and the fourth and fifth estates to achieve clearly defined goals and objectives with meaningful targets.
If we fail, the poor alone will not suffer.
Poverty is everyone’s business.” |
