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Introduction
In the last instalment of this treatise, we tracked the link between good governance, leadership and poverty reduction. We also talked about the evolution of good governance as a policy tool. Today, we shall continue with the same theme by looking at the idea of poverty, its meaning, concept and material conditions, including social relationships. Thereafter, we shall access democracy as a vehicle to poverty reduction and later examine the idea that good governance is a sine quo non to poverty reduction. Enjoy.
GOOD GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY REDUCTION
The Idea of Poverty
According to Paul Spicker (Paul Spicker: Poverty, democratic governance and poverty reduction), poverty is often represented as basically a simple issue – a lack of resources, a lack of essential items or a pattern of deprivation. The World Bank refers to $1 or $2 a day, revised later to include $1.25 – an indicator based on income. But this is not a “measure” of poverty – they are arbitrary figures – and treating the indicator as a definition of poverty confuses the signpost with the thing it is pointing to. Poverty is a complex, multidimensional set of experiences, understood in different ways at different times. He identified twelve clusters of meaning – related “families “of concepts, viz:
Material conditions:
•the lack of specific goods and items, such as housing, fuel, or food;
•a pattern or “web” of deprivation, where people have multiple deprivations, or they may be frequently deprived, though there may be considerable fluctuations in circumstances; or
•a generally low standard of living, where poverty becomes a struggle to manage in everyday life.
Some concepts of poverty are based in economic circumstances:
•a lack of resources, especially income, but there may also be very limited assets;
•an “economic distance” from the rest of the population, or a degree of inequality, which means that people are unable to buy the resources that others can buy;
•economic class – an economic status, or relationship to production and the labour market, which means that people are consistently likely to be disadvantaged or deprived;
Then there are social relationships:
•poverty as dependency on financial support and state benefits;
•poverty as a set of social roles and statuses, exemplified in the idea of the “underclass”;
•the problem of exclusion, which implies not simply that poor people are rejected, but that they are not part of the networks of social solidarity and support than most people in a society rely on;
Other News
•a “lack of basic security”, “the absence of one of more factors that enable individuals and families to assume basic responsibilities and to enjoy fundamental rights” (Wresinski Report of the Economic and Social Council of France 1987, cited in K Duffy 1995, Social exclusion and human dignity in Europe, Council of Europe CDPS(95) 1 Rev.p.36).
•a lack of entitlement, in the sense that poor people do not have the rights to access and use resources that others can; this is also referred to, by Sen or Nussbaum, as a lack of “capabilities” (A Sen, 1981, Poverty and Famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford: Clarendon Press; M Nussbaum, 2006, Poverty and human functioning: capabilities as fundamental entitlements, in D Grusky, R Kanbur (eds.), Poverty and Inequality, Stanford: Stanford University Press.).
Last, but not least, there is the view that poverty is a normative concept, referring to severe hardship or a situation that is morally unacceptable. The moral content of poverty implies not simply that poverty is approved or disapproved of, but that the simple fact of accepting the term also carries a moral imperative – a sense that something must be done. That can be countered by denying that people are poor, or finding some other moral reason for rejecting the claim for support.
DEMOCRACY: THE VEHICLE TO POVERTY REDUCTION
Democratic approaches and methods are widely seen as a prerequisite for the achievement of greater prosperity; democracy itself has been represented, particularly in the work of Amartya Sen, as fundamental to the protection of the poor. In recent years, strategies for poverty reduction have been developed by the leading international institutions on the basis that an extension of democratic practice – through deliberation, transparency and effective governance – is the best way to address the problems of world poverty.
MEANING AND CONCEPT OF POVERTY
Poverty is defined as lack of capability to do things and development as ‘freedom’. (Amartya Kumar Sen, Development as Freedom; (Paperback – August 15, 2000)). According to Wikipedia, “Poverty is the state of human beings who are poor. That is, they have little or no material means of surviving — little or no food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, education, and other physical means of living and improving one’s life”. For the World Bank, three elements – deprivation, vulnerability and powerlessness – should be considered when defining poverty (Kessy, Flora L. and Arne Tostensen ( ( Eds.) Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd 2008) Out of Poverty. Comparative Poverty Reduction Strategies in Eastern and Southern Africa). They noted “being poor means being deprived of basic needs such as food, shelter, education, and health. Living at the margin also makes the poor particularly vulnerable to adverse shocks, both natural disasters and human-made calamities.
A third dimension of being poor is powerlessness: the poor are ill equipped to alter the social relations that made them poor in the first instance”. In this way, development means empowerment of people individually and collectively, and thus helps to take them out of a poverty situation.
GOOD GOVERNMENT IS A SINE QUA NON IN POVERTY REDUCTION
Development that reduces poverty is likely to go along with a democratic government. It should be noted that in order to facilitate good governance – which is a long term goal – there is a need for a good government. This would result in a government that is responsive to the needs of the people. Good governance is credited for responsiveness to the needs of the wider population especially the poor and vulnerable sections who normally benefit from pro-poor policies and programmes.
Good governance is a critical policy requirement for a successful poverty reduction strategy and human development progress of any country. Where governance is poor it is difficult to imagine how equitable development can take place and where there is inequity the chances that some sections of the society will be left to live in poverty and misery are high.
Democracy is believed by many to be necessary for economic development. In the literature of political science, it is possible to read about government in terms which suggest that the primary function of government is to provide security and defence, but that does not begin to capture what has been happening in the world. In the course of the last twenty five years or so, we have seen a proliferation of new states and systems of democratic government, particularly led by European and Asian governments which have moved away from Communism. What they are hoping to achieve is not security – something the former Communist bloc managed rather effectively – but prosperity. Any generalisation about the link between democracy and the position of the poor should be subject to some reservations.
Paul Spicker, believes that there are marked differences in the policies, practice and overall commitment of different democratic countries, It can be difficult to decide whether or not a country is “democratic” – the term seems to be infinitely flexible, and most countries in the world would claim to be democratic regardless of their institutional arrangements or philosophy. The figures are unreliable and subject to interpretation. Ross offers a cold dose of scepticism. He argues that the claims that democracy benefits the poor are misplaced: they have not taken account issues that distinguish certain countries, or differences within countries; they have not looked at the importance of particular trends, such as health and mortality; and they are based on biased data, often excluding information from authoritarian governments because the data are missing (M Ross, 2006, Is democracy good for the poor?, American Journal of Political 14 Science, 50(4) 860-874. cited in Pual Spicker, supra.).
Although, Suchitra Punyaratabandhu posits that the connection between governance and poverty reduction is somewhat tenuous. On the one hand, there is some empirical evidence to suggest that weak governance reinforces poverty. On the other hand, the link between governance and poverty is sometimes accorded a priori status, i.e., it is simply assumed to be true (Suchitra Punyaratabandhu, Commitment To Good Governance, Development, And Poverty Reduction: Methodological Issues In The Evaluation Of Progress At National And Local Levels. A Paper Prepared For The Sixth Session Of The Committee On Development Policy March 29 – April 2, 2004). Nevertheless, problems of poverty and governance are inextricably linked. Weak governance of public institutions imposes direct costs on the poor. For instance, the failure of municipal governments to recognize and protect the property rights of the urban poor creates disincentives for the accumulation physical assets. Widespread discriminatory practices against the poor, particularly women, in labour and credit markets are tolerated at significant cost in terms of foregone wealth creation. Institutional dysfunction also imposes indirect costs by preventing states from undertaking collective actions on behalf of the poor (http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/toolkitsgovernance1.pdf)
Public resources are often misallocated away from high return, poverty reduction activities (for example, primary education or basic infrastructure) because policymaking processes fail to reflect the preferences of poor citizens. In certain countries, the reach of legitimate political authority is so limited and public administration rife with patronage that collective action –of any kind, especially that which is pro-poor—becomes nearly impossible. The recent literature on poverty gives voice to these governance concerns and is increasingly focused on identifying institutional arrangements that are most likely to produce results favourable to the poor.
According to Ezirim, governance has political and economic aspects; the former deals with the way a nation is governed; how the citizens, institutions, and government articulate their interests, mediate their differences, exercise their rights and obligations, and agree in a relationship. In this regard, governance deals with how power is exercised, how open the political process is, how decisions are made, and how much participation citizens are allowed in decision-making and in the management of public affairs. The economic aspect deals mainly with how societal resources are managed and the role of governments in the process of socioeconomic development. The economic aspects also provide the context in which corporate governance is practiced by setting the laws under which corporations are established and the regulatory framework for the conduct of corporate affairs (Ezirim, Gerald Ekenedirichukwu, Democraticgovernance And Poverty Eradication Inapost-Militarynigeria:Any Significant Differences? Avaliable at http://www.academia.edu/ accessed 16-05-13). (To be continued).
Thought for the week
“Public servants should be focused on serving the public – not any special interest group, and good governance should be an expectation – not an exception”. – Abigail Spanberger
