HEADLINES OF THE DAY: ANOTHER 15,000 PEOPLE DIED YESTERDAY BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO POOR TO LIVE. THE RICH INCREASED THEIR WEALTH YESTERDAY BY $0.3 BILLION. THE 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IS ONE DAY NEARER.
“O Ye rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”
Bahá’u’lláh
A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis at willisdavid167@gmail.com. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE TO POVERTY (Part 87). This blog is a continuation of the review of ENDING GLOBAL POVERTY: A GUIDE TO WHAT WORKS by Stephen C. Smith, published in 2005.
Mental health has deteriorated significantly
Mental health has deteriorated significantly in the former Soviet Union and southeast Europe, along with the general decline in health and incomes.
Depression an anxiety are often considered afflictions of affluent societies, but they are pervasive among the poor in developing countries.
These mental health problems are a consequence of poverty, but then become also its cause – another poverty trap.
Mental illness deprives the poor of “capabilities to function.” Poor mental health, in addition, is also often associated with poor physical health.
In some African countries AIDS is creating a virtual generation of orphans. Over 10 million AIDS orphans lived in Africa in 2000.
Providing basic needs for these orphans, ensuring that they are not discriminated against out of irrational fears, and seeing that they are able to obtain the few years of schooling that will help rescue them from absolute poverty is a major challenge in the struggle against poverty.
Political analysts claim conditions are ripe not only for child abuse and exploitation, but for recruiting children for guerrilla armies led by unscrupulous aspiring dictators or mercenary groups.
The resulting destabilization and diversion of resources can have a devastating social and economic development impact.
Individual empowerment must take place in a context of participation in much broader, empowered communities. This leads us to the final key.
The Eighth Key: Community empowerment to ensure effective participation in the wider world
Having power is critical to your ability to take control of your life, and to take advantage of opportunities to escape from poverty traps.
Empowering the poor also frees them to innovate, to envision new possibilities, to become more productive, to find new ways to solve problems, and to form productive, cooperative relationships with others to achieve shared goals.
To escape from poverty requires empowered people within a community that is empowered to function within the wider world.
The poor depend on their community’s security to survive, to defend their rights, and to preserve their opportunities to improve the lives of their families.
Communities must have and maintain peace to be empowered. Civil strife is still one of the greatest impediments to ending global poverty.
Community empowerment is key to security.
Your community, or communities, however humble, must be informed, empowered to stand up for their interests, and able to defend their rights.
The poor need democracy and human rights as much as do the rich.
Empowerment supports the other keys to capability
Empowerment supports the other keys to capability. Without empowerment there may be no access to markets and land. While greater income can do much even in the short run, it cannot guarantee a sustainable escape from poverty traps if the poor are still not in a position to access education and healthcare, if they cannot demand that government provide a functioning road to a wider market, if income can only be gained in a grossly demeaning or dependency producing way, or if the poor live and work in an environment being undermined by outside forces lacking accountability.
The goals and means are often the same
The goals and means are often the same in the best poverty alleviation programs. Health, education, environmental sustainability, personal and community empowerment, access to economic opportunity: All these are worthy ends in themselves as well as prerequisites for escaping poverty traps. Effective poverty programs don’t just deliver services – they build capabilities and sustainable assets.