POVERTY & MALARIA: Poverty and fever vulnerability in Nigeria: a multilevel analysis

Background
Malaria remains a major public health problem in Sub Saharan Africa, where widespread poverty also contribute to the burden of the disease. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the prevalence of childhood fever and socioeconomic factors including poverty in Nigeria, and to examine these effects at the regional levels.
Methods
Determinants of fever in the last two weeks among children under five years were examined from the 25004 children records extracted from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2008 data set. A two-level random effects logistic model was fitted.
Results
About 16% of children reported having fever in the two weeks preceding the survey. The prevalence of fever was highest among children from the poorest households (17%), compared to 15.8% among the middle households and lowest among the wealthiest (13%) (p<0.0001). p="0.082)." or="1.27," or="0.92," p="0.022,">6months), whereas the effect of wealth no longer reached statistical significance.
Conclusion
While, overall bednet possession was low, less fever was reported in households that possessed bednets. Malaria control strategies and interventions should be designed that will target the poor and make an impact on poverty. The mechanism through which wealth may affect malaria occurrence needs further investigation.
http://www.malariajournal.com/content/9/1/235

POVERTY: Was the poverty of Africa determined in 1000 BC?

By William Easterly Published July 15, 2010
The usual development conversation about determinants of per capita income revolves around modern choices of institutions or economic policies. But what if history is the main determinant of development today?
A paper by Diego Comin, Erick Gong, and myself was just published in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. We collected crude but informative data on the state of technology in various parts of the world in 1000 BC, 0 AD, and 1500 AD.
1500 AD technology is a particularly powerful predictor of per capita income today. 78 percent of the difference in income today between sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe is explained by technology differences that already existed in 1500 AD – even BEFORE the slave trade and colonialism.

Moreover, these technological differences had already appeared by 1000 BC. The state of technology in 1000 BC has a strong correlation with technology 2500 years later, in 1500 AD.
Why do technological differences persist for so long? The ability to invent new technologies is much greater when you have more advanced technology already. James Watt had acquired a lot of tech experience in the mining industry which he used to invent the steam engine. Other people with the ability to make steel could then slap his steam engine on a vehicle running along steel rails and give us railroads.
Past technology alters probabilities of future success, but does not completely determine it. The most famous counter-example: China was historically technologically advanced and did NOT have the industrial revolution.
A large role for history is still likely to sit uncomfortably with modern development practitioners, because you can’t change your history. But we have to face the world as it is, not as we would like it to be: deal with it. Perhaps when you acknowledge the importance of your own history, you are then more likely to transcend it.

POVERTY: Child witchcraft allegations on the rise

DAKAR, 16 July 2010 (IRIN) - Accusations of child witchcraft are on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa - spurred on by urbanization, poverty, conflict and fragmenting communities, creating a "multi-crisis" for already vulnerable children - says the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). A wide spectrum of children are at risk, including orphans, street-children, albinos, those with physical disabilities or abnormalities such as autism, those with aggressive or solitary temperaments, children who are unusually gifted; those who were born prematurely or in unusual positions, and twins. Broadly-speaking, the notion of sorcery can be translated as the ability to harm someone through the use of "mystical power". Most of the accused are boys and most aged 8-14, says the report, Children Accused of Witchcraft; an anthropological study of contemporary practices in West Africa. [http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/2009_5473.html] Some of the countries with the highest prevalence rates include Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Nigeria, according to the report. [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=48287] No comprehensive study has been undertaken to indicate the extent of the phenomenon, says Joachim Theis, UNICEF's child protection adviser in West Africa. However, according to discrete studies, "thousands" of children have been accused of witchcraft and subsequently thrown out of their homes in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi in the DRC; Mbanza Kongo capital of Zaire Province, Uige and Luanda in northern Angola; and a large number in Akwa Ibom state in southeastern Nigeria. Accused children end up being attacked, burned, beaten, and sometimes killed, according to the researchers. Exorcisms can include forcing children to fast; pouring petrol into children's eyes or ears, beatings and being forced to swallow various substances. Many confessions are extracted under duress or violence, says the report. Modern phenomenon Contrary to wide-held perceptions in the West, child witchcraft in Africa is not an ancient "African tradition" but a relatively modern phenomenon dating back 10-20 years, says report author Aleksandra Cimpric. Before this, elderly people, and particularly women, tended to be accused. The increase in accusations seems partly associated with the growing economic burden of raising children, linked to urbanization, separation of families and the weakening of family structures, says UNICEF's Theis; it is reinforced by the emergence of Pentecostal or revivalist churches in many of the affected countries. Exploitative pastor-prophets claiming to be able to identify witches and offering exorcisms provide additional legitimization for witchcraft accusations. Their lucrative vocation complements the work of traditional healers, who also fight against the malevolent forces of the "other world", the report noted. In a televised case in Nigeria, "Bishop" Sunday Ulup Ay in Akwa Ibom state in the southeast made a personal fortune through exorcisms, charging $261 per child. He has since been arrested. [http://www.iheu.org/un-publishes-iheu-statement-witchcraft-africa] Sorcery in Africa is not a uniform belief, says Theis. "It has spiritual, economic and social drivers... It gets blurred with all sorts of other beliefs, but it cannot always be put into one box." Protecting children Child protection agencies cannot try to shape beliefs in witchcraft but must take a strict child protection approach to combat accusations, says Theis: "We're not trying to eradicate a belief in witchcraft that we cannot necessarily understand. But we are saying violence and abuse against children is wrong and must stop, and we must use every method to stop it." He continued: "We can use some of the same methods we've already developed to address other forms of violence and abuse against children." Many accused children are abandoned street children and require the same kind of rehabilitation and reintegration as they do, he said. Some of the methods proven to work - as played out in Katanga Province, in southern DRC - include raising awareness among (and by) communities; negotiating with families, children and religious leaders on individual cases; finding allies in local churches who can help spread the word; providing services for vulnerable children; and enforcing the law; according to UNICEF. Putting in place better basic services to cater for children's needs and helping to strengthen the protective structure of the family can also reduce the risks associated with witchcraft accusations, says the report. Legislation Rather than legislation to protect children, in Cameroon, CAR, Chad and Gabon practicing witchcraft is outlawed, leading, in CAR's case, to a large number of child witchcraft cases being brought to the family courts. Many of the children end up in prison. "We want laws against accusations of witchcraft against children," Theis told IRIN. "It may not be possible to change attitudes, but we can raise awareness among families, legal professionals, doctors, change legislation, mobilize - all of this can have an impact. Witchcraft beliefs were deeply entrenched in Western countries for many years, and take a long time to disappear," said Theis.

POVERTY: Sahel: cause of hunger

SAHEL: Short of cash rather than foodDAKAR, 30 June 2010 (IRIN) - The ongoing food crisis in the Sahel is actually a purchasing power crisis: there is food in the markets, but the poorest households cannot afford it. "Cash transfers need to be immediately organized to allow families to buy food," said Bakari Seidou, food security advisor to Save the Children UK.Erratic weather patterns and poor rainfall are affecting the region's poorest - a third of rural households Niger, Mauritania and Mali. "They can only cover one-third of their food needs through their production, except in more fertile areas in the south," said Seidou. "The market is their main source of food, but they need money. Their main source of cash is their labour: they earn an average of 20 cents a day per person; even if there is food available on the markets, they can not afford it." Qualitative household economic surveys by NGOs and national early warning systems from September 2007 to May 2010 in rural areas in Niger, Mali and Mauritania looked at where and how households found their food, their source and level of income, and the proportion used to pay for food and basic services, including health and education.Key findings includeSubstantial wealth gap: in agricultural areas, the richest earn from nine to 15 times more than the poorest; even though they only represent 15 percent of households, the richest own more than half the cultivated land and cattle.Chronic food shortages: the poorest families are unable to meet their food needs, especially during the lean season from May to August, even in years when good rain brought healthy production; moreover, in agricultural areas the protein-deficient cereal diet is poor in nutrition.Insufficient agricultural production: the poorest families have insufficient earning power; more than 50 percent of household income comes from paid labour, but significant numbers are unable to secure work locally and are forced to migrate or sell their land to buy food and pay debts.More than half the income of the poorest goes to food: even in agricultural areas, food purchases eat up more than half of family income; any food price increase means a family may eat less, consume food of poor nutritional value, or cut education and health expenses. Cattle cash: sales of cattle are the main source of income for richer families; milk [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=89465] from the cattle provides a more balanced diet. A recent study in Niger by Save the Children UK showed that cattle owners could have a proper diet at half the cost [http://www.cic.ne/IMG/zip/Comprendre_leconomie_des_menages_ruraux_low_res.zip] of what those who did not have animals would have to spend.

POVERTY: Inhibits education

ZIMBABWE: No chance to prepare for the future HARARE, 23 June 2010 (IRIN) - Chenai Moyo, 18, is confident she would have passed the examinations at her school in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, but for two years in a row there was no money; now she has to fend for the family and depends on an older man for support. "I couldn't register for examinations last year [2009] because my father had just passed away, and the little money that was there went towards his burial. My mother is not employed and now that she is ill the situation is worse for me and my brothers," Moyo told IRIN. Her mother tested positive for HIV in 2009. Moyo was a brilliant student but said she would probably never sit her O-Level examinations, a school-leaving certificate. "My mother talked me into marrying this man, who is an elder in our church. He has promised to look after my ill mother and my two brothers, but I have given up hope of ever going to school again," she said. She is not alone: recent education ministry statistics showed that some 100,000 learners (33 percent of those eligible to write O-level exams) and around 10,700 learners (29 percent of those eligible for A-level exams) had failed to register. "This year ... there are a number of students out there who have failed [to register] because of poverty," education minister David Coltart said in a statement. Zimbabwe's ailing education system, once a model for sub-Saharan Africa, has buckled and all but collapsed under the economic and political crises of the past decade, when widespread food shortages, hyperinflation, cholera outbreaks, and an almost year-long strike by teachers in 2008 led to a dramatic decline in the standard of learning. It is not uncommon for 10 pupils to share a textbook, and although the government drastically slashed school fees in February 2009, deepening poverty put even the reduced cost of attending government schools in some areas beyond the reach of thousands of children. The government extended the initial exam registration deadline of 28 May by two weeks, but most people were sceptical that parents and students who had previously been unable to pay the fees - US$10 per O-level subject and US$20 per A-level subject - would be able to raise the money in time. "The extension means nothing at all - the period is too short, and one wonders why the government is in such a hurry to close the door on students," the president of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), Raymond Majongwe, told IRIN. "Besides, late entrants will be fined US$5 per subject and we don't know where the government expects the poor parents that have failed to raise the examination fees to get the extra amount." Majongwe said he thought the ministry's figure for the number of students who had failed to register for examinations was an "understatement" of the gravity of the situation. "According to our own independent surveys, close to 200,000 O- and A-level students have been denied the chance to prepare for their future. There are thousands who have resigned themselves to fate, as they have failed to write in the past and are not part of the current statistics since they are not attending school," he pointed out. A headmaster at a secondary school in Seke rural district, about 40km south of the capital, said only 30 students at his school would write their O-level examinations this year. "I was supposed to have 125 students sitting for their O-level examinations but only a handful managed to register," he noted. "While the examinations fees might not seem too high, it should be remembered that the majority of households in rural areas still have large families to look after, and there is a significant number of child-headed families."

POVERTY: more than insufficient money: World Bank view

We economists tend to see well-being, and poverty in particular, as a matter of finances and income. But fortunately, at least in the Bank, we have come a long way from that simplistic view. Reducing poverty is not only about increasing productivity and income. It is about enabling people to have a broad sense of well-being and opportunities to express and make choices about their lives.
As the famous Bank series “Voices of the Poor” and the follow up “Moving Out of Poverty” have shown us, poverty is much more than lacking a steady or sufficient source of income. Being poor is being vulnerable: to crime and violence, to the lack of justice and access to services. Being poor means inability to negotiate, bargain, and get paid. Poverty, in a nutshell, is a kind of decline in social connectedness. So that’s why social solidarity and cultural identity are so relevant to poverty reduction
http://blogs.worldbank.org/growth/node/8728

POVERTY: Many Thai workers, now out of poverty, are in dissent

NONBON, THAILAND -- San Silawat has three dogs, two cows and a parrot. He grows rice and spring onions on a small plot of land. But he's hardly a pauper: He's added a second floor to his house and built a blue-tiled patio. His son plays computer games in the front room. His daughter recently bought a Nissan pickup truck. His granddaughter studies nursing in Bangkok.
For all his relatively good fortune, however, San is certain about one thing: "Life is definitely getting worse," said the 62-year-old farmer, grumbling about the price of gasoline, school fees and a political and economic system he sees as rigged in favor of the rich.
Last month, San and six friends from this village in northeastern Thailand piled into a pickup and drove 14 hours to join "red shirt" protests in Bangkok. During nine weeks of demonstrations, scores of other rural folk from Nonbon and nearby settlements made the same 390-mile trip.
Beneficiaries of an economic boom that, in just three decades, has cut the proportion of Thais living below the poverty line from 42 percent to about 8 percent, San and his family represent both the promise and the peril of Asia's dizzying transformation.
From China in the north to Indonesia in the south, hundreds of millions of people are now living far better than a generation ago. But the gap that separates them from the rich has often grown wider. As their fortunes and expectations have risen, so too has their frustration. And, as recent turmoil in Thailand has shown, this can mean big trouble.
San and his neighbors rallied to the red shirts not because they are hungry, uninformed and desperate but because they are no longer any of those things. Though still very poor compared with Bangkok residents who cheered the red shirts' defeat when government troops moved in on May 19, they are a better-off, better-informed and far more demanding voice in national affairs than their elders. San buys and reads a newspaper every day.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/08/AR2010060805224.html

POVERTY: photographic misrepresentation equals corruption

We’ve all seen it: the photo of a teary-eyed African child, dressed in rags, smothered in flies, with a look of desperation that the caption all too readily points out. Some organization has made a poster that tells you about the realities of poverty, what they are doing about it, and how your donation will change things.
I reacted very strongly to these kinds of photos when I returned from Africa in 2008. I compared these photos to my own memories of Malawian friends and felt lied to. How had these photos failed so spectacularly to capture the intelligence, the laughter, the resilience, and the capabilities of so many incredible people?
The truth is that the development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive. Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public. I found it outrageous that such an incomplete and often inaccurate story was being so widely perpetuated by the organizations on the ground – the very ones with the ability and the responsibility to communicate the realities of rural Africa accurately.
This is not to say that people do not struggle, far from it, but the photos I was seeing only told part of the story. I thought that these images were robbing people of their dignity, and I felt that the rest of the story should be told as well. Out of this came the idea for a photography project, which I am tentatively calling “Perspectives of Poverty”. I am taking two photos of the same person; one photo with the typical symbols of poverty (dejected look, ripped clothes, etc.), and another of this person looking their very finest, to show how an image can be carefully constructed to present the same person in very different ways. I want to bring to light some of the different assumptions we make about a person, especially when we see an image of “poverty” from rural Africa. So far, I have finished two sets in the series and I want to share them with you to get reactions and hopefully generate some discussion around this in the early stages of this project.
http://waterwellness.ca/2010/04/28/perspectives-of-poverty/

POVERTY: World Bank predicts increase unless--

Jakarta: The number of extremely poor people in developing countries would increase by 26 million by the year 2020, the World Bank has said.
“Over the next 20 years, the fight against poverty could be hampered if countries are forced to cut productive and human capital investments because of lower development aid and reduced tax revenues,” World Bank said in its statement.
If bilateral aid flows declined, as they had in the past, this could affect long-term growth rates in developing countries, potentially increasing the number of extremely poor in 2020 by as much as 26 million, it said.
http://www.livemint.com/2010/06/11153632/WB-predicts-greater-poverty-in.html

POVERTY: West Africa: Poverty breeds social unrest

Increased social and political tensions due to worsening poverty and deteriorating living conditions have become worrisome trends in a number of West African countries, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General for West Africa, Mr. Said Djinnit has said.
He made the statement at 27th session of ECOWAS mediation and Security Council of ministers held yesterday in Abuja.
Djinnit said poverty needs to be addressed in a timely and appropriate manner, to avoid situations which would inevitably fuel a series of violent struggles for survival, with a significant impact on national and regional stability.
He said many people in the region demand opportunities for better livelihood, social justice in the way national resources are allocated.
"Food insecurity and the floods have been persistently affecting large number of West African populations for a number of years now, increasing frustration, anger and tensions among these populations" he stated.
In his speech, ECOWAS chairman of ministers Odein Ajumogobia said the council will review challenges in the sub-region which include the current political crises in Niger Republic, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire.
In his speech president of ECOWAS commission Victor Gbeho decried the deleterious impact on the social condition and governance by on-going drug trafficking and other transnational organised crime, including money laundering and sadly, human trafficking.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201006090090.html

POVERTY: CHAD: When the cattle die, so does wealth

MAO, 14 June 2010 (IRIN) - In rural Chad cattle are currency, the down-payment on ceremonies, a savings plan during sickness and emergency food in lean times. So the loss of an estimated one-third of the country's livestock to drought has been a disaster, with desperate pastoralists trying to make it until the next rains as best they can. "I have been a herder for 30 years and I do not remember things ever being this bad - not even during the 1970s droughts," Al Hadj Ali Mbodou told IRIN at the weekly cattle market in Mao, 300km north of the capital, N'Djamena. Of 100 cows he had in 2009, 70 have died from lack of water and food. "There used to be trees the animals could rest under; now there is no more shade ... I live from these animals," he said. "Trees can mean life when you are in the desert - when they die, other parts of the desert follow," said Hassan Térap, Chad's environment minister. To hold back the advancing desert the government has begun planting a 40km belt of trees, starting from N'Djamena, which it intends extending into a 1,000km green barrier. A government survey found that the 2009 drought shrivelled pasture, dried up water sources, and killed 780,000 cattle worth US$460 million. It also cut the cereal harvest by 34 percent compared to 2008, throwing two million people who would normally be living off the land into the "at-risk" category. Al Hadj Abakar, a pastoralist from Bourni, 13km from Mao, said he had lost 80 of his 120 animals in the past year. "I am here [at the market] trying to sell two animals to buy food for my family and my remaining animals." With the grazing land denuded, Al Hadj Lamine Ali's cattle have also become desperate from hunger. "They get sick from eating paper, plastic, and anything else they come across. Veterinarians do not make house visits, so they go untreated. We have seen animals dying and droughts before, but with rain the land recovers, and so do the animals. Not this time - no weeds, no water, no trees." In the past year 74 of his 96 cows and 100 of his 150 goats had died; this year five of his animals spontaneously aborted their young, but in the same period last year he lost none. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is distributing 615 tons of animal feed to 45,000 animals. "Our animals have already been through one difficult year," Ali told IRIN in Mao. "If we do not have better rains this year, they are too weak to live."

POVERTY: NEPAL: Disadvantaged children missing out on education

KATHMANDU, 14 June 2010 (IRIN) - Millions of children from marginalized ethnic families in Nepal are drifting out of education because not enough is being done to keep them in school, aid workers warn. "Enrolling them in school and simply providing scholarships is not enough to ensure they continue going to school," said Bhaya Ram Yadav from the Jana Jagran Yuba Club, an NGO that works with disadvantaged children in Bara District, 200km south of the capital Kathmandu. Bara has one of the worst literacy rates in the Himalayan nation, with only 27 percent female and 53 percent male literacy, well below the national averages of 44 and 68 percent respectively, according to the Department of Education. All over Nepal, marginalized families cannot afford to keep their children in school and most students from disadvantaged backgrounds will drop out before grade two. A generation in need There are more than 100 ethnic groups in Nepal, half of which are indigenous and regarded as marginalized, while 22 are classified as "extremely disadvantaged". They make up about 40 percent of the country's 29.3 million inhabitants, while almost one-third of all Nepalese live below the poverty line on less than US$1 a day. "These groups also have the lowest number of children in schools," said education specialist Helen Sherpa from World Education [http://www.worlded.org/], an international NGO working with disadvantaged children. World Education has supported more than 150,000 children by rescuing them from exploitative work conditions, providing scholarships and helping parents find income-generating activities. "They all come from the most exploited communities who are impoverished, suffer from social inequalities and most children have dropped out of school to work in risky situations," Sherpa said. More than one million children in Nepal work as domestic servants, porters, carpet weavers, bricklayers and miners, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), which estimates there are about 55,000 children working as domestic servants and more than 16,000 in adult establishments, such as massage parlours and dance restaurants. Nepal has 7.3 million students in the school system at primary, secondary and high-school level, according to the Department of Education, but only 116,000 are from marginalised backgrounds. Incentives not enough To combat the problem, the government has a programme of community schooling, whereby local communities take over management responsibilities at schools; 60 percent of the funding comes from the government and the rest from the communities. But observers are not convinced the initiative is having the desired effect. "This is a good idea, but it does not solve the problem of equality issues in diverse communities in Nepal, as not all communities are capable of managing schools, especially in low-literacy areas," said education specialist Sumon Tuladhar from the UN Children's Agency (UNICEF). These low-literacy areas cover about two-thirds of the country. The government has provided 2.4 million scholarships over the past 10 years for students up to grade eight, but NGOs say the impact has been minimal because the scholarships are only $5 per child annually. "That amount does not even cover the school fees in most public schools," said Prakash Adhikari, executive president of the Innovative Forum for Community Development. [http://www.ifcd.org.np] A comprehensive, integrated humanitarian approach, including food aid, nutritional support and economic aid to families, is needed to help these children, he said. "The reality is that unless we start a special integrated package, the problem of children leaving the school system will always be there. We admit that the government needs a different approach," said Hari Lamsal, deputy director of the Department of Education's planning division. Although Lamsal's department has a limited mandate, he said he has been raising the issue of an integrated package with other ministries, especially the Ministry of Local Development. "We definitely need a special integrated package that should include agricultural and income-generating activities for parents."

POVERTY: Liberia rain forest

JALAY TOWN, Liberia — Six months pregnant and with two toddlers to feed, saving the rainforest isn't top of Marita Worjiloh's list of priorities right now.
A log lies smoking amid burned, jagged tree stumps as Marita tosses seeds into the fertile soil gouged out of Liberia's jungle.
She knows this traditional method of slash-and-burn farming is decimating woodlands, but "if I had something to do to make money I won't cut the forest down, because I know it is important."
"Without a forest we would not live a good life."
So while conservationists worry about preserving rainforests -- a powerful aid against climate change -- and the biodiversity they offer, it is poverty that drives this 23-year-old.
Liberia's forest makes up 42 percent of what is left of the Upper Guinean Rainforest -- just part of a fragmented system that once covered most of West Africa but has been reduced to 12 percent of its original reach.
The people of this west African nation have relied on the forest for food, medicine and even as a refuge during two successive civil conflicts from 1989 to 2003.
Villagers also have been razing large patches for farmland and hunting the wildlife for meat.
The threat of deforestation is real with about 70 percent of the population involved in slash-and-burn farming, said Johansen Voker, the acting executive director of Liberia's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
A traditional method used worldwide, slash-and-burn involves felling trees, burning their remains for nutrient-rich ash, and planting fast-growing crops such as rice and cassava.
The land should then be allowed to regenerate but pressure from burgeoning populations often decreases this fallow period and can lead to permanent loss of forest cover.
Despite efforts to introduce more sustainable ways to live off the forest, poverty is the biggest threat to biodiversity, said Voker, leading to illegal logging, mining and burning charcoal as fuel.
"It is poverty that drives people into burning charcoal as a source of fuel and it is poverty that drives people into the kind of unsustainable farming we are talking about," he said.
"What they think about is how they can cut down a tree to produce charcoal and that charcoal will put a bowl of rice on their table."
According to a 2010 report on deforestation by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Africa lost 3.4 million hectares of forest over the last decade, the second largest net loss after South America which includes the Amazon.
Africa's forest cover is concentrated in its western and central parts, but often in countries ravaged by war that has damaged their fragile environment through abuse of natural resources and massive population displacement.
In West Africa, wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone sent more than a million refugees fleeing across their borders into forested regions of Guinea and the Ivory Coast, one of the planet's most diverse biological regions.
For Richard Sambolah, technical adviser for the British-based organisation Fauna and Flora International, Liberia's conflict led to further exploitation of the forest.
"It just intensified poverty in the country," he added, "there are no jobs and so almost 80-90 percent of the population depends on the forest."
According to Voker, Liberia's agriculture ministry is trying to aid farmers to adapt to sustainable methods such as lowland or swamp farming which can be more profitable and increase yield.
"But the farmers have to make drastic changes... to adapt to this so-called new technology," he cautioned, and might be reluctant to ditch the familiarity of traditional upland farming.
Voker said Liberia was losing up to two percent of its forest cover every year. "If it is not checked you can imagine what happens 20 years from now... the forest will be gone."
As part of the persuasion process, in a nearby village Fiona Pamplin from Fauna and Flora International has trained a troupe to dance and act out a play explaining the devastating effects of cutting down the forests.
The message is clear, if not attractive.
"I am actually quite relieved to see that people do actually understand my message but they are always asking the question: So what are we supposed to do instead?" says Pamplin.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i2PWSR2tKIHvWASBGi-VAvECBrag

POVERTY: Bangladesh -- why they have to sell their land

DHAKA, 8 June 2010 (IRIN) - When Roton Mia could no longer make ends meet working for US$2 a day, he sold his land in central Kishoreganj District to feed his wife and two children.With no choice but to move to a slum in Dhaka, the capital city, Mia and his family are now among millions of Bangladesh's landless. "When you need to feed your family and you do not have enough income, selling your land is the only way to survive," the 35-year-old said. "There are many problems in the slum, like a water crisis, a lack of space - but I have no option to go anywhere." Landless families often end up in the slums of Dhaka, while luckier ones live on government-owned land in rural areas. Millions of Bangladeshi households have lost their property, either through poverty, natural disasters or land-grabbing by corrupt elites. Of Bangladesh's more than 160 million inhabitants, close to 4.5 million are completely landless, mostly in rural areas, according to a 2008 Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics survey. [http://www.bbs.gov.bd/dataindex/ag_pre_08.pdf] "The number of landless people is higher than government statistics, and it is growing at a high rate," said Shamsul Huda, executive director of the Association for Land Reforms and Development (ALRD) [http://www.alrd.org/], an NGO working for the land rights for poor people. Natural disasters According to a report by researcher Tahera Akter, published by the Dhaka-based Unnayan Onneshan think-tank [ http://www.unnayan.org/reports/Climate.Change.Urban.poverty.and.Food.Security.pdf], on average, 39 million people in Bangladesh are displaced by each major flood, with three million more displaced by each cyclone. "Climate-induced hazards, such as recurring floods, cyclones and river-bank erosion are contributing to increasing landlessness," added Mohammed Abdul Baten, a research associate at Unnayan Onneshan. "As an impact of climate change, the productivity of the land is also on the decrease. When farmers cannot earn their living by farming, they sell their land." Facing economic hardship, many farmers take out loans from mohajons [loan sharks] and then lose their land when they fall behind on repayments. "Landlessness of the farmers leads to their insufficient purchasing power to buy adequate nutritious food for their families," states a Unnayan Onneshan report [http://unnayan.org/reports/Impact_of_Increasing_Landlessness.pdf]. Social problems Land-ownership patterns in developing countries show significant social imbalance, according to a study [http://www.scipub.org/fulltext/jss/jss2254-60.pdf] by Habibur Rahman and Somprawin Manprasert from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. The study found that "rural landscapes in developing countries are characterized by highly inequitable social structures, or what many have called 'bi-modal agrarian systems', in which expansive commercial estates control vast tracts of fertile land while large numbers of landless or nearly landless people cultivate little or no land". Landlessness can inflame social problems as "[l]and-oriented poverty and rural-to-urban migration without any expansion in the housing and utility services lead to the expansion of slums with all affiliated social problems". Land grabbing is another reason for the increase in landlessness. "In rural areas, influential people grab the land of the poor by creating fake documents," added Huda from ALRD. The government has struggled to limit how much land individuals can own and wealthy people sometimes bribe state officials to get their hands on plots, while forged ownership documents are sometimes used to pressure families into giving up their land.Taking back the land Land Minister Rezaul Karim Hira on 5 February told parliament that 1.3 million hectares of government-owned land had been "grabbed". The government has taken steps to recover the land, but there is no data on how much has been retrieved, he added. Huda said the government was not doing enough to reduce the number of landless people. "Without land reform, you cannot solve land deprivation," he added. "In fact, according to the Land Law, government-owned cultivable land is supposed to be distributed among landless people. But most of the land is still occupied by influential people." But lawmaker and land committee chairman AKM Mozammel Haque told IRIN the government was working on a policy of land reform. "We have asked the concerned authorities to distribute government-owned land among the landless people," he said. "We asked the authorities to prepare the necessary papers for land reform. A committee was also formed to check the possibility of land reform."

POVERTY: African rice varieties granted "elite" status

COTONOU, BENIN] Africa's indigenous rice varieties are to be granted 'elite' status by scientists in the hope that they will play a central role in making farmers' crops more resilient.
Elite rice varieties are recognised to be high-yielding and include Asian rice, which has sometimes been improved with individual traits taken from lower-yielding African rice. Now scientists have shown that African varieties are resilient and high-yielding in their own right.
According to Savitri Mohapatra, spokesperson for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, scientists from the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), Benin, did a series of studies on the yield of African rice and the factors that determine high yield — the latest of which was conducted last year (2009).
They concluded that, contrary to common belief, the yield of African rice is not inferior to that of Asian rice under the unfavourable growth conditions that often prevail in parts of Africa.
"This is contrary to the conventional thinking of rice researchers — that African rice has low yield potential," Mohapatra said.
African rice — Oryza glaberrima — was first domesticated in West Africa more than 3,000 years ago. Now it is on the verge of extinction and most African farmers have turned to Asian rice (O. sativa).
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/african-rice-gets-a-status-upgrade-1.html

POVERTY: Migration as a result of poverty

LOUTA, 4 June 2010 (IRIN) - Migration in search of work has long been common in Sourou Province, northern Burkina Faso, but the trend is increasingly for younger girls to join the exodus, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO Terre des hommes (Tdh). "Migration is after all a method of survival," Herman Zoungrana, head of Tdh's protection programme in Burkina Faso, told IRIN. He said traditionally after the harvest people would fill up their granaries then set out to find work until the next planting season. "But with younger and younger girls migrating, the risk of exploitation and violence grows," he said. Residents told IRIN in many cases parents encouraged their children to migrate - "because here we live in misery", as one woman put it. Boys and young men in the region have also long migrated for work, aid workers said. "They generally do petty commerce, gardening or manual labour," said Zoungrana. "But young girls, around 10 and 11 years old, usually work as domestic servants - work that carries grave risk of exploitation and abuse, including sexual violence." "Some the youngest girls - uneducated and often orphaned - make about 2,500 CFA francs [about US$4.70] per month as servants and often they are not fed well," Marie-Berthe Ouédraogo, UNICEF-Burkina Faso head of protection, told IRIN. UNICEF and Tdh say the children are also prey to traffickers. Poverty a driving force Tdh, which has a team in Toéni department, Sourou Province, says girls generally migrate to the capital Ouagadougou, the second-largest city Bobo-Dioulasso, or to cities in Mali, about 50km north. A 2008 study by Tdh showed that 400 girls left Toéni department for cities between October 2007 and January 2008. Much of the migration is still seasonal, aid workers say, with people often returning for planting.As part of its work to promote education and child protection, Tdh meets villagers in Toéni to discuss risks and ways to improve conditions for children in rural areas. "Poverty is the reason they're leaving," Sienou Moufou, a village council member in Louta, told IRIN. "There is no work in the village, for them or their parents." Savadogo Saydou Mahamady, a former Tdh agent who has worked with villagers on the issue, said: "Parents tell us they recognize the dangers young girls could be exposed to but that either they don't see alternatives or they don't feel they have much influence over their children to keep them at home." UNICEF's Ouédraogo said a study done near the border with Mali showed that poverty and lack of education were the reason girls see no other option than to seek work as a servant for urbanites. In a recent report, Tdh said in the Toéni villages, 72 percent of girls aged seven to 14 were not in school in 2007. More than 95 percent of girls could not read or write. In some cases status is also a driving force, Ouédraogo said. Families want their girls to make money so they can have special clothes and other items for ceremonies like marriages and baptisms, she said. But mostly the extra income is about survival, said village chief Ouona Dembélé. "It's difficult to offer alternatives to migration to these young girls, because there is practically nothing here [in Louta village]. If we could keep some kind of income-generating activities going here, no girls would have to leave the village for the city." Many Louta residents said a lack of water severely hampers any development that could improve living conditions. Villagers said if water were more available, for one, market gardening could thrive and more young people could take part. Aid workers in Burkina Faso told IRIN they have to limit gardening and other agricultural assistance projects for lack of water, a common problem in many regions of the country. Louta, where farming and livestock are the main economic activities for a population of 2,500, has no health centre or maternity care facility.

POVERTY: MADAGASCAR: A financial crisis on the hoof

AMBOHITSAHATAZA, 1 June 2010 (IRIN) - Far from the world's financial centres, isolated from sub-prime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations and collapsing investment banks, Madagascar is going through a financial crisis of its own, and stock prices are plummeting. As in most of rural Africa, wealth is measured in livestock. Joseph Rabemamamtsoa, leader of Ambohitsahataza village in Amphany district in the southwest of the island, told IRIN that the value of his zebu - sturdy cattle with long horns and a fatty hump on their shoulders - had halved. "Normally, we could get up to 300,000 ariary [US$140] for a good animal; now we are lucky to get 150,000." Not only has the value of individual animals dropped in the past few years, the average size of herds has also dwindled. "In a good period one rich family will have between 20 and 40 animals, now they have only 10," Rabemamamtsoa said. Poorer families - most of the roughly 1,700 villagers - now had none. The Malagasy government's Early Warning System (SAP) noted that the average price of a zebu in southern Madagascar had dropped from A221,000 ($103) in March 2008 to A110,000 ($51) in March 2010, which was in line with the 50 percent devaluation experienced in Rabemamamtsoa's community. Breaking the bank In local terms this is a financial meltdown: people in the south of Madagascar depend on their zebu for more than just meat, milk and draught power to pull carts and plough the fields; their herd of zebu are their life's savings, insurance, their standing in the community. "It is what we value most," Rabemamamtsoa said. Lundi Perole, a civil engineer and head of Hiara Hampandroso (Develop Together), a local NGO that helps communities build resilience in the harsh dry conditions of the region, said a large herd of zebu meant social prestige and importance. He has helped build water harvesters with the help of UN World Food Programme (WFP) Food-for-Work projects, in which a community works on projects geared to restoring self-sufficiency in exchange for food aid. On his desk there is a huge pile of envelopes with requests from communities. "Most are for water catchment basins for cattle," he said. "The decision of what to build is taken by the community. We are in the south, [where] water is the big problem. They prefer not having water to drink for themselves than having their zebu without water." The importance that Malagasy attach to their zebu cannot be underestimated: "It is their life and their death," Perole commented. Cultural practice dictates that a deceased person's zebu be slaughtered and the skulls set to decorate the tomb - the more skulls on a tomb, the greater the wealth and status - although outsiders often consider the practice destructive. A buyers market Drought lay at the heart of this local recession, and the consecutive years of scant rain had pushed families beyond their ability to cope, Perole said. By the end of April 2010 the government projected that a record 65 communes in the south would face hunger in the coming months - surpassing the 45 of the previous year - and some 866,000 Malagasy would probably need assistance by June 2010. "Food prices are increasing beyond the purchasing power of the population, reducing their access to food," said Krystyna Bednarska, head of the WFP in Madagascar. Official figures indicate a rising cost of living in southern Madagascar: the price of one kapoaka (a small tin can) of maize, the staple food, rose from A130 ($0.06) in July 2009 to A230 ($0.11) by February 2010 in some areas. Alexandre Huynh, Emergency and Rehabilitation Coordinator at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said poor harvests meant families were forced to sell off assets - like their prized zebu - to make ends meet. "Zebu provide a solution to purchase food during lean seasons and food shortages, but ... as the sale becomes critical to the family, and as numerous households sell their animals at the same time, prices [fall] extremely low," he said. "When the crisis has passed, [people] try to repurchase animals, but at the normal, and higher, market price, which directly contributes to their increasing destitution and current heavy de-capitalization." The loss of local wealth is keenly felt. Rabemamamtsoa said the zebu were being bought and trucked to cities, like Tulear on the southwest coast, "But even up to Antananarivo [the capital, in the north]."

POVERTY: Benefit of "protected areas"

Possibly the most controversial debate in conservation policy — whether protected areas harm the lives of the people living around them — has taken a step forward with the publication of a controlled trial of communities living at different distances from national parks.
The creation of protected areas to conserve biodiversity has caused concern because they can reduce communities' farming and hunting opportunities and access to other natural resources.
But a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week (25 May), has found that, on average, communities living close to national parks in Costa Rica and Thailand are actually richer than similar communities living further away.
The two countries were selected for study because they were early adopters of protected area systems. Groups that differed only in their proximity to protected areas were compared — overcoming the argument that such research generally fails to control for other factors affecting poverty, such as land quality. All the areas studied had been protected for 15 years or more.
In Thailand, a third fewer people were living in poverty among communities living close to the protected areas. In Costa Rica, ten per cent fewer were poor.
The results do not mean that protected areas reduce poverty, according to Paul Ferraro, an economist at Georgia State University and co-author. Rather, they demonstrate that the two goals are not incompatible and that policies designed to maintain biodiversity can potentially be tailored to protect the environment and alleviate poverty.
The researchers believe that the local people were able to take advantage of spin-offs from the protected areas, such as tourism, new infrastructure and other investments, or that their lives improved because of the 'spill-out' benefits of rising biodiversity and other ecosystem services within the protected area.
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/protected-areas-can-cut-poverty-study-claims.html

POVERTY: the dual aspects of migration

Migration is often caused by poverty. Similarly, poverty can be alleviated by migration. In developing countries, migration is seen simply as a flight from poverty since there are no opportunities available locally.
Historically, migration has been taking place since the dawn of human civilisation. At present, migration takes place because of the integration of global labour markets and workforces, and easy transportation.
The World Bank estimates that in 2008 remittances from migrants amounted to approximately US$444 billion, out of which $338 billion went to poorer countries.
In these days of globalisation, capital, goods and services move easily from country to country, but movement of people is restricted by strict immigration laws.
Intending migrants, therefore, find it very difficult to move from one country to another, although there is a huge demand for workers in industrialised countries.
Even in the supposed enlightenment of the 21st century, most people prefer people of their own type and find different cultures strange or unacceptable. I would not call it racism but a miserable mindset towards another human being.
In 2004, James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, accused rich countries of spending $900 billion on defence, $300 billion on subsidies for their farmers and just $50 billion to $60 billion on aid, of which just half is in cash rather than loans. "That is the fundamental imbalance that one needs to deal with, and it is just so clear," he says.
He recognised that some rich countries spend money on war against terrorism but do not come up with more money for improving the social and economic conditions of poor young people who are unemployed and deprived of the basic necessities of life.
Sending aid to poor countries has merit but it cannot end worldwide poverty. Poverty breeds unrest and conflict, and eventually leads to an unstable world. Instability in one region affects other regions.
Year after year, almost all rich nations, except a few Scandinavian nations, have constantly failed to reach their agreed obligations of the 0.7 per cent GNI target on official development aid set by the UN in 1970.
Recent increases in foreign aid do not tell the whole truth about rich countries' generosity, or the lack of it. Moreover, official development assistance (ODA) is often of dubious quality. Analysts say that in many cases:
-Aid is primarily designed to serve the strategic and economic interests of the donor countries.
-Aid is primarily designed to benefit powerful domestic interest groups.
-Aid systems are based on the interests of donors instead of the needs of recipient-countries.
-Too little aid reaches countries that most desperately need it.
-Agriculture's share of total ODA dropped to less than 5 per cent compared with 18 per cent in 1980.
-All too often, aid is wasted on overpriced goods and services from donor countries.
Given the above context, the best way to ameliorate worldwide poverty is to increase migration to rich countries, where the population is getting smaller.
In 2009, the amount of money sent by the migrants was $10.72 billion, constituting about 12 per cent of GDP of Bangladesh. It is estimated that almost the same amount comes through unofficial channels every year. Remittance is the second biggest source of foreign exchange for the country.
According to a report, in the next 30 years the labour force in Germany will shrink from 41 million to 21 million, and from 23 million to 11 million in Italy. Japan will require about 90,000 a year, falling to a longer-term figure of about 700,000 a year.
Left to their own devices, intending migrant workers from poorer countries would gravitate to richer countries, leading to a rough equilibrium between the world's resources and its population.
Migration faces restrictive immigration policies and currently it seems that richer countries are moving to an age of "anti-migration." National security is commonly used to justify a tight migration policy. While each country has a legitimate right to security, richer countries allow entry of tourists from middle income and rich countries - but not of migrants.
Some argue that entry of migrants would lead to cultural dilution. However, a multi-cultural society can be seen in a positive light as cultural enrichment.
The general finding of most studies of migration in non-disaster situations is that it is not the poorest who can move but those with access to some resources, no matter how meagre these might appear.
Migration always involves costs of transportation and the abandonment of many of the few possessions the poor might have. A recent study by IOM in Bangladesh has shown that 59.5 percent of the cost is spent on agents and brokers, that the poorest of the poor cannot afford to migrate, and that the majority starves in situ.
According to many specialists, the weight of the evidence provides support that the movement of population can be a significant factor in the alleviation of worldwide poverty.
The words of John Kenneth Galbraith appear to capture the essence of the whole relationship: "Migration is the oldest action against poverty. It selects those who most want help. It is good for the country to which they go; it helps to break the equilibrium of poverty in the country from which they come. What is the perversity in the human soul that causes people to resist so obvious a good?"
Is the unfettered migration going to happen in future? The answer is in the negative because narrow mindset and prejudice are such powerful forces that they are likely to reverse the "fortress" policy of rich countries. Let there a debate on this issue under the auspices of the UN because, in the globalised world, all countries are dependent on each other.
http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=12145&sec=3

POVERTY: Price fixing of food by protectionist policy

we should be outraged at the protectionist agricultural policies of already-rich nations such as the United States. When we allow the agricultural lobby to garner sweetheart deals from the U.S. House and Senate, the poor in other nations simply cannot compete with American growers of many crops because the trade rules are so utterly slanted against those in other nations.
For example, it is illegal for sugar buyers in the United States to purchase their sugar from sources outside the United States, even though the world price of sugar lies below the federally mandated price of sugar in the United States. This is wonderful, though, for U.S. sugar beet growers in the United States; it means they have a captive supply of buyers at a price that is being kept artificially high by federal decree. If the United States were to abandon such self-centered policies, sugar growers everywhere would have access to our markets, and the price of sugar would fall for all of us.
Moreover, confectioners and soft-drink makers in the United States would be able to produce their goods at lower costs, thereby adding to their job security. In one well publicized case in 2002, the Life-Savers candy factory in Holland, Michigan, was relocated to Canada, though the Michigan factory had been in operation for over thirty-five years and employed six hundred or so American workers. By moving to the northern side of the U.S.-Canada border, Life Savers slashed its input costs dramatically because, in Canada, Life-Savers was free to buy cane sugar at the world price: sugar grown by those who need the income most.
Sugar is not the only market we currently protect to keep out lower-priced commodities in an effort to help poor farmers in the United States. We have erected similar barriers that turn a blind eye to the plight of the global poor in markets for cotton, peanuts, and several other products that we can grow at home. In fact, by now you can probably see another reason why coffee prices are low. Because coffee cannot be grown in Ohio, or in France, rich northerners have not erected protectionist barriers to keep out the coffee that foreigners make.
If we really care about the global poor, we should work to make trade freer for everyone in our global community: a level playing field for all. That means tearing down all of the barriers we use to keep the global poor from working in the very jobs in which they are perfectly positioned to make the greatest lasting gains.
http://blog.acton.org/archives/16651-poverty-capital-and-economic-freedom.html