The Drum Beat 288: MDG #1 - Addressing Poverty and Hunger

Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #1 galvanises world leaders to take action to halve the number of people who suffer from hunger and whose income is less than one dollar a day - prior to 2015. Poverty and hunger are closely intertwined...not only with each other but with a number of other development issues - agriculture, health and HIV/AIDS, women's participation, child labour, and so on. This issue of The Drum Beat is an effort to illuminate some of those connections, highlighting some of the communication strategies being implemented locally, regionally and globally, as well as some of the potential and actual impacts these strategies have on meeting MDG #1.

For background on MDG #1 and the other goals, click here.

Next month we will focus on MDG #2: Achieving Universal Primary Education. Please send your projects, articles, events, etc. to Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

 

CONTEXT

1. In the developing world, an estimated 1.2 billion people survive on less than US$1 a day, 800 million are undernourished, and 153 million children under age 5 are underweight.
Source: The United Nations (UN) Volunteers programme

2. Child Poverty in the Developing World [2003]
Absolute poverty is defined as severe deprivation from 2 or more of food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information due to lack of income and access to social services. More than 1 billion children suffer severe effects of poverty.

3. Global Poverty Down By Half Since 1981 But Progress Uneven
The proportion of people living in extreme poverty (less than US$1 a day) in developing countries dropped by almost half between 1981 and 2001, from 40% to 21% of the global population. Yet the proportion of those living in poverty has grown - or fallen only slightly - in many countries in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.

4. Poor Are Paying the Price of Rich Countries' Failure
Meeting the UN target of allocating 0.7% of national income to aid - a target set in 1970 - would generate $120 billion, enough to meet the MDGs and other vital poverty-reduction goals.

5. Farming Systems & Poverty
by John Dixon & Aidan Gulliver with David Gibbon
Small farmers produce much of the developing world's food. Yet they are generally much poorer than the rest of the population in these countries, and are less food secure than even the urban poor.

6. Sowing Seeds of Hunger - Southern Africa
Produced by the FAO in conjunction with the Television Trust for the Environment, this documentary provides examples of the way in which HIV/AIDS affects people - with a special focus on the lives of agricultural workers. "We had to sell everything we own to buy food and pay for our medical expenses," explains one worker. Depicted in the film is 14-year-old Sole, who has lived with his 3 younger siblings in a one-room shed since both his parents died from AIDS 3 years ago...before they could pass on their knowledge about farming, crop varieties and tools. Without such skills, Sole and siblings are unable to produce their own food - or the income to buy it from others.
Contact Erwin Northoff erwin.northoff@fao.org

7. Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India
by Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess
This analysis finds that, between 1958 and 1992, India's state-level governments were more responsive to the food and disaster aid needs of vulnerable populations in areas where local language newspaper circulation was higher and where incumbents were driven to be responsive by political competition and voter turnout. For instance, a 10% drop in food production is associated with a 1% increase in public food distribution in states that are at the median in terms of newspaper circulation per capita; in states that are in the 75% percentile, the same drop was associated with a 2.28% increase in food distribution.

8. 'Duplicate and Unavailable': How Internet Bypasses Ugandan Farmers
by Jennifer Bakyawa
In the late 1990s, efforts to enable farmers in rural Uganda to access agricultural information on the Internet seemed a promising and cost-effective strategy for bolstering productivity and building food security. However, researchers at the International Institute for Communication and Development find that agricultural information is scattered across the Internet, impeding farmers' efforts to find and access relevant information in usable formats. Inability to afford telecentre fees, low literacy rates, language barriers, and connectivity issues are other constraints. Radio, video, music, drama, and SMS messaging might be other ways to communicate agricultural information.

 

RESPONDING THROUGH LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, PARTICIPATION & ACTION

9. Community-Driven Development [CDD]: Chapter 9
by Philippe Dongier, Julie Van Domelen, Elinor Ostrom, Andrea Ryan, Wendy Wakeman, Anthony Bebbington, Sabina Alkire, Talib Esmail & Margaret Polski
"Experience demonstrates that by directly relying on poor people to drive development activities, CDD has the potential to make poverty reduction efforts more responsive to demands, more inclusive, more sustainable, and more cost-effective than traditional centrally led programs. CDD fills a critical gap in poverty reduction efforts, achieving immediate and lasting results at the grassroots level and complementing market economy and government-run programs."

10. Kyrgyzstan: Children Teach Adults about Poverty
One unique feature of a Dec 2004 2-day national conference entitled "Child Poverty: Effective Strategies towards its Elimination in Kyrgyzstan" was the inclusion of a 3-hour speech by a 16-year-old boy who represented a number of children participating in the discussion. According to the article, children were blunt in describing their needs. They articulated that their rights were being violated and that adults had an obligation to assist. The outcome of the conference was the government's agreement, in principle, to adopt a resolution that will be a first step in realising the rights of children in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan plans to make the plight of child poverty part of its next National Poverty Reduction Strategy.

11. Recovering from Conflict - Viet Nam: Improving NRM in the Hong Ha Commune
This project works to reduce hunger and poverty in the Hong Ha Commune by identifying ways to respond to the deforestation caused by defoliants and bombs during the Viet Nam War. The deforestation has led to devastating floods and the replacement of native vegetation by invasive grass species. Researchers at the Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry are using participatory research methods to help local residents identify priorities, and develop innovative responses to their needs. Training courses aim to help participants improve their pig raising, rice management and cassava growing skills. These lessons have been disseminated further through farmer-to-farmer visits. Community members are increasing their food self-sufficiency and making better use of their land. "Before there was always a lack of food, now there's enough," notes Quynh Dien, a farmer who participated in the trials.

12. Impact Data - Municipal Environmental Management & Public Participation - North Kurzeme Coastal Region, Latvia
A field project - using dialogue, research, and training to support the sustainable socio-economic development of the North Kurzeme area in an environmentally sound, socially equitable, and culturally appropriate manner - has contributed to sustainable private sector activities in the field of ecotourism and cultural tourism, creating ecologically-friendly income sources in a relatively weak economic environment.
Contact Raimonds Ernsteins r.ernsteins@lanet.lv

13. Towards Women's Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: Lessons from the participatory impact assessment of South Asian Poverty Alleviation programme in Andhra Pradesh, India
by Ranjani K. Murthy, K. Raju & Amitha Kamath
"It is...deep-rooted poverty...and its caste and gender specific dimensions that the project sought to address...[T]he project adopted a three-pronged strategy: social organisation, skill development and capital formation. As part of the social organisation programme, the poor were organised at three levels: hamlet/sub-hamlet level through small homogenous self help groups (SHGs), village level through village level organisations (VOs) and the Mandal level through the Mahila Mandal Samakhyas (MMS)....As merely forming groups was not enough for building human capacities, a strong emphasis was placed on training and skill development."

14. Voices and Choices at a Macro Level: Participation in Country-Owned Poverty Reduction Strategies - A Workshop Report
"Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) can lead to improved poverty reduction outcomes through greater transparency and accountability."

15. Global Call to Action against Poverty
A global alliance committed to "forcing world leaders to live up to their promises, and to make a breakthrough on poverty in 2005" by galvanising groups and individuals worldwide to plan their own local, national, and international activities throughout 2005.

16. Youth Job Creation through Community Tourism Supported by the Community Radio Sector - South Africa
ABC Ulwazi holds that participation on the part of community radio stations in community-based tourism (CBT) may play a key role in local social and economic development. For instance, the stations could charge an application fee for those interested in joining the CBT programme, as well as for training and consultation. Furthermore, in effectively implementing these programmes, the stations can gain more credibility, increase their listenership, and widen their base of listeners by drawing in groups such as business people. With effective marketing, ABC Ulwazi claims, this situation could be translated into advertising revenue, pushing the stations toward sustainability.

17. Farming Solutions
This website shares more than 70 examples of how ecologically and socially sound farming systems can be an effective means to combat hunger and poverty.

 

HIGH-TECH SUCCESSES

18. Rickshaws connect India's poor
by Elizabeth Biddlecombe
In an effort to increase business while helping the poor, the regional mobile phone company Shyam Telecom, which operates in the state of Rajasthan, has created a mobile public calling office programme ("Chalta Flirta PCO") that involves equipping hand-pedaled rickshaws with a battery, a billing machine, and a printer. Most of the approximately 200 rickshaw drivers are women and disabled persons. By pedaling wherever they wish - for however many hours per day they wish - throughout the state, some drivers support a family of 5 people, the company claims. The company is developing a system by which a camel is equipped with a wirelessly connected computer, for use in the desert.

19. e-ForAll: A Poverty Reduction Strategy for the Information Age
by Francisco J. Proenza
A strategic public policy guide to the application of ICTs in addressing poverty. 

20 Linking Agricultural Research & Rural Radio in Africa (LARRRA) - Africa
LARRRA is an effort to strengthen partnerships among and between Africa's agriculturalists and rural radio broadcasters for addressing information gaps on food and agricultural sciences. Based on a process of research, collaborators are working to share information and build capacity through a website, training manuals, and workshops - hopefully improving attitudes, skills, and knowledge sharing to fight poverty and hunger in Africa.
Contact Helen Hambly Odame hhambly@uoguelph.ca

21. GeoNetwork's InterMap Viewer - Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa & Uganda
This Internet-based global mapping system was developed by the FAO and the World Food Programme to fight hunger in developing countries. "By overlaying various map layers, InterMap can...suggest, for example, the extent to which a poor transport infrastructure is keeping a region with a rich agricultural endowment in poverty. Its use of free, open-source software minimises costs to users..."
Contact Teresa Buerkle teresamarie.buerkle@fao.org

***

MEASURING PROGRESS

22. Where are the poor: Experiences with the development & use of Poverty Maps
by Norbert Henninger & Mathilde Snel
"Poverty mapping-the spatial representation and analysis of indicators of human well-being and poverty-is becoming an increasingly important instrument for investigating and discussing social, economic, and environmental problems. Decision-makers need information tools such as poverty maps to help them identify areas where development lags and where investments in infrastructure and services could have the greatest impact."

23. How to Measure the Impact of Poverty Alleviation: In Search of New Methods in Evaluation
by Henri Jorritsma
Evaluation authorities, Jorritsma claims, need to shift their focus away from performance evaluation of projects and programmes and toward impact. In this context, evaluators are faced with 3 methodological challenges: 1. how to go beyond the outcome level in evaluation and measure the impact on poverty level 2. how to find out what is actually going on at the grassroots in terms of micro- and macro-linkages 3. how to systematically integrate the perceptions of the group being addressed by the project in evaluations. In one of Jorritsma's examples, as part of the participatory research initiative called Voices of the Poor, the World Bank collected the voices of more than 60,000 women and men from 60 countries with the aim of trying to understand poverty from the perspective of those actually living in poverty.

24. Monitoring & Evaluating Small Business Projects: A Step-By-Step Guide
by Shirley Buzzard & Elaine Edgcomb
This workbook guides NGO field staff through a systems approach to measuring the progress of small businesses owned by the poor.

25. India Turns to Community Computing
Kenneth Keniston of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here discusses the proliferation of community information centres in India - kiosks where villagers can pay a small fee to access land records, market prices, and other information useful for addressing hunger and poverty. A few programmes seem to have had success, despite language interface barriers. However, Keniston says that evaluation of these projects has not yet been carried out in any sustained fashion. First, systems in rural areas often break down - the effort to keep a centre running may trump evaluation of its sustainability. Second, there are many competing priorities in high-poverty areas. Nonetheless, Keniston urges, studies that examine both impact and sustainability are essential, and should be conducted by Indians who speak the local language.

 

This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

 

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