Saturday, 21 March 2015
POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES
JULIET PORTILLO
HOW COMMITTED ARE WE IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO IN ERADICATING POVERTY?
Is the present energy crisis facing us reason enough for diversifying the economy? What can we do to help minimize these external shocks on our economies and the well being of our people? Since our budget is pegged to the price of oil and gas social programs to help alleviate poverty needs as much funding as possible to help develop people. It should be people centered and people driven without creating a dependency on the state for their every need. Some types of poverty reduction strategies have not been effective in reducing poverty in Trinidad and Tobago. On the contrary it has produced a mindset of dependency on the state. Some social programs have contributed to dependency.According to the United Nations Development Programme Poverty Report 2000 on Overcoming Poverty it was stated that much remains to be learned about how to make anti-poverty plans effective. Should these programs be more than just a few projects "targeted" at the poor? How do we diversify the economy in such a way so that sustainable jobs could be created? Should we contend that the poor will always be with us? Has the negative impact of globalization and neoliberalism with structural adjustment policies contributed to our demise ?
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While the extent of poverty varies from country to country, throughout the region there have evolved similarities centred on three definite categories of poor. Each category has its own dynamics and required its own distinct modes of intervention they are as follows: the hard core of systematic poor - those who are born and remain poor over their life time, mainly because of the manner of their insertion into the system of production and asset ownership. Another group, the newly poor, or structurally adjusted poor are persons who while not being born poor, have become poor largely because of the various stabilization and adjustment programs in operation namely, public servants, teachers and members of the security services. The third group is the transient poor - vary in number, form and content, from year to year and season to season, reflecting in general the ups and downs of the economy and the definite seasonality of production and sales which still persist, especially in agriculture and tourism. Clyde Y. Thomas
ReplyDeleteThe incidence of poverty among single parent households is high, particularly in the squatting areas of the country. Arising from this situation is a high percentage of unemployment and school dropouts who are left with a lot of free time. This has led many particularly the unskilled youths to become a target for the drug pusher and criminal activity.
In order to alleviate this problem, the government introduced programs to provide assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable in society. The most common is the public assistance programs that can be accessed via the Ministry of the People and Social Development (Social Welfare Department). In addition to Targeted Conditional Cash Transfer Program better known as the "Food card" to low income families, assistance in kind includes emergency relief in the event of fire. There is also a Grant encouraging persons to become small entrepreneurs, who will also be trained in basic business skills such as financial management and bookkeeping starting from $5000 up to $15000 to lessen the percentage of persons who are on public assistance thereby reducing the poverty level. For example, a person who has the 'food card' is encouraged to access this grant so they can rise up from this state of dependency. It is expected that their living condition would changed so the 'food card' would be taken from them. At the Ministry it was discovered that the grants are being distributed to the persons who does not qualify. In order to nip this in the bud, the introduction of a 'biometric card' a system that was taken from the Government of Peru is being put in place to avoid this dishonest act.
Since poverty is a global problem and since there are certain categories of poverty the writer is of the view that poverty cannot be eliminated but governments can put certain programs in place to reduce poverty. What say you?