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Views on Poverty

Views on African Poverty

Authoritative sources including Mr. Sam Nyanbi, UNDP Resident Representative to the OAU and the ECA on the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, (17th October 1998) stated that over the past the decades more than 1.3 billion people, almost one third of humanity, live on less than one dollar per day. The Resident Representative's 1998 Human Development Report states that those who are living under $1 a day lacked the fundamental necessities for human life including food, safe water, reliable health care, adequate shelter, basic education and training opportunities to sustain livelihoods. In many countries survival probabilities are decreasing due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Almost a hundred million people are caught in cycles of civil strife and the consequences associated with social and economic instability. Among the approximately 4.4 billion people living in developing countries, about 60 percent live in communities without basic sanitary facilities, about one in three without safe drinking water, one in four in sub-standard housing, one in five having no access to modern health services, with 20 percent unable to go beyond grade five in formal education.

Sub-Sahara Africa is believed to be a region with the highest incidence of poverty with 40 percent of the total population living on under $1 a day. The end of poverty is not yet in sight. In fact, the number of the poor is increasing in both absolute and percentage terms.

The World Bank, in a 1994 report says poverty is characterized by: a lack of purchasing power, exposure to risk, insufficient access to survival and economic services, few opportunities for income generation, etc. It also states under a publication entitled "Understanding Poverty" that the characteristics of poverty are hunger, lack of shelter, being sick and not being able to see a doctor, go to school, read, speak properly, have a job, and a fear for the future, living one day at a time, losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water, powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. All these characteristics are reiterated in its strategy papers. Poverty in Ethiopia resembles poverty elsewhere.

In this section of the thesis we focus on the description of poverty in the slums of mega cities. It is important to note at this juncture that poverty is also aggravated by certain structural problems characteristic of cities. Many modern cities in the West are described as facing the problem of poverty. But this can only be in a relative sense compared to the state of absolute poverty in the developing countries. The poor cities described by Lord Shaftesbury in the 19th century Britain are still referred to as suffering from poverty.[4] A great deal of Western socio-economic problems have been documented since then. Dr. Ray Bakke's and Wayne Gordon's account of deprived and problematic cities such as Chicago illustrate these problems. The problems described in Gordon's work also mention race issues as an additional aggravating factor.

The city, or the island, of Hong Kong described in Jackie Pullinger's "Chasing the Dragon" and "Crack on the Wall" gives another example of drug trafficking as a social problem in a wealthy Far Eastern City.

Workers with a Christian perspective can also demonstrate the same lack of social justice, treating the symptoms rather than the cause. Failure to treat the cause necessitates increasing the number of prisons and correctional institutions rather than mitigating the real problem.

Other cities could also be mentioned as examples of the global characteristics of urban problems. In describing the situations in Third World cities, Viv Grigg describes the situation as follows:

 If the destitution of the urban poor is staggering in itself, their numerical growth is just as devastating. Since World War II, an endless convoy of smoke-belching, overladen, chicken - squawking bus after bus have careened down newly-constructed highways into the mega-city capitals of the Third World, disgorging crowds of wide- eyed impoverished farmers and teenagers looking for the next step towards affluence (or, more likely, poverty) in the squatter areas.

Wherever land can be found, huts and plywood shacks go up. Few governments have the capacity to prevent it or to provide services for the people arriving. The majority of new arrivals remain in squatter areas. "Between 1950 and 1980, urban growth in Third World mega-cities rose from 275 million to just under one billion. It is expected to double by the year 2000"

  Viv Grigg claims that 60 percent of the new mega city poor live in the slums. Most statistical figures he gives are similar to the UN Human Development figures. The problems are further aggravated by the problem of rural to urban migration mainly due to escaping rural poverty and civil strife that characterizes life in rural areas in underdeveloped countries. The cities he presents as examples are:

- Asia:
   Bangkok:
About 20 percent (or over a million people) of Bangkok's 5.4 million people live in 1,020 slums. Some of these slum areas are crammed with different sizes shacks, arranged roof- to-roof and constructed from second hand crating wood and galvanized iron... Crime, drug addiction, smuggling and prostitution are common. There are 600,000 prostitutes and 500,000 drug addicts in the city

   Calcutta:
Sixty-six percent of Calcutta's 12 million inhabitants live one family per room. More than three million live in 315 bustees. Between 48,000 (officially) and 200,000 (generally accepted figure) live on the streets. ...it is estimated that three million live in tents and mud and thatch huts in such areas.  Viv Grigg states that Calcutta has the highest rate of begging in India.

- Central America:
   Mexico City (20million population):
Other poor live in the ciudades perdidas (lost cities), where rundown and abandoned buildings become home.... 500 of these ciudades perdidas, home to 2.7 million people. There are also para caidistas (parachutists), where 200 families suddenly descend overnight onto unused land, moving from the ciudades perdidas. The 1985 earthquake left 40,000 families relocated into what has become for them permanent-temporary housing.

- Latin America:

   Lima:
Lima is a city of 5.5 million founded by the Spaniards in 1532 and was once a capital of South America.... The wave of landless, homeless people coming into the city has also resulted in the sprouting of pueblos jovenes (young towns) or slum communities that now comprise 50 percent of the city. Most pueblos jovenes spring up unplanned and without government assistance...There are 598 pueblos jovenes ... There are also hundreds of thousands in over crowded inner-city tenements known as tugurios.

- Sub-Sahara Africa:
   Nairobi:
..... the Mathari Valley.... is one of the most destitute situations... prostitution, illicit brewing of liquor, drug peddling and thuggery etc.

   Cairo:
About 40 percent of Cairo's population lives below poverty level, earning up to $35 per month. An extreme housing shortage ... Limited medical care for slum dwellers leads to 40 percent children dying in their first year of life...60 percent are illiterate.... There are 10,000 to 15,000 in each of the seven garbage-dump communities.

All the above statistical figures speak for themselves. The developing countries cities are in great need, and the urban poor are definitely worse off than the rural poor. Before discussing the issue of urban bias, it is important to acknowledge that one of the causes of urban poverty common to all cities is rapid population growth as shown by the data summarized in the table below:

Table I Global examples of Urban Population growth by the Year 2000

In late 1980 the presenter carried out two different research projects focusing on health (for an M. Phil thesis). One of them, carried out in Dodolla in the former Administrative Region of Bale, showed that rural children received better health services under the PHC system than children in slums in Addis Ababa.

Further research was based on secondary data (official reports, etc) in which Addis Ababa was compared with Arsi province on five key causes of morbidity and mortality. It was proved that Addis Ababa, with all its modern facilities plus more doctors and nurses and many other benefits, was no better off. For slum dwellers, who represent the poorest of the poor, access to health services was as difficult, if not more difficult, than the rural poor. Observations indicated that the poor could afford neither the time nor the money even if the facilities were there. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluation data for Addis Ababa indicate that while rural facilities are few and far between they are better off than the slum dwellers in Addis Ababa.

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Glossary:
 

AHISDO: Addis Hiwot [New Life] Integrated Sustainable Development Organization

CBISDO: Community-Based Integrated Sustainable Development Organisation

CD: Community Development

EEW: Educational Extension Worker

IGU: Income Generating Unit

IHA-UDP: Integrated Holistic Approach Urban Development Project

NHG: Neighbourhood Group

PUG: Physical Upgrading

PHC: Primary Health Care

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