Identifying The Needs Of The Poor

By DR. NIRANJAN PRASAD UPADHYAY

Despite decades of development programs, poverty remains a serious challenge in Nepal. According to the Nepal Living Standard Survey 1996, 42 percent of the total population remains below the absolute poverty line. Among them, about 17.1 percent are ranked as the poorest.

Social scientists advocate that poverty leads to miserable problems within society. Behavioural scientists observe that deprivation of such basic needs as food, cloth and shelter compels people to choose other alternatives for survival. Darwinism stresses that rapid multiplication of organisms and limited supply of food and space create competition within living organism. Hence, these spark an environmental struggle for food, space and mates. This struggle for survival leads to the process of balance within organisms.

Psychologists deal with poverty on the basis of needs. When an individual is deprived of food, clothing and shelter, he or she automatically proceeds in the direction of drug trafficking, prostitution and other deviant behavior. Researchers stress that poverty is the state that lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty exists in the absence of the means to gratify the basic needs. Thus the identification of poor people requires a determination of what constitutes basic needs.

The concept of poverty reduction is not new in Nepal. Land reform, cooperative movements, Small Farmers Development Program, Back-to-Village Campaign, small-scale entrepreneurship development, integrated rural development, people's participatory approach, Develop Your Village By Yourselves, Bishweshwor with the Poor and many similar initiatives are related either implicitly or explicitly to the core objection of poverty reduction.

Everyone recognizes that human beings are the prime movers of development. A state of malnourishment, deprivation, and ill health of the people are the manifestations of poverty. Poverty is categorized in two watertight compartments: absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty encompasses a notion of minimum subsistence appropriate to certain circumstances. Relative poverty is measured in terms of the inequalities in income distribution.

An organized effort to alleviate poverty was initiated in 1975 by the Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal through its Small Farmer Development Program. The program  led to the development of criterion based solely on family landholding. Psychological researchers describe "deprivation" as certain deficiencies of experience by the individual as a result of disadvantages emanating from different sources like society, culture, economy, caste and religion. Withdrawal of these factors relate to severe physical as well as psychological harm.

Human motives are based on needs. Some are primary needs, such as water, air, food, sleep, and shelter. Additional needs may be regarded as secondary, such as self-esteem, status, affection, sense of accomplishment, and selfñassertion. Visibly, these needs show a discrepancy in strength over time among different individuals. Social psychologists note that basic needs deprivation show improper growth of abilities and makes the person feel insufficient and inferior when compared with non-deprived individuals. This has led to broad gaps between the rich and the poor.

The government faces an uphill task in addressing poverty. The requisite infrastructures for economic activities are still not in sight in the country, except in the urban areas. Chiefly, political instability, lack of good governance and the security threats make matter worse. The Nepal Development Forum meeting earlier this year had taken place amid a realization that poverty at one corner of the world would cause direct or indirect implications to the pace in other parts of the world as well. This realization is likely to give birth to a more pragmatic and substantial aid policy characterized by active involvement of the donors in the development endeavors of the aid recipients.

Human needs are as complex and varied as human beings. Some originate from man's biological nature, such as the need for food and water. The fulfillment of these needs is vital to prolong life, which is one of the most widely approved doctrines of needs theory put forward by the well-known psychologist Abraham Maslow. He described human needs in the form of hierarchy, ascending from the lowest to the highest. At the same time, he argues that a "lower" need must be adequately satisfied before the next need.

In the course of pursuing poverty alleviation programs, His Majesty's Government has emphasized a variety of core activities like empowering backward social and economic classes and weaker sections of society, and reducing endemic poverty by developing physical, social, and economic infrastructure in the underdeveloped and remote regions of the country.

The World Development Report (2000/2001) presents the dimensions of poverty. It postulates that poor people live without fundamental freedom of action and choice that the better off take for granted. The report describes poverty as a worldwide problem of huge proportions. Of the world's six billion people, 2.8 billion live on less than $ 2 a day and 1.2 billion on less than $1 a day. The report adds that eight out of every 100 infants do not live to see their fifth birthday; nine of every 100 boys and 14 of every 100 girls who reach school age do not attend school.

Poverty is an important component of deprivation, which seems to be out of control in developing countries like Nepal. Mainly, Nepalese researchers have pinpointed diverse factors contributing to poverty such as high population growth, inadequate socio-economic infrastructure, corruption, poor services, low output and ineffective use of resources, lack of pro-poor programs, fatalism, poor management programs, lack of dedication towards work, ineffective research and poor monitoring mechanism.

Although poverty has decreased marginally in South Asia, the region still has the largest share of the world poverty, comprising around 40 per cent of world's 1.35 billion poor. Poverty alleviation therefore remains a social, economic, political priority of the governments of the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

The Nepal Human Development Report also points out that good governance is the solution to poverty reduction. But government programs and policies have not proved effective in the anti-poverty campaign. Planners and policy makers need to begin all over by identifying the needs of the poor in a scientific manner.

They must put into practice diversified programmes promoting opportunity, facilitating empowerment and enhancing security to the poor people. It is important to form a team of scholars and administrators to set clear and coherent programmes and policies on poverty alleviation.