Poverty amidst economic growth

Poverty amidst economic growth
By The Post
Thu 07 Apr. 2011, 04:30 CAT

Economic development is meaningless if it just means recording increments in GDP and not in improving the living conditions for the great majority of our people.

You can’t say you are developing a country when you are not developing the people. A country can’t claim to be developing when its people are not developing. Economic growth should depend, in the very first place, on social progress.

There is a great danger when government policies are not combined with clear social concern because they will bring socio-economic deprivation. And this is what we are seeing in Zambia today. While the government is everyday boasting or bragging about development, the situation for the great majority of our people is not improving – it is actually deteriorating.

And this is the reality that Prof Mubiana Macwan’gi is trying to draw the attention of the nation to when she observes that the benefits of economic growth are not trickling down to the majority of our people. Prof Macwan’gi says that poverty and unemployment have increased during the period the country is recording steady growth as reflected in increasing poverty levels, poor housing, unemployment, poor infrastructure and poor access to social services such as health, safe water and other services required in an organised society.

While we are recording growth in GDP, the number of people who, each day, cannot meet the basic needs necessary for a decent human life is increasing in our country. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental needs to remain unsatisfied. And one cannot talk of development if the fundamental needs of the great majority of our people remain unsatisfied.

Economic justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to survive, to develop and thrive, and to give back in service to the community.

Over the past five decades, the human race has come to a more refined appreciation of what development is all about. Based on this understanding, the United Nations, for example, forwarded eight core areas that constitute the focus of attention in trying to attain higher levels of development during the period 1990 to 2015. These areas are: ending poverty, gender, education, child health, maternal health, combating infections, environment and global links.

These are interrelated areas that require simultaneous and systematically coordinated investments. The global community is, to a larger extent, in agreement that sustained efforts in these areas and attainment of the associated eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will significantly improve the standards of living and help to reduce poverty and the inhuman conditions under which millions of the world’s population still live.

Prof Macwan’gi’s statements on the situation in Zambia gives a lot of food for thought. She raises concerns that we have raised many times in this newspaper. We totally agree with her that the current pattern of economic growth is not improving the standard of living of most Zambians; it is not pro-poor. She also drives the point home that the policy environment is not supportive of Zambian workers and entrepreneurs. It is also a painful fact that an opportunity for a healthier fiscal status is recklessly missed through an inappropriate tax regime.

For a country that has committed itself to the MDGs, Zambia’s policymakers still seem oblivious to the extreme poverty, disease and squalor that still characterise the majority of the country’s population. The excessive excitement with the “GDP growth rate” over the recent past poses the question whether the complexity of the developmental phenomenon is well known and if the rationale behind the MDGs is well understood. Is it a question of lack of capacity to understand the issues or is it a calculated move to blind the populace amidst widespread corruption and lack of political will for genuine development?

Ironically, our world is full of recent examples of countries that have attained remarkable social progress in health and education. The policies and investments that allowed countries such as South Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam to succeed are well-documented and subject of much policy analyses. Most of these countries have attained levels of life expectancy at birth equivalent to those of highly developed countries. They also constitute a group of countries, next to the BRICs group (Brazil, Russia, India and China) whose economies are more favourable for rapid economic transformation. In other words, they possess masses of well-educated and healthier people that will serve as a basis for sustained economic development. Why can’t Zambia draw lessons from these countries?

Zambian surveys and analytical studies continue to point to the fact that extreme poverty is still very high countrywide; that most of the poverty is in agriculture and especially amongst those producing less than two hectares of a crop such as maize; that in urban areas the extreme poor are largely the unemployed in our slum areas, and that Western, Northern and Luapula provinces are proportionally worse off, in that order, than the rest of the country.

Instead of using this information as a basis to design social and economic policies that will improve the livelihoods of the population, the policymakers cowardly ignore and at times arrogantly gloss over it in a now familiar fashion. These are policymakers that will hold back useful information that indicates that poverty levels are still high in the country – as is currently the case with the latest Living Conditions Monitoring Survey Report.

They are not ready to disaggregate public finance data to account for how expenditure is linked to needs or poverty levels.

They would rather ignore the latest study on the 2010 maize marketing that clearly shows that current marketing arrangements are not pulling the small, poor farmers out of poverty. They seem lost on how to aggressively address the poor quality of education and health services amidst huge data bases from routine reporting systems and regular surveys. They are not motivated by other countries that are advancing. The immense suffering of the majority of the citizens still leaves them cold. Again, is it a matter of capacity or political will?

Great economic and political thinkers like Professor Macwan’gi are non-partisan and hold independent views. Our policymakers will do well to listen to them carefully and take action on the salient issues being raised. It is high time a more realistic understanding of development was embraced. The evidence base is available to transform this country on a developmental path. The policymakers need to convince us that they are capable leaders and mean well for mother Zambia.