Poverty Alleviation
Economic Growth With Human Face

By Shanker KC

ONE of the very depressing features of our time is that despite the tremendous progress made by humanity in every field of knowledge a large population in developing countries have to live very humiliating life both economically and socially. Threats of hunger and malnutrition are always haunting them.

Majority of them still do not have decent shelter to live and are denied access to basic education, health care, safe drinking water and sanitation. In many of these poor countries staggering poverty exists side by side with extreme opulence. Rich are getting richer and poor further poorer. Income gap is widening so dangerously that it threatens to break the very fabric of society.

What has gone wrong with our past development efforts? Where did we go wrong? Is there any route that will allow us to escape this vicious circle of poverty? Is the present emphasis on economic liberalisation and market mechanism panacea for all this? Or more distribute and interventionist approach to economy is needed?

After the Second World War many nations came out of the grip of imperialist forces and gained independence. National governments, which came to power after the colonial rule, gave strong emphasis on self-sustained economic development. Some nations followed the socialist path of economic development, other some followed a mixture of socialism and capitalism. However, bot group of countries failed to make tangible improvements on living conditions of the majority of people despite their egalitarian rhetoric.

Still many others followed the path of unrestrained capitalism with sole emphasis on achieving high economic growth. Growth was taken as synonymous with economic development. It was believed that by replicating the experiences of the developed world it is possible to achieve high economic growth. To promote growth two pronged strategies of agricultural developmetn and industrialisaton were followed.

Developed countries and international development agencies made sophisticated technologies, technical experts as well as capital resources available to these countries with focus on economic growth. It was thought than human welfare would be enhanced in the long run, as the fruits of high economic growth will automatically trickle down to the lower strata of society living in poverty.

However, this disillusionment slowly shattered as it become evident by the late seventies that very few countries achieved sustained and high economic growth to have any tangible impacts on poverty alleviation. Even in those countries, which were able to achieve high growth, it contributed to widening the income gap between the rich and the poor. For example, human development report of UNDP (1992) pointed out that, in Brazil top 20 per cent of the population received 26 times the income of the bottom 20 per cent.

Development efforts with high priority to economic growth benefited mostly certain segments of the society, who were already well off. The expected fruits of development were "trickling down" so slowly that it would take unduly long time to benefit the targeted population.

Reorientation

However, it would be wrong to say that maximisation of the economic growth has not helped in any way. If the economic growth had not been achieved, the picture of the world would have been more miserable than it is today. But if the distribution of the growth had been more, it would have been almost possible to eradicate poverty in many parts of the world.

Thus a new concept of development began to emerge. It was realised that economic growth alone does not bring the development, if the real meaning of the development is to eradicate or at least alleviate poverty from the face of the earth. Miximisation of economic growth is a precondition for development. But obsession of measuring the development in terms of economic growth alone and standard of living in gross national product per capita failed to show the actual distribution of income among the population.

Economic growth without social justice can produce very rich farmers and there may still be many land-less labourers and small farmers who have difficulties to eke out their daily existence. High degree of industrialisa-tion can be achieved at the cost of the exploited labour forces. Such anomalies actually emerged in many developing countries. As a result, scholars, national governments in the developing world as well as international development agencies began to rethink about the growth oriented development strategies. Development for human dignity

Dissatisfaction with the results of the economic growth paradigm led to need for reconsideration of meaning of development and fundamental redirection in development policies. Need for more humanitarian and welfare oriented approach was felt. Development paradigms shifted from achieving high economic growth with minimal thoughts on equity to poverty alleviation and basic needs fulfilment.

The major components of the new paradigm included basic needs fulfilment such as food, shelter and clothing, access to service such as education, safe drinking water and sanitation and health services and raising the capacity to participate in social life through increased political involvement and employment opportunities. It sees the poverty in different perspectives: not as condition to be overcome by the individual but a product of deteriorating social and environmental circumstances.

However, there are some who argue that more welfare and equity oriented approach hampers the economic growth thus creating negative effects on overall performance of the economy. Is it possible to redistribute the gains from development without any cost to economic growth? If we compare the extent of poverty measured in terms of human development index (life expectancy at birth, literacy and income) in a country and GNP per capita, we find direct correlation-a country with high per capita also has low incidences of poverty.

This suggests that the solution to poverty is raising overall standard of the people with high economic growth. This is further supported by the fact that populations living below the poverty line have fallen markedly over the past decades in several fast growing economies of the East Asia. South Asia with its steady but slow growth has also some success in combating poverty. However, poverty situation has worsened in many countries including Sub-Saharan Africa where growth rates have been negative.

It can be said that with economic growth poverty shows sign of declining. Then why emphasise on poverty alleviation and basic needs fulfilment? Because, firstly, it will take excessively long time to reach the benefits of economic growth to very poor. Secondly, high rate of growth has to be sustained over the long period of time if any visible sign of decline in poverty is to be noticed. Thirdly, with high and sustained economic growth absolute poverty may show sign of decline but income gap may widen.

Thus, current emphasis on poverty alleviation and basic needs fulfilment is not misplaced. Poverty alleviation efforts with its investment in human resources will ultimately contribute to steady economic growth. However, too much distributionary temptation should be curbed. Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient conditions for the overall human development. So development strategies should focus on achieving high economic growth as well as fulfilment of basic needs and poverty alleviations.

Develop Quality Education

By Yuba Nath Lamsal

EDUCATION is key to development. Country’s development is possible only when there is an abundant skilled, informed and educated human resource. It is education that creates such skilled and informed human resource. Global experiences have shown that nations that invested more in education have moved ahead in social and economic development. The level of education reflects the level of economic and social development of any country in the world that is why the governments have accorded high priority to the development of education.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and the status of education is also one of the lowest. The literacy rate is less than 50 per cent, the female literacy rate being even lower. As a result, the country has lagged behind in the march to development. Illiteracy is the biggest curse as it limits a person’s understanding. They are the ones who suffer from different types of social, economic and health and environmental related problems and ailments as they are not aware of the importance of sanitation, cleanliness and healthy environment. As a result, they easily fall prey to illnesses that can be easily prevented. Moreover, hygiene is almost a dirty word for they see no valid reason for wasting costly soap on washing hands or clothes which may be the result of the lack of education. But education also has its cost, which most of the people may not be able to afford. Keeping this in mind the government has declared school education free and provides free text books in primary level. However, students still need to pay certain amount of money under different heads.

Many parents in the remote rural areas do not send their children to school. because they prefer their children to work with them in the house and farms. Even those children who enroll in grade one do not complete upto grade three. There are estimated 2.6 million child workers, who do not go to schools. If children are not well brought up and educated today they cannot contribute to the development of the country in the future as today’s children are tomorrow’s nation builder’s. This is the reason why Nepal has also invested much in the education sector and several donors have also been supporting in the development of education in Nepal. Despite the huge public spending, the quality of education in public schools is of very low standard. The SLC results are the clear example of the poor performance of public schools. Now debates have started on the quality of education in different forums.

There is a widespread feeling that two types of education exist in Nepal—education in private boarding schools and education in public schools. The quality in private schools is far better than the quality in the public schools has been proved time and again by the results. This has created a kind of conflict in education. Unless education is made uniform, there is the possibility of continuous threat of sustaining a dual society. Education is a right but not privilege and it the responsibility of the state to provide equal opportunity of education to all the citizens. The Directive Principles of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal have also clearly accepted this fact. The government has recognised the need for education and made efforts to provide education to all. However, the gap between the intent and the practice has not been closed even after decades of efforts in this sector.

Poverty is the number one problem of the country. It is not only a cause of other social and economic problems of the nation but also the product and consequence of other problems. Poverty remains and even increases when other problems are not solved. If people continue to remain illiterate, it contributes to increase poverty. Thus, education is not only essential for social and economic advancement and human resource development but also for alleviating poverty. Unless the level of education was raised and its quality improved, sustainable development and poverty alleviation programmes would remain as unattainable goals.

Nepal is a party to World Declaration on Education for All (EFA) at Jomtein, in which it has expressed commitment to ensure education to all. As a signatory to the World Declaration on Education for All, it is an obligation of Nepal to guarantee educational opportunity to all people and eradicate illiteracy in the near future. Although Nepal allocates a significant quite per cent of the national budget to education sector, it still seems to be insufficient. As a result of budget crunch, the goal of the government in education has remained unfulfilled.

The government has undertaken a massive programme for eradicating illiteracy within the shortest possible time. Education was also one of the improtant areas in the Nine Five Year Plan. Social mobilisation activities have mounted in order to implement literacy programmes at the grassroots level. This has helped to increase enrollment at primary level and increase literacy rate.

Social mobilisation programmes supported by greater financial support, improvement of school infrastructure and introduction of incentive programmes such as food for education programme, scholarship programmes for the children of backward and oppressed families, has helped raise literacy levels among the children.

As a result of the two-pronged strategy - formal primary education on the one hand and non-formal education for out-of school children, adolescents and adults on the other, it is hoped that Nepal can achieve this lofty goal of education for all. In the field of non-formal education, the country also has had considerable success. A training programme has also been developed for the supervisors as well as for the teachers of the non-formal education centres.

NFE experts of various government organisations and NGOs are mobilised for this purpose. Different kinds of teaching-learning materials have been developed and improved on a continuous basis. The Basic and Primary Education Programme has been supporting these efforts, which have been quite successful.

These literacy and non-formal education programmes have been taken up with the objective of alleviating poverty.

Initially basic literacy efforts were taken on a massive scale. It has been felt very necessary also to launch post literacy and continuing education to ensure that the acquired literacy skills are translated into gainful and sustainable income generating skills.

Marx Missed A Job!

By Ritu Raj Subedi

IT is not surprising that the Left parties of the country have once again engaged to form a wider unity among over a dozen of divided Left groups of the country. Perhaps they are bracing for their never met goal if not, formation of a broad-based Left Front.

Like the communists across the world, Nepalese communists too are never tired of talking about unity but never succeed to get united. It is perhaps the psychological injection of unity matter in Marxism that every communist party of the world talks much about the unity but instantly moves towards the path of fragmentation over a trifle.

It is interesting to note that Karl Marx the father of communist principle, had first summoned to his followers with a slogan: ‘Be united, the working class of the world.’ But ironically, it is the communist organisations, which are mostly split across the world. Contrary to the prediction of Marx, the capitalist forces strongly united and defeated their divided foes easily.

In the present Nepalese context, the question surfaces: Will they be united? It is difficult to answer. But if it is to be replied in the language of a layman, the answer may be no; The split syndrome is one of the key features in the organisation, parlicularly disorganization of Nepalese communist parties in its 50-year-old history.

These days, Nepalese Left groups are holding a series of meetings with three objectives: first, if possible, the unity among them on the basis of ideology, secondly, if the first goal is not met, then forging a functional alliance and if the second one fails too forming a wider Left Front.

It is noteworthy that the talks of unity have hit the political circle at a time when an ultra-Left underground Maoist communist party has unexpectedly risen in scene forcing changes in the existing power equation.

The CPN-UML, the largest communist group in the Parliament, first threw the unity talk into the market of Left politics by giving a recognition of ‘political party’ to its breakaway- CPN-ML. It was green signal on part of the parent party for the ML to come closer and work together. The move also flickered a ray of hope among the withered cadres of both the parties. Many thought the UML strategy was to check its dwindling workers from escape into the Maoist camp. It is said that the wave of the Maoist radicalism is perforating into the forts of the UML and ML in their rustic bases.

However, the hope of euphoric cadres’ were dashed to the ground when the chieftains of both the parties did not budge from their stands in their camaraderie unity talks held in a cozy room.

Still, the delegations of the parties are holding meetings after meetings for the same purpose. But now it seems that the issue of party unity has been replaced by the functional alliance to fight for the common political cause.

The unity talk is not only around the periphery of the UML and ML. The UML has invited other ten left groups and organised some meetings hoping they could hammer out a wider alliance to work together on common agenda. And it is yet to see the outcome of the bilateral and multi-lateral talks among them.

Nonetheless, the political observers hardly believe that the divided Left parties would churn out a consensus either for the unity or for the functional alliance among themselves.

Whatever the outcome of the ongoing developments in the left political arena, some pertinent questions will always be raised pointing at them: Why could the communist parties not be united despite much outcry of unity in the party manifestos? Is it ideological or personal ambition or personality clash that always keeps the comrades away from each other.

But as this scribe thinks, it is a dearth of psychological philosophy in the communist literature that fails to equip the followers of red path with knowledge of how and why the communist leaders split over the minor difference of personal perception and irritation by giving them a colour of ideology.

Perhaps Marx fell short of fulfilling a historic responsibility by not writing a book on human psychology that would edify the communists to keep the split-syndrome at bay.