Poverty Facts and Stats

Most of humanity lives on just a few dollars a day. Whether you live in the wealthiest nations in the world or
the poorest, you will see high levels of inequality.

The poorest people will also have less access to health, education and other services. Problems of hunger,
malnutrition and disease afflict the poorest in society. The poorest are also typically marginalized from society
and have little representation or voice in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty.

By contrast, the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to benefit from economic or political policies. The
amount the world spends on military, financial bailouts and other areas that benefit the wealthy, compared to
the amount spent to address the daily crisis of poverty and related problems are often staggering.

Structural Adjustment—a Major Cause of Poverty

Cutbacks in health, education and other vital social services around the world have resulted from structural
adjustment policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as conditions for
loans and repayment. In addition, developing nation governments are required to open their economies to
compete with each other and with more powerful and established industrialized nations. To attract investment,
poor countries enter a spiraling race to the bottom to see who can provide lower standards, reduced wages and
cheaper resources. This has increased poverty and inequality for most people. It also forms a backbone to what
we today call globalization. As a result, it maintains the historic unequal rules of trade.

Poverty Around The World

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present.

In most nations today, inequality—the gap between the rich and the poor—is quite high and often widening.

The causes are numerous, including a lack of individual responsibility, bad government policy, exploitation by
people and businesses with power and influence, or some combination of these and other factors.

Many feel that high levels of inequality will affect social cohesion and lead to problems such as increasing
crime and violence.

Inequality is often a measure of relative poverty. Absolute poverty, however, is also a concern. World Bank
figures for world poverty reveals a higher number of people live in poverty than previously thought.

For example, the new poverty line is defined as living on the equivalent of $1.25 a day. With that measure
based on latest data available (2005), 1.4 billion people live on or below that line.

Furthermore, almost half the world—over three billion people—live on less than $2.50 a day and at least 80%
of humanity lives on less than $10 a day:
Over 22,000 children die every day around the world.

That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 4 seconds

• 15 children dying every minute
• A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 10 days
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 18–43 days
• Just under 8.1 million children dying every year
• Some 88 million children dying between 2000 and 2009

The silent killers are poverty, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the
scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline
coverage.

World Hunger and Poverty

Meaningful long-term alleviation of hunger is rooted in the alleviation of poverty, as poverty leads to hunger.
World hunger is a terrible symptom of world poverty. If efforts are only directed at providing food, or
improving food production or distribution, then the structural root causes that create hunger, poverty and
dependency would still remain. While resources and energies are deployed to relieve hunger through technical
measures such as improving agriculture, and as important as these are, inter-related issues such as poverty
means that political solutions are likely required as well for meaningful and long term hunger alleviation.

Food Dumping [Aid] Maintains Poverty

Food aid (when not for emergency relief) can actually be very destructive on the economy of the recipient
nation and contribute to more hunger and poverty in the long term. Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below
market prices undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further
slanting the market share of the larger producers such as those from the US and Europe. Many poor nations are
dependent on farming, and so such food aid amounts to food dumping. In the past few decades, more powerful
nations have used this as a foreign policy tool for dominance rather than for real aid.
 Food and agriculture goes to the heart of our civilizations. Religions, cultures
and even modern civilization have food and agriculture at their core. For an issue that goes to the heart of
humanity it also has its ugly side.

This issue explores topics ranging from the global food crisis of 2008, to issues of food aid, world hunger, food
dumping and wasteful agriculture such as growing tobacco, sugar, beef, and more.

Trade, Economy, & Related Issues

Corruption

We often hear leaders from rich countries telling poor countries that aid and
loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption. While that definitely needs to
happen, the rich countries themselves are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries,
and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem. Corruption in developing countries
definitely must be high on the priority lists, but so too must it be on the priority lists of rich countries.

Foreign Aid for Development Assistance

In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their gross national income as official international
development aid, annually.

Since that time, billions have certainly been given each year, but rarely have the rich nations actually met their
promised target.

Furthermore, aid has often come with a price of its own for the developing nations. Common criticisms, for
many years, of foreign aid, have included the following:

• Aid is often wasted on conditions that the recipient must use overpriced goods and services from donor
countries
• Most aid does not actually go to the poorest who would need it the most
• Aid amounts are dwarfed by rich country protectionism that denies market access for poor country
products while rich nations use aid as a lever to open poor country markets to their products
• Large projects or massive grand strategies often fail to help the vulnerable; money can often be
embezzled away.

Causes of Hunger are related to Poverty

Last updated Sunday, October 03, 2010.

There are many inter-related issues causing hunger, which are related to economics and other factors that cause
poverty. They include land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to non-productive use, increasing
emphasis on export-oriented agriculture, inefficient agricultural practices, war, famine, drought, over-fishing,
poor crop yields, etc. This section introduces some of these issues.

Sustainable Development

Last updated Saturday, December 11, 2010.

There are numerous forms of aid, from humanitarian

emergency assistance, to longer term development aid. Some provide food aid, or military assistance, but all
these forms of aid seem to be accompanied with criticism, either around inefficiency of delivery, or of political
agendas or more. This section attempts to look at some of these issues.

Poverty

An example of extreme poverty in a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia

Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as clean water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and
shelter, because of the inability to afford them.[1][2] This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution.
Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or
country, or compared to worldwide averages. About 1.7 billion people live in absolute poverty; before the
industrial revolution, poverty had mostly been the norm.[3][4]

Poverty reduction has historically been a result of economic growth as increased levels of production, such as
modern industrial technology, made more wealth available for those who were otherwise too poor to afford
them.[4][5] Also, investments in modernizing agriculture and increasing yields is considered the core of the
antipoverty effort, given three-quarters of the world's poor are rural farmers.[6][7]

Today, economic liberalization includes extending property rights, especially to land, to the poor, and making
financial services, notably savings, accessible.[8][9][10] Inefficient institutions, corruption and political instability
can also discourage investment. Aid and government support in health, education and infrastructure helps
growth by increasing human and physical capital.[4]

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 An example of extreme poverty in a
slum in Jakarta, Indonesia
Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna
Top

This programme was launched in April, 1999.

Objective:
The objective of SGSY is to provide sustainable income to the rural poor. The programme aims at
establishing a large number of micro-enterprises in the rural areas, based upon the potential of the rural
poor. It is envisaged that every family assisted under SGSY will be brought above the poverty-line with in a
period of three years.

Scope:
This programme covers families below poverty line in rural areas of the country. Within this target group,
special safeguards have been provided by reserving 50% of benefits for SCs/STs, 40% for women and 3%
for physically handicapped persons. Subject to the availability of the funds, it is proposed to cover 30% of
the rural poor in each block in the next 5 years.

Jawahar Gram Samriddhi Yojna

Top

Objective:
Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojna (JGSY) is the restructured, streamlined and comprehensive version of the
erstwhile Jawahar Rozagar Yojana. Designed to improve the quality of life of the poor, JGSY has been
launched on 1st April, 1999. The primary objective of the JGSY is the creation of demand driven community
village infrastructure including durable assets at the village level and assets to enable the rural poor to
increase the opportunities for sustained employment. The secondary objective is the generation of
supplementary employment for the unemployed poor in the rural areas. The wage employment under the
programme shall be given to Below Poverty Line(BPL) families.

Scope:
JGSY is implemented entirely at the village Panchayat level. Village Panchayat is the sole authority for
preparation of the Annual Plan and its implementation.

Indira Aawas Yojna

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IAY is the flagship rural housing scheme which is being implemented by the Government of India with an
aim of providing shelter to the poor below poverty line. The Government of India has decided that
allocation of funds under IAY (Indira Awas Yojna)will be on the basis of poverty ratio and housing shortage.

Objective:
The objective of IAY is primarily to help construction of new dwelling units as well as conversion of
unserviceable kutcha houses into pucca/semi-pucca by members of SC/STs, freed bonded labourers and
also non-SC/ST rural poor below the poverty line by extending them grant-in-aid.

Scope:
IAY is a beneficiary-oriented programme aimed at providing houses for SC/ST households who are victims
of atrocities, households headed by widows/unmarried women and SC/ST households who are below the
poverty line. This scheme has been in effect from 1st April, 1999.

Funding:
IAY is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme funded on cost sharing basis between the Govt. of India and the
States in the ratio of 75:25 respectively.

Strategy:
Grant of Rs. 20,000/- per unit is provided in the plain areas and Rs. 22,000/- in hilly/difficult areas for the
construction of a house. For conversion of a kutcha house into in pucca house, Rs. 10,000/- is provided.
Sanitary laterines and chulahs are integral part of the house. In construction/upgradation of the house, cost
effective and enviornment friendly technologies, materials and designs are encouraged. The household is
alloted in the name of a female member of beneficiary household.

How to Seek Assistance:

The person concerned should contact the Village Panchayat or Village Level Worker or the Block
Development Officer or District Rural Development Agency.

DRDA Administration
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District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) has traditionally been the principal organ at the District level to
oversee the implementation of the anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development. Created
originally for implementation of Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), the DRDAs were
subsequently entrusted with a number of programmes, both of the Central and State Governments. Since
inception, the administrative costs of the DRDA (District Rural Development Agency) were met by setting
aside a part of the allocations for each programme. Of late, the number of programmes had increased and
several programmes have been restructured with a view to making them more effective. While an
indicative staffing structure was provided to the DRDAs, experience showed that there was no uniformity in
the staffing structure. It is in this context that a new centrally sponsored scheme - DRDA Administration -
has been introduced from 1st April, 1999 based on the recommendations of an inter-ministerial committee
known as Shankar Committee. The new scheme replaces the earlier practice of allocating percentage of
programme funds to the administrative costs.

Objective:
The objective of the scheme of DRDA (District Rural Development Agency) Administration is to strengthen
the DRDAs and to make them more professional and effective. Under the scheme, DRDA is visualised as
specialised agency capable of managing anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry on the one hand and
effectively relate these to the overall efforts of poverty eradication in the district on the other.

Basic Minimum Services

Top

The Government of India launched this scheme in 1997 incorporating seven vital services of importance to
common people. The State Government has opted to provide shelter to shelter-less below poverty line
under this scheme.
Objective:
The objective of providing this scheme is to supplement the constitution of dwelling units for members of
SC/ST, freed bonded labour and also non-SC/ST rural poor below the poverty line by providing them with
grant.

Execution:
Additional Indira Awas are being constructed with the guidelines analogous to that for the Awas Yojana. The
salient features are:
Rs. 20,000/- is provided to the beneficiaries for construction of the houses in phases. Sanitary latrines
and smokeless chulah are integral part of the houses.
Houses are allotted in the name of female members of the family or in joint names of both spouses.
Selection of construction technology, materials and design is left entirely to the choice of beneficiaries.
Contractors, Middlemen or the Departmental Agencies have no role in the construction of houses.
Cost effective and environment friendly housing technologies/design and materials are provided.

Community Development
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The State Govt. launched a scheme in 1980-81 to enable the members of legislature to execute the small
schemes of their choice that are developmental and are based on immediate felt local needs, as per the
guidelines issued for this purpose. Under this scheme Rs.50.00 lakh has to be provided to each member of
the State Legislative.

Objective:
The objective of this scheme is to facilitate immediate execution of locally important schemes, whose
execution may otherwise span over a large period - as per the list of Do's and Don't indicated in the
guidelines.

Funding:
This is a State Plan Scheme whose expenditure is fully borne by the State Government.

Execution:
Each legislator is supposed to indicate choice of schemes to the tune of Rs fifty lakhs per year to br taken
up in his/her constituency to the concerned Deputy Development Commissioner, which will get them
implemented by following the established procedures contained in the guidelines and circulars issued by
the Rural Development Department.

Contact Info:
Local MLA/MLC may be contacted for schemes to be taken up under Community Development Programme.

Drought-Prone Areas Programme

Top

The Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP) aims at mitigating the adverse effects of drought on the
production of crops and livestock and productivity of land, water and human resources. It strives to
encourage restoration of ecological balance and seeks to improve the economic and social conditions of the
poor and the disadvantaged sections of the rural community.

Scope:
DPAP is a people's programme with Government assistance. There is a special arrangement for
maintenance of assets and social audit by Panchayati Raj Institutions. Development of all categories of land
belonging to Gram Panchayats, Government and individuals fall within the limits of the selected watersheds
for development.
Funding:
Allocation is to be shared equally by the Centre and State Govt. on 75:25 basis. Watershed community is to
contribute for maintenance of assets created. Utilisation of 50% of allocation under the Employment
Assurance Scheme (EAS) is for the watershed development. Funds are directly released to Zila
Parishads/District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs) to sanction projects and release funds to
Watershed Committees and Project Implementation Agencies.

Strategy:
Village community, including self-help/user groups, undertake area development by planning and
implementation of projects on watershed basis through Watershed Associations and Watershed
Committees constituted from among themselves. The Government supplements their work by creating
social awareness, imparting training and providing technical support through project implementation
agencies.

How to Seek Assistance:

Non-Government organisations can approach the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) for
appointment as Project Implementation Agencies.

MP Local Area Development Programme

Top

MPLADS was launched in December 1993 as a central sector scheme to enable Members of Lok Sabha and
Rajya Sabha to execute the schemes of their choice that are developmental and based on locally felt needs
within the guidelines for this purpose.

Objective:
The basic objective of this programme is to facilitate immediate execution of small but locally important
schemes, whose execution may otherwise span over a huge period. The works which can be carried out
under this scheme are - construction of buildings for schools, hostels, libraries and shelter for
old/handicapped, construction of link/approach roads, culverts/bridges, public irrigation and public drainage
facilities etc. as indicated in the guidelines.

Funding:
The Government of India provides cent-percent fund for this scheme. Each MP has the choice to suggest
work to the tune of Rs. Two crores per year to be taken up in his/her constituency.

Execution:
Execution of this scheme is done through the detailed guidelines and circulars issued from time to time on
matters relating to operational details by the Department of Programme Implementation, Govt. of India.

Contact Info:
Local MPs of Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha may be contacted.

Credit-cum-Subsidy Scheme for Rural Housing

Top

There were a large number of households in the rural areas which could not be covered under the IAY, as
either they do not fall into the range of eligibility or due to the limits imposed by the available budget. On
the other hand due to limited repayment capacity, these rural households cannot take benefit of fully loan
based schemes offered by some of the housing finance institutions. The need of this majority can be met
through a scheme which is part credit and part subsidy based.

Objective:
The objective of this scheme for rural housing is to facilitate construction of houses for rural families who
have some repayment capacity. The scheme aims at eradicating shelterlessness from the rural area of the
country.
Scope:
The scheme provides shelter to rural families who have not been coveted under IAY and who are desirous
of possessing a house. All rural households having annual income up to Rs. 32,000/- are covered under this
scheme.

Funding:
The funds are shared by the Centre and the State in the ratio of 75:25 respectively.

Strategy:
Rural poor just above the poverty line are entitled to get the benefits of the scheme. A maximum subsidy of
Rs. 10,000/- per unit is provided for the construction of a house. Sanitary latrine and smokeless chulha are
integral part of the house. Cost effective and enviornment friendly technologies, materials, designs, etc.
are encouraged. Sixty per cent (60%) of the houses are allocated to SC/ST rural poor.

How to Seek Assistance:

State Governments decide the implementing agency, which may be the State Housing Board, State
Housing Corporation, specified scheduled Commercial bank, Housing Finance Institution or the DRDA/ZP.
The person desirous of getting benefit of the scheme may approach the implementing agency.

1.