id21 viewpoints

id21 invites development workers, activists and researchers to contribute their points of view on development issues. Laurence Taylor, a consultant and trainer in development planning and evaluation, comments on the appropriateness of the language used in development approaches.

Making poverty history?

Over the past decades there has been a succession of global initiatives addressing the challenge of poverty. The United Nations (UN) and others have committed themselves first to an 'assault' on world poverty and then to its 'eradication' or 'elimination'. Now we have the campaign to 'make poverty history'.

In 1973 Henry Kissinger addressed the UN and proclaimed "a bold objective that in ten years time no child will go to bed hungry or fear for his next day's bread". In 1975 Brian Walker, Director of OXFAM, spoke about the possibility of "abolishing poverty from the human condition". But despite sectoral progress in many places the evidence of the last 30 years is that poverty (however defined) is becoming more severe for more and more people.

In trying to do something about poverty, have men and women of energy and goodwill been thinking about it in a realistic way? Do the words that we commonly use to describe our intentions and our initiatives reveal a less than adequate understanding of the 'nature' and the 'processes' of poverty? Is there a danger that our resources, our efforts, our programmes, our commitment may lead to little improvement if it is not rooted and grounded in a more adequate 'understanding'?

A Bangladeshi engineer, Mohammed Ikramullah, once pointed out that the perception of poverty is always relative to local experience and the local environment. Comparing his own situation in Bangladesh with that in Britain, he stated that "the first stage of your poverty is what I am dreaming to become".

I don't think it helps to try and 'assault' poverty. Poverty is not a discrete object that we can hit, an identifiable enemy that we can attack. In this context, are we using the right word when we talk about 'impact' in seeking to measure the effects of our development efforts?

To 'eliminate' means to thrust across the threshold, to expel. It is what the strict Victorian father might do to his unmarried but embarrassingly pregnant daughter. Is this what some people are trying to do to poverty? Are some of us subliminally embarrassed by it and want it out of our sight so that we can continue to enjoy our wealth with an easier conscience?

To 'eradicate' is to uproot. Today aid agencies, both government and non-governmental, repeatedly emphasise this word. But is 'eradication' possible? Poverty is not a weed that can be pulled up and burnt. To stay with the agricultural analogy, poverty may be the painful end-result of farm work that (for a variety of reasons) has failed to make a sustainable surplus. That failure may be because the soil is already exhausted or eroded. Or it may be because the farmer used the wrong seed, or planted it too early or too late, or because the rains came too early or too late, or were too little or too much. Or it may be because the farm well is drying up as someone more powerful is pumping down the water table, or because there are bugs eating the crops and the farmer can't afford to pay the price of the multinationals' pesticides. Or it may be because civil war scorched the fields just before harvest-time, or because (even when the farmer managed to reap a good harvest) the local prices collapsed with the dumping of some other country's subsidised surplus in the domestic market. Or those controlling the local market exploited the farmer by extracting an unfair share of the available surplus.

In 2005 there is the massive international effort to MAKE POVERTY HISTORY. Bold and imaginative moves to cancel un-payable debt, work for trade justice and greatly increase the amount and quality of aid are long overdue and this year offers a number of excellent opportunities for making a fresh start. But will poverty ever become a thing of the past?

Two thousand years ago, Jesus did not claim to be a development expert but he advised that "the poor you will always have with you". I find it interesting that he talked not about poverty but about poor people. So, instead of saying what we plan to do about poverty can we give a greater emphasis to what we are trying to do for (or preferably alongside and as partners with) poor people, poor communities, poor countries? Then words like 'assault', 'eradicate' or 'eliminate' might be replaced by more constructively strong and active words like 'challenge', 'empower', 'share' and even 'forgive'. Can we learn from history - which is the unavoidable starting point that cannot in fact be changed - rather than trying to consign the slippery concept of poverty to history?

An African statesman once said of the aid efforts being directed towards his country by well-meaning outsiders that 'if you do not understand, you can't help; you can only interfere'. How will poor people of our own time interpret the words we use about their poverty? Do we need to think again about the nature and dynamic processes of poverty and search afresh for the more appropriate words to describe our response to it? Might it be better to concentrate on what we plan to do with and for poor people, listening more carefully to their analysis of their own very varied experiences? Should we have greater confidence to turn away from the current vocabulary that speaks of forceful (but perhaps ineffective) action against abstractions and emphasise instead some realistic words of long-term commitment, to work in partnership with others for justice, basic needs, right relationships and sustainability?

Contributor
Laurence Taylor
Email LTaylorSOC@aol.com

July 2005

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