from Globes Online
Growth and welfare-to-work can’t by themselves solve the problem.
Avi Temkin
The 2005 poverty report published yesterday by the National Insurance Institute calls into question some of the basic principles of the economic policy that was introduced after Likud chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu took over the Ministry of Finance, and which has remained in effect following his departure. First and foremost, the report challenges the concept that instituting cuts in social security benefits and dismantling welfare systems will reduce poverty levels, provided that such moves are accompanied by economic growth, higher employment, and an increase in the number of employed people among the ranks of the poor.
This approach, as embodied by the slogan “from welfare to work,” guided policy makers at the Ministry of Finance, including the professionals, and it was the concept that lay behind the unprecedented cuts in benefits in 2004- 2005, without them being accompanied by the building of alternative welfare systems.
The poverty report reveals that there has indeed been higher employment, economic growth, and a higher rate of employment among the poor. Yet despite this, not only has the number of poor people not fallen, but it has even risen and, with it the incidence of poverty among working families.
In view of these figures, one can do one of two things. One option would be to review the primary assumptions and examine why and how poverty is rising as employment expands. Another option is to assume that whatever has been done up to this point has not been extensive enough and we should all carry on along the same route - until the next poverty report.
For Netanyahu himself the reports serves as a blunt reminder that he should continue to maintain a low profile. He and he alone was responsible for economic policy in 2005, and this report in its entirety is the outcome.
One achievement for which Netanyahu takes less credit is actually the increase in old age pensions. This was forced on him for political reasons and led, fortunately, to a reduction in the incidence of poverty among old people. The problem here is that this is not compatible with the fundamental concept and rationale of right wing research institutes in the US, which in many instances wrote their theses first and only began to examine them in practice afterwards.
So Israeli society remains polarized, with separate tracks in work, in salaries and in education, according to ethnic origin and area of residence. Arab families have no chance of making any tangible progress in Israel, and poverty among them has become acute. Israel still has a poverty rate in excess of 20%, while the much vaunted solution, going out to work, has not delivered results.
It may well that the cause of this lies in the social mechanisms that have evolved in Israel, which predetermine a child’s fate at birth, consigning him or her to a pre-set life story, a given quality of education and social services, and a certain level of income in adult life.
As long as this remains the case, all the talk about getting people off welfare and into work will remain empty slogans.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on August 31, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
[US] Poverty and poor health are intertwined, experts say
from CNN
By Sabriya Rice
Poverty in the United States increased 20 percent between 2000 and 2004, census numbers show. And although the trend stalled in 2005, researchers worry poverty will have profound effects on public health in this country.
Poverty and its effects are a chief issue for former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative. Clinton is bringing together a non-partisan group of world leaders on September 20 in New York to try to match innovative problem-solving with resources.
"More possibility for growth and more possibility for prosperity for Americans is a very inexpensive thing to do, if you do it well," the former president said.
Risk all around
New research indicates that it's not just the poor who are getting poorer. An analysis of poverty rates and health published in the September issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people living in extreme poverty tend to have more chronic illnesses, more frequent and severe disease complications and make greater demands on the health care system.
"When we talk about poverty, there is the tendency to feel it affects a small percentage of the population and the rest of us are doing better," said Steven Woolf, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the study. But in this situation, he said, "we're all doing a little bit worse."
A Census Bureau report released Tuesday said that U.S. salaries across the board increased minimally, about $500 a year between 2004 and 2005. It's also the first year that the poverty rate has not worsened since before President Bush took office.
The modest salary increase is not enough to counter what Woolf's study calls a "sinkhole effect" on income, a disparity shifting middle- and upper-class families closer to the poverty level.
Fewer people can claim "poverty doesn't affect me" as more individuals face layoffs and cutbacks, and are unable to afford health insurance, Woolf said. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, the average family pays about $2,700 a year for health insurance, not including out-of-pocket expenses for co-payments and prescription drugs. That number is expected to rise to $3,200 by the end of 2006.
As financially strapped families struggle to cover basic needs such as food, shelter and the increasing cost of energy, health insurance often takes a back seat on the list of priorities. A National Health Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found more than 40 million people of all ages went without insurance at some point in 2005.
More than half remained uninsured specifically because they simply couldn't afford it, the CDC said. Research consistently highlights the negative link between reduced income and worsening health -- as salaries drop, individuals tend to be more stressed, and generally lead less-healthy lifestyles.
"These people are going to develop diseases at a higher rate and the health care system is going to feel the brunt of it," Woolf said.
Poverty's impact is felt most by the nation's children. Children under the age of 5 are more likely to live in extreme poverty. Uninsured children are at greater risk of experiencing health problems such as obesity, heart disease and asthma that continue to affect them later in adulthood. The prevalence of these illnesses does not bode well for future generations, Woolf said.
"If we amplify the scale by the results of poverty left to run loose, the economic consequence to everybody, to all Americans and all taxpayers, will be substantial," Woolf said. The prevailing thought is that the problem needs to be addressed, and quickly, he said.
By making the public more aware of the direction the economy is taking, researchers say they hope policies can be put into place that will keep Americans from living under such difficult conditions in the wealthiest country in the world.
Sabriya Rice is an associate producer with the CNN Medical Unit.
By Sabriya Rice
Poverty in the United States increased 20 percent between 2000 and 2004, census numbers show. And although the trend stalled in 2005, researchers worry poverty will have profound effects on public health in this country.
Poverty and its effects are a chief issue for former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative. Clinton is bringing together a non-partisan group of world leaders on September 20 in New York to try to match innovative problem-solving with resources.
"More possibility for growth and more possibility for prosperity for Americans is a very inexpensive thing to do, if you do it well," the former president said.
Risk all around
New research indicates that it's not just the poor who are getting poorer. An analysis of poverty rates and health published in the September issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people living in extreme poverty tend to have more chronic illnesses, more frequent and severe disease complications and make greater demands on the health care system.
"When we talk about poverty, there is the tendency to feel it affects a small percentage of the population and the rest of us are doing better," said Steven Woolf, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the study. But in this situation, he said, "we're all doing a little bit worse."
A Census Bureau report released Tuesday said that U.S. salaries across the board increased minimally, about $500 a year between 2004 and 2005. It's also the first year that the poverty rate has not worsened since before President Bush took office.
The modest salary increase is not enough to counter what Woolf's study calls a "sinkhole effect" on income, a disparity shifting middle- and upper-class families closer to the poverty level.
Fewer people can claim "poverty doesn't affect me" as more individuals face layoffs and cutbacks, and are unable to afford health insurance, Woolf said. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, the average family pays about $2,700 a year for health insurance, not including out-of-pocket expenses for co-payments and prescription drugs. That number is expected to rise to $3,200 by the end of 2006.
As financially strapped families struggle to cover basic needs such as food, shelter and the increasing cost of energy, health insurance often takes a back seat on the list of priorities. A National Health Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found more than 40 million people of all ages went without insurance at some point in 2005.
More than half remained uninsured specifically because they simply couldn't afford it, the CDC said. Research consistently highlights the negative link between reduced income and worsening health -- as salaries drop, individuals tend to be more stressed, and generally lead less-healthy lifestyles.
"These people are going to develop diseases at a higher rate and the health care system is going to feel the brunt of it," Woolf said.
Poverty's impact is felt most by the nation's children. Children under the age of 5 are more likely to live in extreme poverty. Uninsured children are at greater risk of experiencing health problems such as obesity, heart disease and asthma that continue to affect them later in adulthood. The prevalence of these illnesses does not bode well for future generations, Woolf said.
"If we amplify the scale by the results of poverty left to run loose, the economic consequence to everybody, to all Americans and all taxpayers, will be substantial," Woolf said. The prevailing thought is that the problem needs to be addressed, and quickly, he said.
By making the public more aware of the direction the economy is taking, researchers say they hope policies can be put into place that will keep Americans from living under such difficult conditions in the wealthiest country in the world.
Sabriya Rice is an associate producer with the CNN Medical Unit.
[US] household income rises a bit, but poverty rate maintains its grip
from The San Francisco Chronicle
Median household income rose about 1 percent between 2004 and 2005, but the nation's poverty rate remained unchanged, according to a survey released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The American Community Survey for 2005, the Census Bureau's new annual demographic study, also estimated that the median income for individuals nationwide dropped -- men's about 1.8 percent and women's about 1.3 percent.
Advocates for the poor were frustrated by the good news-bad news announcement. It's proof that there have been too few gains during a time of economic recovery, said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan policy research group.
"What you'd expect to see during a recovery is poverty going down and income going up. It's disturbing," Ross said. "Corporate profits are up by record levels, but it's not trickling down to working families."
Based on its survey of 800,000 households across the country, the Census Bureau estimates that 37 million people were living in poverty in 2005, or 12.6 percent of Americans. About 13.3 percent of Californians, or 4.7 million, were estimated to be living in poverty in 2005.
The California Budget Project and other watchdog groups pointed out that even though the poverty rates stabilized between 2004 and 2005 -- the headline that the Census Bureau used on its news release Tuesday -- the rate in 2005 was well above 2001's 11.7 percent.
These groups used Tuesday's announcement to complain about federal policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy and Medicaid changes.
"We're seeing a general theme of divergences (between the economic classes), and we can't say the country as a whole is doing better," said Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank.
Tuesday's good news -- that median household income increased from $45,817 in 2004 to $46,326 in 2005 -- raised more questions than it answered about the nation's working population. For California, the figure was $53,629.
How could household income go up and individual income drop? Men's income fell to $41,386 and women's to $31,858.
David Johnson, chief of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, suggested there were more people working per household to make ends meet, but working at individual jobs that pay less.
"It's clear that the income increase that happened in 2005 is attributable to elderly households," Sherman said, because their investments paid off well. But "working-age households saw a decline."
The findings released Tuesday came from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, which tracks a panel of households for several years, and its American Community Survey, a new annual survey of 800,000 households.
Other findings include:
-- Nationwide, Asian American households had the highest median income, $61,094, followed by non-Hispanic white households at $50,784, Hispanic households of any race at $35,967, and black households at $30,858.
-- In California, the median household income was $53,629 in 2005. And five California cities were among the 10 wealthiest nationwide: San Jose's median household income was $70,560, San Francisco's $57,496, San Diego's $55,637, Anaheim's $52,158 and Riverside's $50,416.
-- California also was home to seven of the nation's 10 wealthiest suburbs, cities of 65,000 to 249,999 residents, including No. 1 Pleasanton, where the median household income was $101,022, and Newport Beach (Orange County), Livermore, Chino Hills (San Bernardino County), Mission Viejo (Orange County), Thousand Oaks (Ventura County) and Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County).
-- The poorest counties with 250,000 or more people in 2005 were Cameron and Hidalgo counties in Texas, where 41 percent of people live below the federal poverty level, which for a family of four was $19,971.
-- Nearly 18 percent of people in poverty in 2005 were children under 18. That's 12.9 million children.
-- More seniors over 65 were poor in 2005 -- 3.6 million -- than in 2004, when 3.5 million seniors were poor, according to the federal standard.
-- Among the poor in 2005, 43.9 percent were non-Hispanic white, 24.9 percent black, 11.1 Asian American, 21.8 percent Hispanic of any race.
State leads in household income, uninsured
Though median household incomes in the state were higher than the U.S. median in 2005, Californians were more likely to be uninsured.
Percentage of households in poverty, 2005
National average: 12.6%
Highest rate: Mississippi: 21.3%
Lowest rate: New Hampshire, 7.5%
California: 13.3%
Number of people without health insurance, 2005
Nationally: 46.6 million
Most uninsured: California, 7 million
Fewest uninsured: Vermont and D.C., 73,000
Median household income, in thousands of dollars, 2005
National average: $46,326
Highest: N.J., $61,672
Lowest: Mississippi, $32,938
California: $53,629
Source: U.S. Census Bureau estimates
E-mail Ilene Lelchuk at ilelchuk@sfchronicle.com.
Median household income rose about 1 percent between 2004 and 2005, but the nation's poverty rate remained unchanged, according to a survey released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The American Community Survey for 2005, the Census Bureau's new annual demographic study, also estimated that the median income for individuals nationwide dropped -- men's about 1.8 percent and women's about 1.3 percent.
Advocates for the poor were frustrated by the good news-bad news announcement. It's proof that there have been too few gains during a time of economic recovery, said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan policy research group.
"What you'd expect to see during a recovery is poverty going down and income going up. It's disturbing," Ross said. "Corporate profits are up by record levels, but it's not trickling down to working families."
Based on its survey of 800,000 households across the country, the Census Bureau estimates that 37 million people were living in poverty in 2005, or 12.6 percent of Americans. About 13.3 percent of Californians, or 4.7 million, were estimated to be living in poverty in 2005.
The California Budget Project and other watchdog groups pointed out that even though the poverty rates stabilized between 2004 and 2005 -- the headline that the Census Bureau used on its news release Tuesday -- the rate in 2005 was well above 2001's 11.7 percent.
These groups used Tuesday's announcement to complain about federal policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy and Medicaid changes.
"We're seeing a general theme of divergences (between the economic classes), and we can't say the country as a whole is doing better," said Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank.
Tuesday's good news -- that median household income increased from $45,817 in 2004 to $46,326 in 2005 -- raised more questions than it answered about the nation's working population. For California, the figure was $53,629.
How could household income go up and individual income drop? Men's income fell to $41,386 and women's to $31,858.
David Johnson, chief of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, suggested there were more people working per household to make ends meet, but working at individual jobs that pay less.
"It's clear that the income increase that happened in 2005 is attributable to elderly households," Sherman said, because their investments paid off well. But "working-age households saw a decline."
The findings released Tuesday came from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, which tracks a panel of households for several years, and its American Community Survey, a new annual survey of 800,000 households.
Other findings include:
-- Nationwide, Asian American households had the highest median income, $61,094, followed by non-Hispanic white households at $50,784, Hispanic households of any race at $35,967, and black households at $30,858.
-- In California, the median household income was $53,629 in 2005. And five California cities were among the 10 wealthiest nationwide: San Jose's median household income was $70,560, San Francisco's $57,496, San Diego's $55,637, Anaheim's $52,158 and Riverside's $50,416.
-- California also was home to seven of the nation's 10 wealthiest suburbs, cities of 65,000 to 249,999 residents, including No. 1 Pleasanton, where the median household income was $101,022, and Newport Beach (Orange County), Livermore, Chino Hills (San Bernardino County), Mission Viejo (Orange County), Thousand Oaks (Ventura County) and Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County).
-- The poorest counties with 250,000 or more people in 2005 were Cameron and Hidalgo counties in Texas, where 41 percent of people live below the federal poverty level, which for a family of four was $19,971.
-- Nearly 18 percent of people in poverty in 2005 were children under 18. That's 12.9 million children.
-- More seniors over 65 were poor in 2005 -- 3.6 million -- than in 2004, when 3.5 million seniors were poor, according to the federal standard.
-- Among the poor in 2005, 43.9 percent were non-Hispanic white, 24.9 percent black, 11.1 Asian American, 21.8 percent Hispanic of any race.
State leads in household income, uninsured
Though median household incomes in the state were higher than the U.S. median in 2005, Californians were more likely to be uninsured.
Percentage of households in poverty, 2005
National average: 12.6%
Highest rate: Mississippi: 21.3%
Lowest rate: New Hampshire, 7.5%
California: 13.3%
Number of people without health insurance, 2005
Nationally: 46.6 million
Most uninsured: California, 7 million
Fewest uninsured: Vermont and D.C., 73,000
Median household income, in thousands of dollars, 2005
National average: $46,326
Highest: N.J., $61,672
Lowest: Mississippi, $32,938
California: $53,629
Source: U.S. Census Bureau estimates
E-mail Ilene Lelchuk at ilelchuk@sfchronicle.com.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
[US] Poverty stats released today
from The Long Beach Press Telegram
Society: You can view the live press conference online.
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
LONG BEACH - Interested residents and city officials will be checking in on their computers today when the U.S. Census Bureau releases its report on poverty, income and earnings and health insurance at 7 a.m.
Anyone interested in watching the live press conference on the Web or viewing the data can find it on the Internet at www.census.gov and click on the Income, Poverty and Health Insurance link at the top of the page.
Last year, Long Beach got the bad news that it had moved up the poverty charts from No. 7 to No. 6 nationally for percentage of people in poverty (26.4 percent) and to No. 3 in children in poverty (45.2 percent).
Some city officials downplayed the significance of last year's numbers, noting that Long Beach was statistically no different from most communities in the top 20.
The Census will actually be releasing two sets of related numbers - one from the Current Population Survey and one from the American Community Survey.
The CPS estimates median household income, health insurance coverage and the official annual estimate of poverty for the nationand the states.
The ACS breaks numbers down into more detailed socioeconomic and regional data.
This year's ACS has expanded nearly four-fold, allowing for less margin of error. Also, for the first time, the annual census numbers will be available for communities as small as 65,000 people.
The ACS report also includes a comparison of earnings for men and women by selected characteristics, including industry and occupation.
The Census Bureau will have a live Webcast with Louis Kincannon, director, U.S. Census Bureau, and David Johnson, chief, Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, U.S. Census Bureau.
Greg Mellen can be reached at greg.mellen@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1291.
Society: You can view the live press conference online.
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
LONG BEACH - Interested residents and city officials will be checking in on their computers today when the U.S. Census Bureau releases its report on poverty, income and earnings and health insurance at 7 a.m.
Anyone interested in watching the live press conference on the Web or viewing the data can find it on the Internet at www.census.gov and click on the Income, Poverty and Health Insurance link at the top of the page.
Last year, Long Beach got the bad news that it had moved up the poverty charts from No. 7 to No. 6 nationally for percentage of people in poverty (26.4 percent) and to No. 3 in children in poverty (45.2 percent).
Some city officials downplayed the significance of last year's numbers, noting that Long Beach was statistically no different from most communities in the top 20.
The Census will actually be releasing two sets of related numbers - one from the Current Population Survey and one from the American Community Survey.
The CPS estimates median household income, health insurance coverage and the official annual estimate of poverty for the nationand the states.
The ACS breaks numbers down into more detailed socioeconomic and regional data.
This year's ACS has expanded nearly four-fold, allowing for less margin of error. Also, for the first time, the annual census numbers will be available for communities as small as 65,000 people.
The ACS report also includes a comparison of earnings for men and women by selected characteristics, including industry and occupation.
The Census Bureau will have a live Webcast with Louis Kincannon, director, U.S. Census Bureau, and David Johnson, chief, Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, U.S. Census Bureau.
Greg Mellen can be reached at greg.mellen@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1291.
Monday, August 28, 2006
[South Africa] Science: The cure for poverty
from The Mail and Guardian
Hila Bouzaglou | Johannesburg, South Africa
Without science and scientists, Africa is doomed to fail in the implementation of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena said at a media briefing on Monday.
He was discussing the role of science in helping South Africa deal with poverty, economic growth and sustainable development.
"We need to be a nation of scientists not only because we are competing with other nations, but more importantly so that we can fight enemies such as poverty, infectious diseases like HIV/Aids, malaria or tuberculosis and lifestyle-related illnesses such as malnutrition, obesity and diabetes.
"We need science to calculate and mitigate the effects of global warming, severe storms, over-fishing, pollution and a host of other problems," he said.
The eight millennium goals, which must be fulfilled by 2015, are: the eradication of extreme poverty by half; the achievement of universal primary education; the promotion of gender equality; the reduction of the death rate among children under the age of five by two thirds; the reduction of the maternal death rate by three quarters; reversal of the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria and other major diseases; sustainable access to safe drinking water; and the development of open trading and financial systems that do not discriminate.
One of the ways the Department of Science and Technology will be fulfilling the eighth MDG -- the development of further open trading and financial systems and making available the benefits of new technological discoveries -- is by hosting the International Science Innovation and Technology Exhibition (Insite) at the Sandton convention centre from September 25 to 27.
"Insite provides us with an invaluable platform to showcase our country's advances in scientific knowledge and to compare and benchmark our achievements with those of our neighbours across the world," said Mangena.
He said that Insite 2006 had been designed to give South Africans direct exposure to technological advances as well as to create excitement among the South African youth for careers in science and technology.
According to the National Survey of Research and Experimental Development, conducted by the Department of Science and Technology in 2005, there were 17 910 science researchers in South Africa, of which approximately 38% comprised doctoral students and post-doctoral students.
Mangena said it is important for South African children to learn science and maths and that the subjects open up many doors.
"There are many distractions out there, ranging from cellular phones to iPods to computers. So we need to remind the next generation that it is important that they become creators of technology, and not just consumers of existing technology," he said.
Entry to Insite will be free to the public. There will be science shows, seminars and a speaker's corner where scientific and technological challenges and solutions for the developing and developed world will be discussed.
Hila Bouzaglou | Johannesburg, South Africa
Without science and scientists, Africa is doomed to fail in the implementation of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena said at a media briefing on Monday.
He was discussing the role of science in helping South Africa deal with poverty, economic growth and sustainable development.
"We need to be a nation of scientists not only because we are competing with other nations, but more importantly so that we can fight enemies such as poverty, infectious diseases like HIV/Aids, malaria or tuberculosis and lifestyle-related illnesses such as malnutrition, obesity and diabetes.
"We need science to calculate and mitigate the effects of global warming, severe storms, over-fishing, pollution and a host of other problems," he said.
The eight millennium goals, which must be fulfilled by 2015, are: the eradication of extreme poverty by half; the achievement of universal primary education; the promotion of gender equality; the reduction of the death rate among children under the age of five by two thirds; the reduction of the maternal death rate by three quarters; reversal of the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria and other major diseases; sustainable access to safe drinking water; and the development of open trading and financial systems that do not discriminate.
One of the ways the Department of Science and Technology will be fulfilling the eighth MDG -- the development of further open trading and financial systems and making available the benefits of new technological discoveries -- is by hosting the International Science Innovation and Technology Exhibition (Insite) at the Sandton convention centre from September 25 to 27.
"Insite provides us with an invaluable platform to showcase our country's advances in scientific knowledge and to compare and benchmark our achievements with those of our neighbours across the world," said Mangena.
He said that Insite 2006 had been designed to give South Africans direct exposure to technological advances as well as to create excitement among the South African youth for careers in science and technology.
According to the National Survey of Research and Experimental Development, conducted by the Department of Science and Technology in 2005, there were 17 910 science researchers in South Africa, of which approximately 38% comprised doctoral students and post-doctoral students.
Mangena said it is important for South African children to learn science and maths and that the subjects open up many doors.
"There are many distractions out there, ranging from cellular phones to iPods to computers. So we need to remind the next generation that it is important that they become creators of technology, and not just consumers of existing technology," he said.
Entry to Insite will be free to the public. There will be science shows, seminars and a speaker's corner where scientific and technological challenges and solutions for the developing and developed world will be discussed.
[Effects on Health] Poor Patients Who Are Healthy?
from The LA Times
The so-called Latino paradox puzzles medical experts, who seek the answer in diet, lifestyles and support networks.
By Juliet Chung, Times Staff Writer
Thousands of Latino patients stream though the East Los Angeles practice of Dr. Hector Flores and his partners each year.
The older ones go to the family practice with arthritis and hypertension, the younger ones with diabetes and asthma.
What surprises Flores, however, is not how sick they are, it is how sick they are not.
Overall, Flores said, his patients are much healthier than one would expect given their low levels of income and education, factors epidemiologists long have known are linked to poor health.
"You can predict in the African American population, for example, a high infant mortality rate," he said recently, "so we would think a [similarly] poor minority would have the same health outcomes.
"But they don't. They're not there," he said, referring to outcomes among Latinos.
Why Latinos aren't sicker — a phenomenon known to health experts as the Latino paradox — is puzzling to public health experts, given the link between disadvantage and high disease and mortality rates.
In overall mortality rates and infant mortality rates, two standard measures of a population's health, Latinos' numbers approach and sometimes surpass those of whites.
In Los Angeles County in 2003, the age-adjusted mortality rate for Latinos was 535 per 100,000, 33% less than for non-Hispanic whites and 52% less than for blacks, according to the most recent data from the county's Department of Public Health.
Nationally that year, Latinos' mortality rate was 621, 25% less than whites' and 43% less than blacks', according to National Vital Statistics Reports, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latinos' infant mortality rates reflect a similar pattern. Locally, the rate was 5.2 per 100,000 in 2003, 16% higher than whites' and 57% less than blacks'. The national rate was 5.7, about the same as whites' and 58% less than blacks'.
"It violates one of the most predictable patterns we see in most areas of the world and for most diseases," said Dr. Paul Simon, chief epidemiologist for the county's Public Health Department.
"The question is, 'What is the Latino population doing right?' "
The reasons for the paradox are a matter of some debate. Some scholars attribute it to immigration, which may draw selectively from the ranks of the hale and hardy.
Another possibility is that many immigrants return to their home countries when seriously ill, skewing mortality statistics in this country.
But increasingly, researchers are suggesting that such factors as diet, lifestyle choices and strong social support networks are the key to Latinos' better-than-expected health.
"They're not taking some secret Aztec herb they didn't tell you about," said David Hayes-Bautista, an early observer of the Latino paradox who directs UCLA Medical School's Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.
It's worth figuring out what is making the difference, he added, because "we could all be better off for it."
As the immigration debate heats up and the cost of healthcare soars, the phenomenon is attracting attention from social scientists and public health officials. It was first noticed, though, in the 1970s and 1980s by researchers looking at infant and overall mortality rates in Texas and California.
Scholars tended to view the findings as wrong or anomalous, assuming that Latinos' relatively disadvantaged socioeconomic status put their health status more on par with blacks'.
As data accumulated, covering broader swaths of the country and longer periods, skepticism turned to curiosity.
Kyriakos Markides, who in 1986 coined the term "Hispanic epidemiological paradox," described scholars' shift in recent years as remarkable.
"Nobody talked about it then," said Markides, a professor of socio-medical sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch, speaking of a generation ago. "People just ignored the data or assumed that disadvantaged populations have high mortality. Now, it's the leading theme in the health of the Hispanic population in the United States."
The paradox remains controversial, in part because its first-blush message — that Latinos are less ill than expected — might lead people to believe that the group doesn't need scarce healthcare dollars.
Hayes-Bautista recalled an incident in the 1990s when a colleague he had just briefed on the paradox asked him to keep the data to himself, saying she feared services for Latinos could be cut.
"I guess it's the triumph of — I hate to say — of ideology over data," he said.
In addition, some doctors and other medical professionals aren't familiar with the concept, which is a broad statistical phenomenon, not necessarily true in individual cases or practices.
Even some who are aware of the phenomenon question its significance, saying they still must focus on treating individuals.
"Somebody at 36,000 feet can stand back and say this is all true and verified, but I still have a clinic full of diabetics, hypertensives, people with high cholesterol," said Dr. Felix Nuñez, the medical director of South Central Family Health Center, a Los Angeles clinic that serves a large Latino population.
Scholars also note that it seems to apply more to some diseases than to others. Data suggest Latinos experience less lung and breast cancer than whites, but they also are more likely to have diabetes, cervical cancer and AIDS.
The paradox's power appears variable, too, waning by some measures with each generation and fluctuating by place of origin. Some researchers say that, for unclear reasons, it is most apparent among Mexicans and less so among Puerto Ricans.
"You never get a complete picture of what's going on," said Alberto Palloni, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin and president of the Population Assn. of America. "You get patches, halfway photographs of what is happening."
Studies have indicated, however, that Latinos drink less alcohol and smoke less than their white counterparts, although their healthful behaviors appear to wane with greater acculturation in the United States.
Several studies have found that the children and grandchildren of foreign-born Latinos tend to smoke, drink and use illegal drugs more than their parents and grandparents. And some research suggests that they are less likely to breast-feed or stick to the healthier diets of their forebears.
"You can see it in obesity rates; they're very high in Mexican children," said Dr. Leo Morales, an associate professor of medicine and public health at UCLA who has written about the paradox.
"That portends high disease rates for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, all the obesity-related complications."
Ana F. Abraido-Lanza, an assistant professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, cited a greater availability of fast food in the United States and social factors, including a more relaxed attitude toward drinking.
Another possible culprit is stress.
A 1999 study published in the journal Social Forces found that Puerto Rican women who had recently moved to the mainland United States reported fewer stressful "life events" than mainland-born peers, such as being physically abused or being close to someone with a serious drug or alcohol problem.
Strong social networks could be helping them.
"A strong family and social network can reduce stress and can provide emotional support during difficult periods," Simon said. "All those things translate into people living longer and living healthier."
A yet-to-be-published study of Chicago neighborhoods found that in enclaves with high numbers of Latino immigrants, 5% of such immigrants had asthma, a lower percentage than for whites, blacks and U.S.-born Latinos in the same area.
That figure jumped to 22%, higher than for all other groups, among Latino immigrants when they lived in neighborhoods with few of their immigrant peers, even when such factors as health insurance and poverty were accounted for.
"There seems to be something about neighborhood social context that matters," said Kathleen Cagney, a University of Chicago assistant professor and lead author on the study, which is to be published in the American Journal of Public Health.
In this case, Cagney said, she believes the trust and solidarity in their neighborhoods led foreign-born Latinos outdoors and away from indoor irritants such as mold and cockroach infestations.
No expert offered a comprehensive explanation of the paradox, and some wondered whether one was possible.
"In some ways, it's like the more you get into it, the more complex it seems," said Dr. Elena Fuentes-Afflick, a professor of pediatrics at UC San Francisco.
Like Flores, she believes the truth ultimately will involve a combination of factors.
UCLA's Hayes-Bautista believes the answer exists, if only health experts look hard enough.
"There must be an explanation," he said. "We just need to put the time in to understand."
The so-called Latino paradox puzzles medical experts, who seek the answer in diet, lifestyles and support networks.
By Juliet Chung, Times Staff Writer
Thousands of Latino patients stream though the East Los Angeles practice of Dr. Hector Flores and his partners each year.
The older ones go to the family practice with arthritis and hypertension, the younger ones with diabetes and asthma.
What surprises Flores, however, is not how sick they are, it is how sick they are not.
Overall, Flores said, his patients are much healthier than one would expect given their low levels of income and education, factors epidemiologists long have known are linked to poor health.
"You can predict in the African American population, for example, a high infant mortality rate," he said recently, "so we would think a [similarly] poor minority would have the same health outcomes.
"But they don't. They're not there," he said, referring to outcomes among Latinos.
Why Latinos aren't sicker — a phenomenon known to health experts as the Latino paradox — is puzzling to public health experts, given the link between disadvantage and high disease and mortality rates.
In overall mortality rates and infant mortality rates, two standard measures of a population's health, Latinos' numbers approach and sometimes surpass those of whites.
In Los Angeles County in 2003, the age-adjusted mortality rate for Latinos was 535 per 100,000, 33% less than for non-Hispanic whites and 52% less than for blacks, according to the most recent data from the county's Department of Public Health.
Nationally that year, Latinos' mortality rate was 621, 25% less than whites' and 43% less than blacks', according to National Vital Statistics Reports, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latinos' infant mortality rates reflect a similar pattern. Locally, the rate was 5.2 per 100,000 in 2003, 16% higher than whites' and 57% less than blacks'. The national rate was 5.7, about the same as whites' and 58% less than blacks'.
"It violates one of the most predictable patterns we see in most areas of the world and for most diseases," said Dr. Paul Simon, chief epidemiologist for the county's Public Health Department.
"The question is, 'What is the Latino population doing right?' "
The reasons for the paradox are a matter of some debate. Some scholars attribute it to immigration, which may draw selectively from the ranks of the hale and hardy.
Another possibility is that many immigrants return to their home countries when seriously ill, skewing mortality statistics in this country.
But increasingly, researchers are suggesting that such factors as diet, lifestyle choices and strong social support networks are the key to Latinos' better-than-expected health.
"They're not taking some secret Aztec herb they didn't tell you about," said David Hayes-Bautista, an early observer of the Latino paradox who directs UCLA Medical School's Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.
It's worth figuring out what is making the difference, he added, because "we could all be better off for it."
As the immigration debate heats up and the cost of healthcare soars, the phenomenon is attracting attention from social scientists and public health officials. It was first noticed, though, in the 1970s and 1980s by researchers looking at infant and overall mortality rates in Texas and California.
Scholars tended to view the findings as wrong or anomalous, assuming that Latinos' relatively disadvantaged socioeconomic status put their health status more on par with blacks'.
As data accumulated, covering broader swaths of the country and longer periods, skepticism turned to curiosity.
Kyriakos Markides, who in 1986 coined the term "Hispanic epidemiological paradox," described scholars' shift in recent years as remarkable.
"Nobody talked about it then," said Markides, a professor of socio-medical sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch, speaking of a generation ago. "People just ignored the data or assumed that disadvantaged populations have high mortality. Now, it's the leading theme in the health of the Hispanic population in the United States."
The paradox remains controversial, in part because its first-blush message — that Latinos are less ill than expected — might lead people to believe that the group doesn't need scarce healthcare dollars.
Hayes-Bautista recalled an incident in the 1990s when a colleague he had just briefed on the paradox asked him to keep the data to himself, saying she feared services for Latinos could be cut.
"I guess it's the triumph of — I hate to say — of ideology over data," he said.
In addition, some doctors and other medical professionals aren't familiar with the concept, which is a broad statistical phenomenon, not necessarily true in individual cases or practices.
Even some who are aware of the phenomenon question its significance, saying they still must focus on treating individuals.
"Somebody at 36,000 feet can stand back and say this is all true and verified, but I still have a clinic full of diabetics, hypertensives, people with high cholesterol," said Dr. Felix Nuñez, the medical director of South Central Family Health Center, a Los Angeles clinic that serves a large Latino population.
Scholars also note that it seems to apply more to some diseases than to others. Data suggest Latinos experience less lung and breast cancer than whites, but they also are more likely to have diabetes, cervical cancer and AIDS.
The paradox's power appears variable, too, waning by some measures with each generation and fluctuating by place of origin. Some researchers say that, for unclear reasons, it is most apparent among Mexicans and less so among Puerto Ricans.
"You never get a complete picture of what's going on," said Alberto Palloni, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin and president of the Population Assn. of America. "You get patches, halfway photographs of what is happening."
Studies have indicated, however, that Latinos drink less alcohol and smoke less than their white counterparts, although their healthful behaviors appear to wane with greater acculturation in the United States.
Several studies have found that the children and grandchildren of foreign-born Latinos tend to smoke, drink and use illegal drugs more than their parents and grandparents. And some research suggests that they are less likely to breast-feed or stick to the healthier diets of their forebears.
"You can see it in obesity rates; they're very high in Mexican children," said Dr. Leo Morales, an associate professor of medicine and public health at UCLA who has written about the paradox.
"That portends high disease rates for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, all the obesity-related complications."
Ana F. Abraido-Lanza, an assistant professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, cited a greater availability of fast food in the United States and social factors, including a more relaxed attitude toward drinking.
Another possible culprit is stress.
A 1999 study published in the journal Social Forces found that Puerto Rican women who had recently moved to the mainland United States reported fewer stressful "life events" than mainland-born peers, such as being physically abused or being close to someone with a serious drug or alcohol problem.
Strong social networks could be helping them.
"A strong family and social network can reduce stress and can provide emotional support during difficult periods," Simon said. "All those things translate into people living longer and living healthier."
A yet-to-be-published study of Chicago neighborhoods found that in enclaves with high numbers of Latino immigrants, 5% of such immigrants had asthma, a lower percentage than for whites, blacks and U.S.-born Latinos in the same area.
That figure jumped to 22%, higher than for all other groups, among Latino immigrants when they lived in neighborhoods with few of their immigrant peers, even when such factors as health insurance and poverty were accounted for.
"There seems to be something about neighborhood social context that matters," said Kathleen Cagney, a University of Chicago assistant professor and lead author on the study, which is to be published in the American Journal of Public Health.
In this case, Cagney said, she believes the trust and solidarity in their neighborhoods led foreign-born Latinos outdoors and away from indoor irritants such as mold and cockroach infestations.
No expert offered a comprehensive explanation of the paradox, and some wondered whether one was possible.
"In some ways, it's like the more you get into it, the more complex it seems," said Dr. Elena Fuentes-Afflick, a professor of pediatrics at UC San Francisco.
Like Flores, she believes the truth ultimately will involve a combination of factors.
UCLA's Hayes-Bautista believes the answer exists, if only health experts look hard enough.
"There must be an explanation," he said. "We just need to put the time in to understand."
Thursday, August 24, 2006
[Finland] Government's last budget proposal focuses on employment and poverty
from Helsingin Sanomat
Finland's three-party coalition government reached agreement on Wednesday on a proposal for next year's state budget. The final sum of the last budget before next year's Parliamentary elections is EUR 40.5 billion.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) said that the government was leaving a "very strong legacy for the next electoral term". He praised the government's budget discipline.
"The goal of 100,000 new jobs during this electoral term remains", Vanhanen said. So far, about 60,000 new jobs have emerged.
His views were echoed by Minister of Finance Eero Heinäluoma (SDP).
"A balanced and good proposal", he said, reiterating what he saw as the government's good cooperation and sense of responsibility.
The government seeks to promote labour mobility through a grant of EUR 700 for the unemployed who move to another location to take on a job.
Municipalities suffering from economic structural change are to get state assistance totalling EUR 30 million.
The maximum income level for beneficiaries of subsidised ARAVA rental accommodation is to be raised 15 percent to make the scheme more easily available to those with middle incomes. The number of new subsidised apprenticeships for on-the-job training is being increased from 22,000 to 25,000. The proposals are from a list of initiatives that labour market organisations put forward to Heinäluoma.
"All of the central proposals of the organisations are here", he said.
The proposal includes a poverty package of EUR 80 million to help the poorest Finns. Of this total, EUR 40-50 million will come directly from the state budget. The sum rises to about EUR 80 million when money from local authorities and revenue from the Slot Machine Association are included.
The poverty package comprises precise actions targeting specific groups of people, such as families with children, the poorest pensioners, veterans, certain groups of the disabled, and those who care for their relatives. No blanket increases in social benefits are forthcoming.
EUR 115 million are to go to subsidise research and development activities. The money is to come from profits from the sale of state-owned corporations.
Heinäluoma predicts economic growth of more than four percent this year, and employment trends should be strong as well. Earlier in the day the government noted that next year's growth forecast will be revised upward.
The government's budget process appeared to go very smoothly, with hardly any discord among the ministers. According to government sources only the Second Minister of Education, Tanja Saarela (Centre), had pushed for higher spending than the framework agreements would have called for.
Saarela would have liked to see improvements to student benefits, but she did not get support from the other ministers.
Finland's three-party coalition government reached agreement on Wednesday on a proposal for next year's state budget. The final sum of the last budget before next year's Parliamentary elections is EUR 40.5 billion.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) said that the government was leaving a "very strong legacy for the next electoral term". He praised the government's budget discipline.
"The goal of 100,000 new jobs during this electoral term remains", Vanhanen said. So far, about 60,000 new jobs have emerged.
His views were echoed by Minister of Finance Eero Heinäluoma (SDP).
"A balanced and good proposal", he said, reiterating what he saw as the government's good cooperation and sense of responsibility.
The government seeks to promote labour mobility through a grant of EUR 700 for the unemployed who move to another location to take on a job.
Municipalities suffering from economic structural change are to get state assistance totalling EUR 30 million.
The maximum income level for beneficiaries of subsidised ARAVA rental accommodation is to be raised 15 percent to make the scheme more easily available to those with middle incomes. The number of new subsidised apprenticeships for on-the-job training is being increased from 22,000 to 25,000. The proposals are from a list of initiatives that labour market organisations put forward to Heinäluoma.
"All of the central proposals of the organisations are here", he said.
The proposal includes a poverty package of EUR 80 million to help the poorest Finns. Of this total, EUR 40-50 million will come directly from the state budget. The sum rises to about EUR 80 million when money from local authorities and revenue from the Slot Machine Association are included.
The poverty package comprises precise actions targeting specific groups of people, such as families with children, the poorest pensioners, veterans, certain groups of the disabled, and those who care for their relatives. No blanket increases in social benefits are forthcoming.
EUR 115 million are to go to subsidise research and development activities. The money is to come from profits from the sale of state-owned corporations.
Heinäluoma predicts economic growth of more than four percent this year, and employment trends should be strong as well. Earlier in the day the government noted that next year's growth forecast will be revised upward.
The government's budget process appeared to go very smoothly, with hardly any discord among the ministers. According to government sources only the Second Minister of Education, Tanja Saarela (Centre), had pushed for higher spending than the framework agreements would have called for.
Saarela would have liked to see improvements to student benefits, but she did not get support from the other ministers.
[North Carolina] UNC poverty center gets $2 million pledge
from Myrtle Beach On Line
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A Chapel Hill couple has pledged $2 million to the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina School of Law, the school said Wednesday.
The gift by Michael Cucchiara and Marty Hayes will endow operations and expenses of the center, which is directed by former vice presidential candidate and North Carolina senator John Edwards.
"This wonderful example of generosity and philanthropy will allow the center to continue exploring the many facets of poverty and keep these important issues in the public eye for the decades to come," Edwards, a 1977 UNC Chapel Hill law school graduate, said in a statement.
Cucchiara and Hayes are investors in Greenbridge, a downtown condo and retail development that features solar power, landscaped roofs and other energy efficient features.
"For too long, the issues facing the working poor have not received the attention they deserve," Cucchiara said. "That is why we are proud to join Sen. Edwards, the leadership of UNC and the law school to ensure that there will always be a permanent academic forum for the best minds in the state and the nation to address the issues of poverty, work and opportunity."
The center was established in February 2005 to work on poverty research and policy issues.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A Chapel Hill couple has pledged $2 million to the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina School of Law, the school said Wednesday.
The gift by Michael Cucchiara and Marty Hayes will endow operations and expenses of the center, which is directed by former vice presidential candidate and North Carolina senator John Edwards.
"This wonderful example of generosity and philanthropy will allow the center to continue exploring the many facets of poverty and keep these important issues in the public eye for the decades to come," Edwards, a 1977 UNC Chapel Hill law school graduate, said in a statement.
Cucchiara and Hayes are investors in Greenbridge, a downtown condo and retail development that features solar power, landscaped roofs and other energy efficient features.
"For too long, the issues facing the working poor have not received the attention they deserve," Cucchiara said. "That is why we are proud to join Sen. Edwards, the leadership of UNC and the law school to ensure that there will always be a permanent academic forum for the best minds in the state and the nation to address the issues of poverty, work and opportunity."
The center was established in February 2005 to work on poverty research and policy issues.
[Afghanistan] Afghan president under fire over poverty
from The Seattle Post Intelligencer
By FISNIK ABRASHI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
The bloodiest fighting since the Taliban's fall, abject failure to control the drug trade and gaping disparities between rich and poor are shaking the credibility of Afghanistan's U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.
Less than two years after Karzai sealed a strong majority vote in the war-battered nation's first post-Taliban election, the popularity of his administration has dwindled amid rising anger over poverty and corruption.
"Security is the big concern for the people," said Muhammad Qasim Akhgar, an Afghan political analyst. "Even inside Kabul city, the people are not feeling safe anymore."
More than 1,600 people, mostly militants, have died nationwide in violent incidents since the start of May, mostly in the south, according to a tally compiled by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan officials, the U.S. military and NATO.
In violence reported Wednesday, NATO and Afghan forces killed 36 suspected Taliban militants in the volatile south, while roadside bombs killed three civilians.
NATO also shot to death an Afghan youth in the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Kandahar that killed a Canadian soldier and wounded three other people Tuesday.
Western officials say the surge in violence is largely due to international forces taking the battle to Taliban-led fighters who had gradually extended their sway across the poorly policed south.
The failure of the government and its international supporters to stabilize the Taliban heartland since the hard-line regime fell in late 2001 has severely impeded efforts to develop the area, shaking faith in Karzai's ability to bring change.
When Karzai was first chosen to lead the administration, initially as interim leader in late 2001, he was "very good ... he was accepted by all the people," said Abdul Hamid Mubares, a former deputy minister for information and culture.
Now his government is weak and unable to find solutions to people's problems, and "you see this unhappiness in the assembly and the bazaar," Mubares said.
Discontent over the pace of development is not restricted to the south.
While a small elite has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, more than half of Afghanistan's 31 million people live below the poverty line and 40 percent are unemployed. Electricity and water shortages are acute. Illicit crops like opium represent more than a third of gross domestic product.
In a sign of continued American backing for the Afghan leader, President Bush called him on Tuesday to assure him "of the continued and long-term U.S. support for Afghanistan" and invited him to Washington. Karzai last visited in May 2005.
Afghanistan relies on foreign aid, about $10.5 billion of which was pledged at a February donor conference in London. Few would deny some progress has been made since the austere days of the Taliban, notably in access to education and health care - but social services remain sparse and infrastructure poor.
"People want jobs and security, but the government cannot provide them with either," said Akhgar. "People also complain about corruption and government does nothing about it."
Karzai's chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, responded that the government had "done pretty well given our resources" in the past five years. He described the rebuilding of Afghanistan after 30 years of war as a generational project.
"We have obviously not delivered on one thing and that is security ... especially in the south, but it is very clear that this is due to a host of factors, most of them out of President Karzai's control. They have emanated from outside this country," Ludin told The Associated Press. He apparently was referring to neighboring Pakistan, where some militants are believed to be based.
"The international community could have done more to stop this," he said.
Some of Karzai's official appointments also have come under criticism, including an attempt to renew the term of a hard-line Supreme Court judge who was then rejected by Parliament and the installation of a new Kabul police chief accused of ties to organized crime.
Western diplomats have said Karzai was reluctant to sack any officials, regardless of how corrupt they were, preferring to transfer them to avoid confrontation.
The president has publicly acknowledged the corrosive effects of Afghanistan's world-leading drugs trade, set to be fueled further this year by a record opium crop.
But despite the mounting criticism, no apparent challenger has emerged to face Karzai, whose five-year term expires in late 2009.
By FISNIK ABRASHI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
The bloodiest fighting since the Taliban's fall, abject failure to control the drug trade and gaping disparities between rich and poor are shaking the credibility of Afghanistan's U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.
Less than two years after Karzai sealed a strong majority vote in the war-battered nation's first post-Taliban election, the popularity of his administration has dwindled amid rising anger over poverty and corruption.
"Security is the big concern for the people," said Muhammad Qasim Akhgar, an Afghan political analyst. "Even inside Kabul city, the people are not feeling safe anymore."
More than 1,600 people, mostly militants, have died nationwide in violent incidents since the start of May, mostly in the south, according to a tally compiled by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan officials, the U.S. military and NATO.
In violence reported Wednesday, NATO and Afghan forces killed 36 suspected Taliban militants in the volatile south, while roadside bombs killed three civilians.
NATO also shot to death an Afghan youth in the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Kandahar that killed a Canadian soldier and wounded three other people Tuesday.
Western officials say the surge in violence is largely due to international forces taking the battle to Taliban-led fighters who had gradually extended their sway across the poorly policed south.
The failure of the government and its international supporters to stabilize the Taliban heartland since the hard-line regime fell in late 2001 has severely impeded efforts to develop the area, shaking faith in Karzai's ability to bring change.
When Karzai was first chosen to lead the administration, initially as interim leader in late 2001, he was "very good ... he was accepted by all the people," said Abdul Hamid Mubares, a former deputy minister for information and culture.
Now his government is weak and unable to find solutions to people's problems, and "you see this unhappiness in the assembly and the bazaar," Mubares said.
Discontent over the pace of development is not restricted to the south.
While a small elite has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, more than half of Afghanistan's 31 million people live below the poverty line and 40 percent are unemployed. Electricity and water shortages are acute. Illicit crops like opium represent more than a third of gross domestic product.
In a sign of continued American backing for the Afghan leader, President Bush called him on Tuesday to assure him "of the continued and long-term U.S. support for Afghanistan" and invited him to Washington. Karzai last visited in May 2005.
Afghanistan relies on foreign aid, about $10.5 billion of which was pledged at a February donor conference in London. Few would deny some progress has been made since the austere days of the Taliban, notably in access to education and health care - but social services remain sparse and infrastructure poor.
"People want jobs and security, but the government cannot provide them with either," said Akhgar. "People also complain about corruption and government does nothing about it."
Karzai's chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, responded that the government had "done pretty well given our resources" in the past five years. He described the rebuilding of Afghanistan after 30 years of war as a generational project.
"We have obviously not delivered on one thing and that is security ... especially in the south, but it is very clear that this is due to a host of factors, most of them out of President Karzai's control. They have emanated from outside this country," Ludin told The Associated Press. He apparently was referring to neighboring Pakistan, where some militants are believed to be based.
"The international community could have done more to stop this," he said.
Some of Karzai's official appointments also have come under criticism, including an attempt to renew the term of a hard-line Supreme Court judge who was then rejected by Parliament and the installation of a new Kabul police chief accused of ties to organized crime.
Western diplomats have said Karzai was reluctant to sack any officials, regardless of how corrupt they were, preferring to transfer them to avoid confrontation.
The president has publicly acknowledged the corrosive effects of Afghanistan's world-leading drugs trade, set to be fueled further this year by a record opium crop.
But despite the mounting criticism, no apparent challenger has emerged to face Karzai, whose five-year term expires in late 2009.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
[US] Katrina rhetoric does little to calm growing storm
from MSNBC
By Andrew Ward
Visitors to the New Orleans Gift and Jewelry Show this week could have been forgiven for thinking that life in the Big Easy is back to normal.
Hundreds of people descended on the city's Ernest N. Morial convention centre to hunt for bargains among stalls selling everything from loose diamonds and Rolex watchesto crystal glassware and designer perfume, with a Starbucks coffee kiosk on hand to stave off thirst.
Nowhere in the sprawling venue was there any sign of the horror and suffering that occurred under the same roof a year ago next week, when more than 20,000 people sought refuge in the building following Hurricane Katrina.
For three days, the overwhelmingly poor and black refugees were left to fester in sweltering, airless conditions without food or liquid as the relief effort stalled.
The harrowing scenes, reminiscent of a third world camp, exposed an urban, black underclass that appeared to have been abandoned – literally and metaphorically – by the wealthiest nation on earth. For a brief period, the US was shamed into a national debate about its racial and economic divisions.
President George W. Bush acknowledged the "deep, persistent poverty" experienced by many blacks and blamed it on "a history of racial discrimination that cut off generations from the opportunity of America".
"We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action," he said.
But 12 months later, the business-as-usual atmosphere at the refurbished convention centre demonstrates how quickly the issue of social justice has fallen off the national agenda.
According to the Washington Post, Mr Bush has mentioned the word "poverty" in public only six times since his post-Katrina speeches and the debate over racial inequality proved no more durable.
"Katrina created an opening for America to deal seriously with these issues," says David Dante Troutt, editor of After the Storm, a collection of essays by black intellectuals about the disaster. "But the opportunity was missed."
Despite growth in the economy, the proportion of African-Americans living below the poverty line has increased during the Bush presidency to nearly a quarter – double the national average.
Nowhere are African-Americans more disadvantaged than in New Orleans, where four out of 10 black families lived in poverty before Katrina and 60 per cent of poor blacks had no access to a car, leaving them stranded as the storm approached. A year later, most of the city's black population is still dispersed across the country, many without the resources to return and rebuild.
Standing outside her mother's damaged home in the Gentilly district, Joanne Johnson makes no attempt to hide her bitterness. "We had their attention for five minutes, then they moved on," she says. "They can afford to pay for a war in Iraq but they can't afford to look after their own people."
To Ms Johnson, 45, a supermarket worker, "they" seems to refer to the Bush administration and white America, as if the two are interchangeable.
Like many African-Americans, she believes the authorities intentionally broke the levees near black neighbourhoods to spare wealthier, white districts. "People heard the explosion," she says.
The allegation is a rehashed version of an urban myth dating back to Hurricane Betsy in 1965. But the widespread belief in the theory underlines the extent of mistrust among blacks towards the white-dominated state and federal governments. "Katrina has exacerbated racial divisions rather than healed them," says Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans historian and author of The Great Deluge.
For many whites, the lasting impression of Katrina's aftermath was not images of poverty, but instead the pictures of black people looting stores and reports of rape and murder in the convention centre and Superdome. "Many whites saw the looting as a violation of a social contract," says Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University in New Orleans. "It strengthened the association in their minds between poor blacks and criminality and made them feel less guilty about the poverty."
Subsequent investigations showed that the reports were wildly exaggerated. But the perception that New Orleans was descending into anarchy delayed the relief effort as officials shifted focus from aid to security.
Some in New Orleans resent the focus on black poverty, arguing that many middle-class people, white and black, also lost homes to Katrina. But, as the anniversary nears, even the briefest drive through the city reveals an obvious truth: wealthier neighbourhoods are recovering much quicker than poor black ones.
The only part of life that has returned to normal for poor black communities is gang-related crime. The city recorded 21 murders in July, most of them involving young black men.
This apparent return to the bad old days raises doubts about whether the billions of dollars of federal aid committed to New Orleans can solve the city's social ills. June Cross, a filmmaker researching a documentary on Katrina, doubts there is the will to even try. "America views urban poverty in the same bracket as famine in Africa," she says. "People think it's sad but there's nothing that can be done about it."
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
By Andrew Ward
Visitors to the New Orleans Gift and Jewelry Show this week could have been forgiven for thinking that life in the Big Easy is back to normal.
Hundreds of people descended on the city's Ernest N. Morial convention centre to hunt for bargains among stalls selling everything from loose diamonds and Rolex watchesto crystal glassware and designer perfume, with a Starbucks coffee kiosk on hand to stave off thirst.
Nowhere in the sprawling venue was there any sign of the horror and suffering that occurred under the same roof a year ago next week, when more than 20,000 people sought refuge in the building following Hurricane Katrina.
For three days, the overwhelmingly poor and black refugees were left to fester in sweltering, airless conditions without food or liquid as the relief effort stalled.
The harrowing scenes, reminiscent of a third world camp, exposed an urban, black underclass that appeared to have been abandoned – literally and metaphorically – by the wealthiest nation on earth. For a brief period, the US was shamed into a national debate about its racial and economic divisions.
President George W. Bush acknowledged the "deep, persistent poverty" experienced by many blacks and blamed it on "a history of racial discrimination that cut off generations from the opportunity of America".
"We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action," he said.
But 12 months later, the business-as-usual atmosphere at the refurbished convention centre demonstrates how quickly the issue of social justice has fallen off the national agenda.
According to the Washington Post, Mr Bush has mentioned the word "poverty" in public only six times since his post-Katrina speeches and the debate over racial inequality proved no more durable.
"Katrina created an opening for America to deal seriously with these issues," says David Dante Troutt, editor of After the Storm, a collection of essays by black intellectuals about the disaster. "But the opportunity was missed."
Despite growth in the economy, the proportion of African-Americans living below the poverty line has increased during the Bush presidency to nearly a quarter – double the national average.
Nowhere are African-Americans more disadvantaged than in New Orleans, where four out of 10 black families lived in poverty before Katrina and 60 per cent of poor blacks had no access to a car, leaving them stranded as the storm approached. A year later, most of the city's black population is still dispersed across the country, many without the resources to return and rebuild.
Standing outside her mother's damaged home in the Gentilly district, Joanne Johnson makes no attempt to hide her bitterness. "We had their attention for five minutes, then they moved on," she says. "They can afford to pay for a war in Iraq but they can't afford to look after their own people."
To Ms Johnson, 45, a supermarket worker, "they" seems to refer to the Bush administration and white America, as if the two are interchangeable.
Like many African-Americans, she believes the authorities intentionally broke the levees near black neighbourhoods to spare wealthier, white districts. "People heard the explosion," she says.
The allegation is a rehashed version of an urban myth dating back to Hurricane Betsy in 1965. But the widespread belief in the theory underlines the extent of mistrust among blacks towards the white-dominated state and federal governments. "Katrina has exacerbated racial divisions rather than healed them," says Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans historian and author of The Great Deluge.
For many whites, the lasting impression of Katrina's aftermath was not images of poverty, but instead the pictures of black people looting stores and reports of rape and murder in the convention centre and Superdome. "Many whites saw the looting as a violation of a social contract," says Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University in New Orleans. "It strengthened the association in their minds between poor blacks and criminality and made them feel less guilty about the poverty."
Subsequent investigations showed that the reports were wildly exaggerated. But the perception that New Orleans was descending into anarchy delayed the relief effort as officials shifted focus from aid to security.
Some in New Orleans resent the focus on black poverty, arguing that many middle-class people, white and black, also lost homes to Katrina. But, as the anniversary nears, even the briefest drive through the city reveals an obvious truth: wealthier neighbourhoods are recovering much quicker than poor black ones.
The only part of life that has returned to normal for poor black communities is gang-related crime. The city recorded 21 murders in July, most of them involving young black men.
This apparent return to the bad old days raises doubts about whether the billions of dollars of federal aid committed to New Orleans can solve the city's social ills. June Cross, a filmmaker researching a documentary on Katrina, doubts there is the will to even try. "America views urban poverty in the same bracket as famine in Africa," she says. "People think it's sad but there's nothing that can be done about it."
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
[US] Katrina rhetoric does little to calm growing storm
from MSNBC
By Andrew Ward
Visitors to the New Orleans Gift and Jewelry Show this week could have been forgiven for thinking that life in the Big Easy is back to normal.
Hundreds of people descended on the city's Ernest N. Morial convention centre to hunt for bargains among stalls selling everything from loose diamonds and Rolex watchesto crystal glassware and designer perfume, with a Starbucks coffee kiosk on hand to stave off thirst.
Nowhere in the sprawling venue was there any sign of the horror and suffering that occurred under the same roof a year ago next week, when more than 20,000 people sought refuge in the building following Hurricane Katrina.
For three days, the overwhelmingly poor and black refugees were left to fester in sweltering, airless conditions without food or liquid as the relief effort stalled.
The harrowing scenes, reminiscent of a third world camp, exposed an urban, black underclass that appeared to have been abandoned – literally and metaphorically – by the wealthiest nation on earth. For a brief period, the US was shamed into a national debate about its racial and economic divisions.
President George W. Bush acknowledged the "deep, persistent poverty" experienced by many blacks and blamed it on "a history of racial discrimination that cut off generations from the opportunity of America".
"We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action," he said.
But 12 months later, the business-as-usual atmosphere at the refurbished convention centre demonstrates how quickly the issue of social justice has fallen off the national agenda.
According to the Washington Post, Mr Bush has mentioned the word "poverty" in public only six times since his post-Katrina speeches and the debate over racial inequality proved no more durable.
"Katrina created an opening for America to deal seriously with these issues," says David Dante Troutt, editor of After the Storm, a collection of essays by black intellectuals about the disaster. "But the opportunity was missed."
Despite growth in the economy, the proportion of African-Americans living below the poverty line has increased during the Bush presidency to nearly a quarter – double the national average.
Nowhere are African-Americans more disadvantaged than in New Orleans, where four out of 10 black families lived in poverty before Katrina and 60 per cent of poor blacks had no access to a car, leaving them stranded as the storm approached. A year later, most of the city's black population is still dispersed across the country, many without the resources to return and rebuild.
Standing outside her mother's damaged home in the Gentilly district, Joanne Johnson makes no attempt to hide her bitterness. "We had their attention for five minutes, then they moved on," she says. "They can afford to pay for a war in Iraq but they can't afford to look after their own people."
To Ms Johnson, 45, a supermarket worker, "they" seems to refer to the Bush administration and white America, as if the two are interchangeable.
Like many African-Americans, she believes the authorities intentionally broke the levees near black neighbourhoods to spare wealthier, white districts. "People heard the explosion," she says.
The allegation is a rehashed version of an urban myth dating back to Hurricane Betsy in 1965. But the widespread belief in the theory underlines the extent of mistrust among blacks towards the white-dominated state and federal governments. "Katrina has exacerbated racial divisions rather than healed them," says Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans historian and author of The Great Deluge.
For many whites, the lasting impression of Katrina's aftermath was not images of poverty, but instead the pictures of black people looting stores and reports of rape and murder in the convention centre and Superdome. "Many whites saw the looting as a violation of a social contract," says Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University in New Orleans. "It strengthened the association in their minds between poor blacks and criminality and made them feel less guilty about the poverty."
Subsequent investigations showed that the reports were wildly exaggerated. But the perception that New Orleans was descending into anarchy delayed the relief effort as officials shifted focus from aid to security.
Some in New Orleans resent the focus on black poverty, arguing that many middle-class people, white and black, also lost homes to Katrina. But, as the anniversary nears, even the briefest drive through the city reveals an obvious truth: wealthier neighbourhoods are recovering much quicker than poor black ones.
The only part of life that has returned to normal for poor black communities is gang-related crime. The city recorded 21 murders in July, most of them involving young black men.
This apparent return to the bad old days raises doubts about whether the billions of dollars of federal aid committed to New Orleans can solve the city's social ills. June Cross, a filmmaker researching a documentary on Katrina, doubts there is the will to even try. "America views urban poverty in the same bracket as famine in Africa," she says. "People think it's sad but there's nothing that can be done about it."
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
By Andrew Ward
Visitors to the New Orleans Gift and Jewelry Show this week could have been forgiven for thinking that life in the Big Easy is back to normal.
Hundreds of people descended on the city's Ernest N. Morial convention centre to hunt for bargains among stalls selling everything from loose diamonds and Rolex watchesto crystal glassware and designer perfume, with a Starbucks coffee kiosk on hand to stave off thirst.
Nowhere in the sprawling venue was there any sign of the horror and suffering that occurred under the same roof a year ago next week, when more than 20,000 people sought refuge in the building following Hurricane Katrina.
For three days, the overwhelmingly poor and black refugees were left to fester in sweltering, airless conditions without food or liquid as the relief effort stalled.
The harrowing scenes, reminiscent of a third world camp, exposed an urban, black underclass that appeared to have been abandoned – literally and metaphorically – by the wealthiest nation on earth. For a brief period, the US was shamed into a national debate about its racial and economic divisions.
President George W. Bush acknowledged the "deep, persistent poverty" experienced by many blacks and blamed it on "a history of racial discrimination that cut off generations from the opportunity of America".
"We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action," he said.
But 12 months later, the business-as-usual atmosphere at the refurbished convention centre demonstrates how quickly the issue of social justice has fallen off the national agenda.
According to the Washington Post, Mr Bush has mentioned the word "poverty" in public only six times since his post-Katrina speeches and the debate over racial inequality proved no more durable.
"Katrina created an opening for America to deal seriously with these issues," says David Dante Troutt, editor of After the Storm, a collection of essays by black intellectuals about the disaster. "But the opportunity was missed."
Despite growth in the economy, the proportion of African-Americans living below the poverty line has increased during the Bush presidency to nearly a quarter – double the national average.
Nowhere are African-Americans more disadvantaged than in New Orleans, where four out of 10 black families lived in poverty before Katrina and 60 per cent of poor blacks had no access to a car, leaving them stranded as the storm approached. A year later, most of the city's black population is still dispersed across the country, many without the resources to return and rebuild.
Standing outside her mother's damaged home in the Gentilly district, Joanne Johnson makes no attempt to hide her bitterness. "We had their attention for five minutes, then they moved on," she says. "They can afford to pay for a war in Iraq but they can't afford to look after their own people."
To Ms Johnson, 45, a supermarket worker, "they" seems to refer to the Bush administration and white America, as if the two are interchangeable.
Like many African-Americans, she believes the authorities intentionally broke the levees near black neighbourhoods to spare wealthier, white districts. "People heard the explosion," she says.
The allegation is a rehashed version of an urban myth dating back to Hurricane Betsy in 1965. But the widespread belief in the theory underlines the extent of mistrust among blacks towards the white-dominated state and federal governments. "Katrina has exacerbated racial divisions rather than healed them," says Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans historian and author of The Great Deluge.
For many whites, the lasting impression of Katrina's aftermath was not images of poverty, but instead the pictures of black people looting stores and reports of rape and murder in the convention centre and Superdome. "Many whites saw the looting as a violation of a social contract," says Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University in New Orleans. "It strengthened the association in their minds between poor blacks and criminality and made them feel less guilty about the poverty."
Subsequent investigations showed that the reports were wildly exaggerated. But the perception that New Orleans was descending into anarchy delayed the relief effort as officials shifted focus from aid to security.
Some in New Orleans resent the focus on black poverty, arguing that many middle-class people, white and black, also lost homes to Katrina. But, as the anniversary nears, even the briefest drive through the city reveals an obvious truth: wealthier neighbourhoods are recovering much quicker than poor black ones.
The only part of life that has returned to normal for poor black communities is gang-related crime. The city recorded 21 murders in July, most of them involving young black men.
This apparent return to the bad old days raises doubts about whether the billions of dollars of federal aid committed to New Orleans can solve the city's social ills. June Cross, a filmmaker researching a documentary on Katrina, doubts there is the will to even try. "America views urban poverty in the same bracket as famine in Africa," she says. "People think it's sad but there's nothing that can be done about it."
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
[India] 'Bihar given largest chunk of Central funds to fight poverty'
from Zee News
New Delhi, Bihar was the biggest beneficiary last fiscal of Central allocation under different poverty alleviation programmes, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.
The Centre allocated Rs 72,020.72 lakh to the state under the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), Rs 55,724.88 lakh under the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) and Rs 12623.79 lakh under the Swarnjayanati Gram Swarozgar Yajana (SGSY) in 2005-06, Minister of State for Rural Development Suryakanta Patil told the House in a reply.
Uttar Pradesh was allocated Rs 32,348.75 lakh under the IAY, Rs 6,281.04 under the SGRY and Rs 18,173.71 lakh under the SGSY during the same period.
The Centre allocated the biggest chunk of Rs 94,042.72 lakh to Uttaranchal under the SGRY.
Roads: States have covered 27,833 zones of 172,787 selected nationwide for coverage under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana, the Minister said in another reply.
Social Assistance: The Centre released a major portion of funds under the National Social Assistance Programme and Annapurna scheme to Uttar Pradesh last fiscal.
The state received Rs 19,851.70 lakh during the period, Patil said. Bihar became the second major beneficiary of Central funding under the schemes by receiving Rs 13,213.06 lakh in 2005-06.
Maharashtra was given Rs 10,234.03 lakh and West Bengal Rs 7,993.56 lakh, the Minister said.
New Delhi, Bihar was the biggest beneficiary last fiscal of Central allocation under different poverty alleviation programmes, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.
The Centre allocated Rs 72,020.72 lakh to the state under the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), Rs 55,724.88 lakh under the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) and Rs 12623.79 lakh under the Swarnjayanati Gram Swarozgar Yajana (SGSY) in 2005-06, Minister of State for Rural Development Suryakanta Patil told the House in a reply.
Uttar Pradesh was allocated Rs 32,348.75 lakh under the IAY, Rs 6,281.04 under the SGRY and Rs 18,173.71 lakh under the SGSY during the same period.
The Centre allocated the biggest chunk of Rs 94,042.72 lakh to Uttaranchal under the SGRY.
Roads: States have covered 27,833 zones of 172,787 selected nationwide for coverage under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana, the Minister said in another reply.
Social Assistance: The Centre released a major portion of funds under the National Social Assistance Programme and Annapurna scheme to Uttar Pradesh last fiscal.
The state received Rs 19,851.70 lakh during the period, Patil said. Bihar became the second major beneficiary of Central funding under the schemes by receiving Rs 13,213.06 lakh in 2005-06.
Maharashtra was given Rs 10,234.03 lakh and West Bengal Rs 7,993.56 lakh, the Minister said.
[Israel] Poverty a threat to new Palestinian school year
from The Middle East Times
Djallal Malti
AFP
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- "I don't have the money to send my children to school," broods father-of-four Mohammed Abu Mur in depressed south Gaza. A Palestinian civil servant, he has not been paid for six months.
Like many other Palestinian parents facing the grim reality of a worsening financial crisis in the Gaza Strip, he cannot afford books or uniforms to send his children back to the classroom after the long summer holidays.
"I don't know what to do. This year I can't buy anything for my children, not uniforms, books, or school equipment," for the new term due to begin September 2, says Abu Mur in the Khan Younis refugee camp.
"I haven't been paid since March and I don't have any money to send my four children to school. Uniform and shoe-wise they could still use those from last year, but the books," he trails off.
It is not just Abu Mur who has gone unpaid. His children's teachers have also been without their salaries. Staff in state-run schools make up around a quarter of the 160,000 civil servants on the Palestinian Authority (PA) payroll who have received practically no money since late February.
In protest the teachers' union has announced that its members will not return to their classes in the Palestinian territories September 2.
The European Union and United States suspended direct aid to the PA when Islamist party Hamas took office following an upset election win, citing its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
"I fear for my children as well as the others," said Abu Mur. "I'm frightened that they'll end up in the street."
Palestinians are currently among the most educated in the Middle East with literacy estimated at around 92.3 percent and an education drop-out rate of only 0.9 percent.
At the Abdullah Abu Sitta school in the depressed south Gaza town of Khan Younis, teacher Hamam Al Faqawi is braced for a difficult start to the new academic year.
"Parents have to spend around NIS100 [$23] for their children's uniforms and shoes, and NIS100 for books and school supplies. No one can do that," admits Faqawi, who teaches English. "We are going to have to organize collections for those who cannot afford the uniforms, and for the books students can share."
In order to ease the parental burden, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has reduced fees in state schools from the previous NIS60 to NIS20, although for many that is still too expensive.
Ziad Salman is a father of seven. "The school fees, plus expenses comes to more than NIS1,500 this year," he calculates.
"Therefore I've had to make do with last year's uniforms and then I borrowed money." A civil servant himself, he has only received one-and-a-half month's salary since March - around $680.
"There's cause for alarm. The situation has deteriorated seriously since last year," said Ali Al Farra, headmaster of Khan Younis' Kamel Nasser Bey school and a member of the main teacher's union.
"People come and see me and complain about not being able to meet the costs of going back to school this year," he said. "One pupil in two will experience difficulties in buying books, supplies, and uniforms this year."
Israeli troops arrested education minister Nasseredine Al Shaer, who is also deputy premier, at the weekend, as part of a crackdown on the Hamas-led government after a deadly militant raid from Gaza June 25.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third captured by the gunmen, who included members of Hamas' armed wing, triggering a massive two-month offensive against the Palestinian territory.
"The worst thing," says Faqawi, is the effect on children's education and the risk that many parents will keep their children at home. "Last year, pupils without uniforms were ordered out of class. This year I can't do that," he said.
Djallal Malti
AFP
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- "I don't have the money to send my children to school," broods father-of-four Mohammed Abu Mur in depressed south Gaza. A Palestinian civil servant, he has not been paid for six months.
Like many other Palestinian parents facing the grim reality of a worsening financial crisis in the Gaza Strip, he cannot afford books or uniforms to send his children back to the classroom after the long summer holidays.
"I don't know what to do. This year I can't buy anything for my children, not uniforms, books, or school equipment," for the new term due to begin September 2, says Abu Mur in the Khan Younis refugee camp.
"I haven't been paid since March and I don't have any money to send my four children to school. Uniform and shoe-wise they could still use those from last year, but the books," he trails off.
It is not just Abu Mur who has gone unpaid. His children's teachers have also been without their salaries. Staff in state-run schools make up around a quarter of the 160,000 civil servants on the Palestinian Authority (PA) payroll who have received practically no money since late February.
In protest the teachers' union has announced that its members will not return to their classes in the Palestinian territories September 2.
The European Union and United States suspended direct aid to the PA when Islamist party Hamas took office following an upset election win, citing its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
"I fear for my children as well as the others," said Abu Mur. "I'm frightened that they'll end up in the street."
Palestinians are currently among the most educated in the Middle East with literacy estimated at around 92.3 percent and an education drop-out rate of only 0.9 percent.
At the Abdullah Abu Sitta school in the depressed south Gaza town of Khan Younis, teacher Hamam Al Faqawi is braced for a difficult start to the new academic year.
"Parents have to spend around NIS100 [$23] for their children's uniforms and shoes, and NIS100 for books and school supplies. No one can do that," admits Faqawi, who teaches English. "We are going to have to organize collections for those who cannot afford the uniforms, and for the books students can share."
In order to ease the parental burden, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has reduced fees in state schools from the previous NIS60 to NIS20, although for many that is still too expensive.
Ziad Salman is a father of seven. "The school fees, plus expenses comes to more than NIS1,500 this year," he calculates.
"Therefore I've had to make do with last year's uniforms and then I borrowed money." A civil servant himself, he has only received one-and-a-half month's salary since March - around $680.
"There's cause for alarm. The situation has deteriorated seriously since last year," said Ali Al Farra, headmaster of Khan Younis' Kamel Nasser Bey school and a member of the main teacher's union.
"People come and see me and complain about not being able to meet the costs of going back to school this year," he said. "One pupil in two will experience difficulties in buying books, supplies, and uniforms this year."
Israeli troops arrested education minister Nasseredine Al Shaer, who is also deputy premier, at the weekend, as part of a crackdown on the Hamas-led government after a deadly militant raid from Gaza June 25.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third captured by the gunmen, who included members of Hamas' armed wing, triggering a massive two-month offensive against the Palestinian territory.
"The worst thing," says Faqawi, is the effect on children's education and the risk that many parents will keep their children at home. "Last year, pupils without uniforms were ordered out of class. This year I can't do that," he said.
[Africa] Feminisation of Aids And Poverty On the Rise
from All Africa
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
Kristin Palitza
Toronto
HIV has the face of a woman - particularly in Africa, but also in Asia. This so-called 'feminisation' of the AIDS epidemic is to a large degree caused by gender discrimination, social restrictions, gender-based violence, as well as women's lack of access to education, employment and decision-making power.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and now Executive Director of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative, expressed disappointment at the fact that women's rights were not central to the debates of the 16th International AIDS Conference.
"Women's rights activists and NGOs are talked down to rather than actively included in the discussions," she observed, noting that there was a lot to learn from women's daily struggle at grassroots level.
Women's activists need to ensure that women's rights will be made a central theme at the next international AIDS conference in Mexico in 2008, Robinson demanded, complaining that only a small percentage of international funding reached HIV/AIDS initiatives targeting women and girls.
Women make up nearly 60 per cent of all HIV infections in Africa - in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, more than 75 per cent of HIV-positive people aged 15 to 24 years are female.
In South and South-east Asia, 35 per cent of those living with HIV are women. Crucially, the feminisation of HIV/AIDS goes hand-in-hand with the feminisation of poverty. According to the World Health Organisation, twice as many HIV-positive women in low-income settings require treatment than in high-income countries.
Activists at the conference were in agreement about how to reverse this trend. "We need to improve the conditions under which women can exercise their sexual and reproductive rights," demanded Sara Araya of Chilean NGO Vivo Positivo, adding that "young women are most vulnerable but have less access to health services [than men]".
In many developing countries, HIV-positive women have to face human rights abuses when trying to access medical services, such as coerced sterilisation, refusal of treatment or lack of access to contraception. Apart from the right to equitable medical services and treatment, women need social and economic rights to be able to decrease their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
Activists also demanded that women's rights be swiftly translated from theory to practice. "Change will only occur if we have legislation. Otherwise, women's rights will remain where they are now... on paper," declared Promise Mthembu, Global Advocacy Officer of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS.
Elizabeth Minda, an activist from Tanzania, agreed. "The situation of women still remains desperate," she said. "When a husband dies in rural Tanzania, his widow is also treated as a dead person and loses all social and land rights."
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
Kristin Palitza
Toronto
HIV has the face of a woman - particularly in Africa, but also in Asia. This so-called 'feminisation' of the AIDS epidemic is to a large degree caused by gender discrimination, social restrictions, gender-based violence, as well as women's lack of access to education, employment and decision-making power.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and now Executive Director of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative, expressed disappointment at the fact that women's rights were not central to the debates of the 16th International AIDS Conference.
"Women's rights activists and NGOs are talked down to rather than actively included in the discussions," she observed, noting that there was a lot to learn from women's daily struggle at grassroots level.
Women's activists need to ensure that women's rights will be made a central theme at the next international AIDS conference in Mexico in 2008, Robinson demanded, complaining that only a small percentage of international funding reached HIV/AIDS initiatives targeting women and girls.
Women make up nearly 60 per cent of all HIV infections in Africa - in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, more than 75 per cent of HIV-positive people aged 15 to 24 years are female.
In South and South-east Asia, 35 per cent of those living with HIV are women. Crucially, the feminisation of HIV/AIDS goes hand-in-hand with the feminisation of poverty. According to the World Health Organisation, twice as many HIV-positive women in low-income settings require treatment than in high-income countries.
Activists at the conference were in agreement about how to reverse this trend. "We need to improve the conditions under which women can exercise their sexual and reproductive rights," demanded Sara Araya of Chilean NGO Vivo Positivo, adding that "young women are most vulnerable but have less access to health services [than men]".
In many developing countries, HIV-positive women have to face human rights abuses when trying to access medical services, such as coerced sterilisation, refusal of treatment or lack of access to contraception. Apart from the right to equitable medical services and treatment, women need social and economic rights to be able to decrease their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
Activists also demanded that women's rights be swiftly translated from theory to practice. "Change will only occur if we have legislation. Otherwise, women's rights will remain where they are now... on paper," declared Promise Mthembu, Global Advocacy Officer of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS.
Elizabeth Minda, an activist from Tanzania, agreed. "The situation of women still remains desperate," she said. "When a husband dies in rural Tanzania, his widow is also treated as a dead person and loses all social and land rights."
[Indonesia] Govt denies whitewashing poverty situation in speech
from The Jakarta Post
The government is standing firm against allegations it attempted to whitewash the reality of poverty and unemployment in the country in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's state-of-the-nation address last week.
With backing from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), whose head was summoned to a Cabinet meeting here Tuesday, the government said the data presented in the Aug. 16 speech was the most recent published by the agency from September 2005.
"It was the latest data, and the President could not have any newer because the BPS will only release it next month," said Cabinet Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra.
BPS head Rusman Heriawan said Yudhoyono had since questioned him due to the clamor of allegations the almost year-old statistics were used to present a disingenuously positive view of his administration's achievements.
Yudhoyono later instructed the agency to in the future release data months before the presentation of the draft state budget for the following year.
Yusril said the President would not present the data again Wednesday when delivering a state address before the Regional Representatives Council (DPD). The speech will instead focus on regional autonomy and development, the minister added.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives plans to summon relevant ministers and Rusman for clarification about the data.
The chairman of House Commission VI on trade and industry, Didiek J. Rachbini, said Tuesday that government officials would be held accountable for withholding actual data in the 2007 state budget proposal made before the House plenary session.
"We will need them to clarify how old data could make its way into the President's state address."
He also vowed that his commission would carefully scrutinize all government data in the future.
Critics charge that Yudhoyono was wrong when he said that the poverty rate dropped from 23.4 percent in 1999 to 16 percent in late 2005.
It was later found that the 16 percent figure was from late 2004. Analysts estimate that there was in fact an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line due to fuel price hikes in 2005
Conservative estimates put the poverty rate at 18.5 percent.
State Minister for National Development Planning Paskah Suzetta has argued there was no attempt by the government to manipulate data because it was the most recent from the BPS.
As for new data from the results of the nationwide social and economic survey (Susenas) for 2005, Paskah said it would only be available in September.
In the speech, Yudhoyono also claimed that his administration managed to reduce unemployment from 11.2 percent in November 2005 to 10.4 percent in early 2006. Labor experts pointed out he referred only to "open" unemployment -- those of working age actively seeking employment -- without revealing the bleak overall situation of the huge number of underemployed in the 220 million population.
The government is standing firm against allegations it attempted to whitewash the reality of poverty and unemployment in the country in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's state-of-the-nation address last week.
With backing from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), whose head was summoned to a Cabinet meeting here Tuesday, the government said the data presented in the Aug. 16 speech was the most recent published by the agency from September 2005.
"It was the latest data, and the President could not have any newer because the BPS will only release it next month," said Cabinet Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra.
BPS head Rusman Heriawan said Yudhoyono had since questioned him due to the clamor of allegations the almost year-old statistics were used to present a disingenuously positive view of his administration's achievements.
Yudhoyono later instructed the agency to in the future release data months before the presentation of the draft state budget for the following year.
Yusril said the President would not present the data again Wednesday when delivering a state address before the Regional Representatives Council (DPD). The speech will instead focus on regional autonomy and development, the minister added.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives plans to summon relevant ministers and Rusman for clarification about the data.
The chairman of House Commission VI on trade and industry, Didiek J. Rachbini, said Tuesday that government officials would be held accountable for withholding actual data in the 2007 state budget proposal made before the House plenary session.
"We will need them to clarify how old data could make its way into the President's state address."
He also vowed that his commission would carefully scrutinize all government data in the future.
Critics charge that Yudhoyono was wrong when he said that the poverty rate dropped from 23.4 percent in 1999 to 16 percent in late 2005.
It was later found that the 16 percent figure was from late 2004. Analysts estimate that there was in fact an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line due to fuel price hikes in 2005
Conservative estimates put the poverty rate at 18.5 percent.
State Minister for National Development Planning Paskah Suzetta has argued there was no attempt by the government to manipulate data because it was the most recent from the BPS.
As for new data from the results of the nationwide social and economic survey (Susenas) for 2005, Paskah said it would only be available in September.
In the speech, Yudhoyono also claimed that his administration managed to reduce unemployment from 11.2 percent in November 2005 to 10.4 percent in early 2006. Labor experts pointed out he referred only to "open" unemployment -- those of working age actively seeking employment -- without revealing the bleak overall situation of the huge number of underemployed in the 220 million population.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
[US] welfare 10 years later: Some success, but poverty growing again
from Catholic News Service
By Patricia Zapor
8/2/2006
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – Ten years after the nation's welfare system was reorganized, with new work requirements and built-in cutoff triggers for recipients, evaluating how well it has worked is a classic Washington numbers game.
For some, there has been spectacular success with the 1996 legislation that did away with even the word “welfare” – rechristening the program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. They cite decreases in the number of people receiving assistance, fewer children living in poverty and a slowed rate of out-of-wedlock births.
Other people point out that while there may be fewer people with incomes below the federal poverty level than there were in the mid-1990s, the number in "deep poverty" has climbed by 750,000 and overall poverty has been growing again since 2000. Strict rules and obstacles such as an inability to get into agency offices during business hours mean that fewer than half the people eligible for TANF participate.
Candy Hill, senior vice president for social policy for Catholic Charities USA, attended a July 19 hearing on TANF before the House Ways and Means Committee and said that "part of my frustration is that there's a whole lot of data (about the effects of welfare reform) that could be massaged in either direction."
Hill added that she was "astounded by the presentation (at the hearing) that this was a huge success for poor people. That was not based in the reality of what it is to be a poor person in this country."
As a representative of the social services agencies that provide assistance to families who make up the statistics about welfare reform, Hill said she's disheartened that "no one is looking at it from the perspectives of the participants – or the nonparticipants – and the impact on them."
In testimony for the hearing, Robert Rector, senior research fellow for the Heritage Foundation, rattled off statistics that make TANF look like a raging success:
- 1.6 million fewer children live in poverty today than in 1995.
- The poverty rate among black children fell from 41.5 percent in 1995 to 32.9 percent in 2004.
- Nationwide, those receiving welfare dropped from 4.3 million families when the bill was enacted to 1.9 million today.
- The rate at which out-of-wedlock births increased slowed for the first time since the 1960s. While about one-third of all births in the country are to unmarried women, the rate of increase slowed overall after 1996 and actually fell slightly for black women in 2003, from 69.9 percent to 68.2 percent.
At the same hearing, Sharon Parrott, director of welfare reform and income support policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, presented the effects of welfare reform with a less cheery cast.
Although the number of people in the welfare system began dropping even before TANF provisions took effect, Parrott said, "between 2000 and 2004, the number of children living in families with cash incomes below half of the poverty line increased by 758,000, while the number receiving assistance through TANF or (other) programs fell by 509,000. In other words, at a time of rising need, states' TANF programs were assisting fewer children."
In 2006 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' poverty guideline for a family unit of three, including two children, was an annual income of $16,600.
Parrott acknowledged that employment rates for single mothers rose from 62 percent in 1995 to 73 percent in 2000. Since that year, however, they fell again, to 69 percent in 2005.
Child poverty and poverty overall also have grown since 2000, after initially declining in the mid-1990s, she said. According to the Census Bureau's definition, the rate for children in poverty was 23 percent in 1993, 16 percent in 2000, and 18 percent in 2004, the last year for which figures were available.
Hill said that the 1,700 Catholic Charities member agencies have seen a dramatic increase in the number of families who need aid. Since 1999, there has never been an annual decline in the number of people seeking aid, she said.
Between 2003 and 2004 alone, Catholic Charities agencies reported a 14 percent increase in the number of requests for help with housing, food, clothing and other essentials, according to Hill. Catholic Charities attributes the increase to a combination of the high cost of living, inadequate minimum wages, lack of affordable health insurance and too little affordable housing.
"So even people who are working are not making enough for their basic needs," she said.
Kathleen Curran, interim director of the Office of Domestic Social Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the anniversary reports tell a mixed story.
"You really have to look beyond the statistics," she said. "You can get into a 'food fight' over whose numbers tell you what, and then you have to factor in what the economy was doing and so on.
"But we have to step back and say, to the extent that welfare changes affirmed the value of work, that's a good thing," she continued. "Caseloads are down, and if you know that's because people are working and supporting themselves, that's great. But there are others, we don't know what happened to them and that's scary."
The question should not be "what happened," Curran said, but "how can we continue to support work for everyone at wages and benefits that allow them to support their families."
By Patricia Zapor
8/2/2006
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – Ten years after the nation's welfare system was reorganized, with new work requirements and built-in cutoff triggers for recipients, evaluating how well it has worked is a classic Washington numbers game.
For some, there has been spectacular success with the 1996 legislation that did away with even the word “welfare” – rechristening the program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. They cite decreases in the number of people receiving assistance, fewer children living in poverty and a slowed rate of out-of-wedlock births.
Other people point out that while there may be fewer people with incomes below the federal poverty level than there were in the mid-1990s, the number in "deep poverty" has climbed by 750,000 and overall poverty has been growing again since 2000. Strict rules and obstacles such as an inability to get into agency offices during business hours mean that fewer than half the people eligible for TANF participate.
Candy Hill, senior vice president for social policy for Catholic Charities USA, attended a July 19 hearing on TANF before the House Ways and Means Committee and said that "part of my frustration is that there's a whole lot of data (about the effects of welfare reform) that could be massaged in either direction."
Hill added that she was "astounded by the presentation (at the hearing) that this was a huge success for poor people. That was not based in the reality of what it is to be a poor person in this country."
As a representative of the social services agencies that provide assistance to families who make up the statistics about welfare reform, Hill said she's disheartened that "no one is looking at it from the perspectives of the participants – or the nonparticipants – and the impact on them."
In testimony for the hearing, Robert Rector, senior research fellow for the Heritage Foundation, rattled off statistics that make TANF look like a raging success:
- 1.6 million fewer children live in poverty today than in 1995.
- The poverty rate among black children fell from 41.5 percent in 1995 to 32.9 percent in 2004.
- Nationwide, those receiving welfare dropped from 4.3 million families when the bill was enacted to 1.9 million today.
- The rate at which out-of-wedlock births increased slowed for the first time since the 1960s. While about one-third of all births in the country are to unmarried women, the rate of increase slowed overall after 1996 and actually fell slightly for black women in 2003, from 69.9 percent to 68.2 percent.
At the same hearing, Sharon Parrott, director of welfare reform and income support policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, presented the effects of welfare reform with a less cheery cast.
Although the number of people in the welfare system began dropping even before TANF provisions took effect, Parrott said, "between 2000 and 2004, the number of children living in families with cash incomes below half of the poverty line increased by 758,000, while the number receiving assistance through TANF or (other) programs fell by 509,000. In other words, at a time of rising need, states' TANF programs were assisting fewer children."
In 2006 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' poverty guideline for a family unit of three, including two children, was an annual income of $16,600.
Parrott acknowledged that employment rates for single mothers rose from 62 percent in 1995 to 73 percent in 2000. Since that year, however, they fell again, to 69 percent in 2005.
Child poverty and poverty overall also have grown since 2000, after initially declining in the mid-1990s, she said. According to the Census Bureau's definition, the rate for children in poverty was 23 percent in 1993, 16 percent in 2000, and 18 percent in 2004, the last year for which figures were available.
Hill said that the 1,700 Catholic Charities member agencies have seen a dramatic increase in the number of families who need aid. Since 1999, there has never been an annual decline in the number of people seeking aid, she said.
Between 2003 and 2004 alone, Catholic Charities agencies reported a 14 percent increase in the number of requests for help with housing, food, clothing and other essentials, according to Hill. Catholic Charities attributes the increase to a combination of the high cost of living, inadequate minimum wages, lack of affordable health insurance and too little affordable housing.
"So even people who are working are not making enough for their basic needs," she said.
Kathleen Curran, interim director of the Office of Domestic Social Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the anniversary reports tell a mixed story.
"You really have to look beyond the statistics," she said. "You can get into a 'food fight' over whose numbers tell you what, and then you have to factor in what the economy was doing and so on.
"But we have to step back and say, to the extent that welfare changes affirmed the value of work, that's a good thing," she continued. "Caseloads are down, and if you know that's because people are working and supporting themselves, that's great. But there are others, we don't know what happened to them and that's scary."
The question should not be "what happened," Curran said, but "how can we continue to support work for everyone at wages and benefits that allow them to support their families."
[China] Inside China's Economic Boom
from National Public Radio
After nearly three decades of averaging 10 percent annual growth, China became the world's fourth-largest economy last year with a gross domestic product of $2.3 trillion. Many inside China are benefiting from the economic boom, but many are not.
Chinese businesses are facing big-budget challenges from multinational corporations eager to gain millions of new customers in China, while homegrown manufacturers are struggling to keep their markets overseas. And there are questions whether increasing wealth is bringing political change to the communist nation.
"Let me see your teeth!" --Ken Zhang, Crest Research Institute
Ken Zhang has an evangelical zeal for his product: toothpaste. For 10 years, he's worked at making Crest, the Procter & Gamble brand, market leader in a country where, until recently, almost 60 percent of the rural population had never brushed their teeth. The consultancy, McKinsey, estimates that there are 42 million middle-class households in China, and there could be 200 million such households in 10 years.
The purchasing power of this emerging middle class is leading Western multinationals to rethink their products with Chinese characteristics. I visited two companies with different strategies; toothpaste maker Crest which has launched a panoply of new tastes for the Chinese palate, with different products aimed at different levels of consumer; and Estee Lauder which has stayed unashamedly up-market. Both companies agree that China, with its geographical diversity and range of purchasing power, should be viewed as a collection of different markets. The potential rewards of operating in China can be huge, but the cost of doing business here is also immense; both companies have invested millions in new research and development centers in China in a bid to crack the market.
"I could never have imagined that profit margins would be so low." --Wang Chunqiao, millionaire owner of a button factory
The manufacturing industry plays a massive role in China's economic juggernaut, accounting for almost two-thirds of economic growth and more than one-third of gross domestic product. The manufacturing town of Qiaotou offers a look at the impact of China's economic rise.
Once a poverty-stricken area, the town's residents became rich by setting up their own button factories. Now Qiaotou dominates the world market in buttons, yet its once-bustling markets were almost deserted during a recent visit. This is partly due to new technology which means customers can buy the products using the telephone, fax and Internet rather than in person. But it also reflects the challenges faced by Chinese manufacturers, who have succeeded in saturating markets in low-tech labor-intensive products with little profit margin. Competition with other local firms is fierce, and as the button factory owners diversify into other fields, they're pondering how their upward trajectory can be maintained. Their experience also sums up how China's ravenous appetite for raw materials is sending worldwide commodity prices soaring, and leading to power and labor shortages at home.
"When I go out with my friends, all we talk about is our mortgages and interest rates." --Vivian, 23
One sign of the economic boom is construction, and China is reinventing itself with an orgy of it. Many of the new buildings are aspirational; sleek gleaming towers of glass and steel and Western-style luxury villas seemingly uprooted from Houston, Texas, to house China's financial cowboys. But the figures tell their own story. Developers invested $24 billion in residential housing in the first quarter of the year, but only 3 percent of that was spent on low-income housing. The market isn't catering for the masses, but for the precious, moneyed few. Housing has now become a matter of political sensitivity as well. Even official figures show that in some areas of China, 90 percent of land requisitioned by the government is seized illegally, and often that land is used to build property few can afford to live in. The central government is taking action to try to cool the market, but this, too, has its victims.
"A citizen of the city of Handan bought 'eggs' from a street vendor. When he took the eggs home, he found the yolk and egg white were mixed together. After inspection by relevant departments, it was found the eggshells were made from calcium carbonate while the fake yolks were made from gelatin, starch and other chemicals." --Xinhua news report
China's anti-counterfeiting organization says fake products now account for 27 percent of the country's industrial output. It's a booming market, with counterfeiters reproducing just about every product under the sun. But this is no longer just a question of counterfeit purses and watches. It's become a far deadlier trade. A fake drug made in northeastern China has killed at least 11 people over the last few months. And two years ago, at least 13 babies died after being fed fake baby milk which had no nutritional value. This widespread counterfeiting reflects a society where profit rules above all else, and consumers sometimes pay a deadly price.
"Don't expect regime change or democratization any time soon. The rise of China's middle class blocks the way." --Jonathan Unger, Australian National University, writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review
It's almost accepted wisdom that the emergence of a Chinese middle class could hasten the development of civil society, and ultimately democratization. In Zhejiang province, some 80 percent of elected village chiefs are local businessmen and not Communist Party members. The businessmen-turned-village chiefs that I met there all espoused democracy, but a version offered by the Chinese Communist Party. Several said they decided to run for office because they wanted to give something back to the country and the party as thanks for becoming rich under its policies. As stakeholders with the most to lose in the system, they're unlikely to want to push for radical change. This suggests that economic growth could ultimately insulate China against political change, rather than driving it.
After nearly three decades of averaging 10 percent annual growth, China became the world's fourth-largest economy last year with a gross domestic product of $2.3 trillion. Many inside China are benefiting from the economic boom, but many are not.
Chinese businesses are facing big-budget challenges from multinational corporations eager to gain millions of new customers in China, while homegrown manufacturers are struggling to keep their markets overseas. And there are questions whether increasing wealth is bringing political change to the communist nation.
"Let me see your teeth!" --Ken Zhang, Crest Research Institute
Ken Zhang has an evangelical zeal for his product: toothpaste. For 10 years, he's worked at making Crest, the Procter & Gamble brand, market leader in a country where, until recently, almost 60 percent of the rural population had never brushed their teeth. The consultancy, McKinsey, estimates that there are 42 million middle-class households in China, and there could be 200 million such households in 10 years.
The purchasing power of this emerging middle class is leading Western multinationals to rethink their products with Chinese characteristics. I visited two companies with different strategies; toothpaste maker Crest which has launched a panoply of new tastes for the Chinese palate, with different products aimed at different levels of consumer; and Estee Lauder which has stayed unashamedly up-market. Both companies agree that China, with its geographical diversity and range of purchasing power, should be viewed as a collection of different markets. The potential rewards of operating in China can be huge, but the cost of doing business here is also immense; both companies have invested millions in new research and development centers in China in a bid to crack the market.
"I could never have imagined that profit margins would be so low." --Wang Chunqiao, millionaire owner of a button factory
The manufacturing industry plays a massive role in China's economic juggernaut, accounting for almost two-thirds of economic growth and more than one-third of gross domestic product. The manufacturing town of Qiaotou offers a look at the impact of China's economic rise.
Once a poverty-stricken area, the town's residents became rich by setting up their own button factories. Now Qiaotou dominates the world market in buttons, yet its once-bustling markets were almost deserted during a recent visit. This is partly due to new technology which means customers can buy the products using the telephone, fax and Internet rather than in person. But it also reflects the challenges faced by Chinese manufacturers, who have succeeded in saturating markets in low-tech labor-intensive products with little profit margin. Competition with other local firms is fierce, and as the button factory owners diversify into other fields, they're pondering how their upward trajectory can be maintained. Their experience also sums up how China's ravenous appetite for raw materials is sending worldwide commodity prices soaring, and leading to power and labor shortages at home.
"When I go out with my friends, all we talk about is our mortgages and interest rates." --Vivian, 23
One sign of the economic boom is construction, and China is reinventing itself with an orgy of it. Many of the new buildings are aspirational; sleek gleaming towers of glass and steel and Western-style luxury villas seemingly uprooted from Houston, Texas, to house China's financial cowboys. But the figures tell their own story. Developers invested $24 billion in residential housing in the first quarter of the year, but only 3 percent of that was spent on low-income housing. The market isn't catering for the masses, but for the precious, moneyed few. Housing has now become a matter of political sensitivity as well. Even official figures show that in some areas of China, 90 percent of land requisitioned by the government is seized illegally, and often that land is used to build property few can afford to live in. The central government is taking action to try to cool the market, but this, too, has its victims.
"A citizen of the city of Handan bought 'eggs' from a street vendor. When he took the eggs home, he found the yolk and egg white were mixed together. After inspection by relevant departments, it was found the eggshells were made from calcium carbonate while the fake yolks were made from gelatin, starch and other chemicals." --Xinhua news report
China's anti-counterfeiting organization says fake products now account for 27 percent of the country's industrial output. It's a booming market, with counterfeiters reproducing just about every product under the sun. But this is no longer just a question of counterfeit purses and watches. It's become a far deadlier trade. A fake drug made in northeastern China has killed at least 11 people over the last few months. And two years ago, at least 13 babies died after being fed fake baby milk which had no nutritional value. This widespread counterfeiting reflects a society where profit rules above all else, and consumers sometimes pay a deadly price.
"Don't expect regime change or democratization any time soon. The rise of China's middle class blocks the way." --Jonathan Unger, Australian National University, writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review
It's almost accepted wisdom that the emergence of a Chinese middle class could hasten the development of civil society, and ultimately democratization. In Zhejiang province, some 80 percent of elected village chiefs are local businessmen and not Communist Party members. The businessmen-turned-village chiefs that I met there all espoused democracy, but a version offered by the Chinese Communist Party. Several said they decided to run for office because they wanted to give something back to the country and the party as thanks for becoming rich under its policies. As stakeholders with the most to lose in the system, they're unlikely to want to push for radical change. This suggests that economic growth could ultimately insulate China against political change, rather than driving it.
[Southern Africa] SADC Summit Serious On Poverty
from All Africa
New Era (Windhoek)
Petronella Sibeene
Windhoek
Although the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has delivered political freedom and democratic governance, the regional body has failed to address issues related to poverty eradication.
Lesotho's Prime Minister, also the new Chairperson of SADC during the 2006 Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government, Pakalitha Mosisili, stressed that in its 26 years of existence, the body has not delivered on poverty eradication through economic integration.
The summit acknowledged improvements that have been recorded in the overall food security situation, mainly attributed to improved access to inputs by farmers and increased rainfall during the 2005/6 season.
However, in its 18-point communiqué, the summit agreed that a task force comprising ministers responsible for finance, investment, economic development, trade and industry should work with the secretariat with a view to defining the roadmap for eradicating poverty and to propose measures for fast-tracking its implementation. It was also agreed that this task force reports at the next extra-ordinary summit to be held before October 2006.
"The Summit approved the convening of a SADC Conference on Poverty and Development and directed the Secretariat to make the necessary preparations in consultation with Mauritius," the communiqué reads.
It says that in 2005 the region recorded an overall growth of 5.0 percent Gross Domestic Product, which is below the United Nations target that stands at 7 percent for developing nations to attain by 2015.
Another topical issue that calls for the region's urgent address involves the high rates of mortality especially for women and children. The situation, which is currently worsened by the HIV pandemic, has depressed most countries' health sectors.
Southern African leaders resolved that interventions such as programmes aimed at combating the spread of HIV and mitigating the impact of AIDS be up-scaled within the context of the Maseru Declaration on Combating HIV and AIDS of 2003. On issues related to equality and gender, the summit noted the progress that has thus far been made towards the achievement of the set target of 30 percent women representation in decision-making. The heads of state reaffirmed their commitment to the new target of 50 percent.
Matters pertaining to access, equity and quality of education in the region remain a great concern and thus formed part of the discussions during this gathering in Maseru.
Outgoing SADC Chairperson and President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, observed that the implementation of the region's programmes show limited progress in the achievement of full integration. He urged member states to show commitment by contributing significantly towards the region's projects and programmes. In light of that, the summit mandated the SADC Secretariat to accelerate the process leading to the establishment of the SADC Regional Development Fund to finance development projects based on mobilization of member states.
New Era (Windhoek)
Petronella Sibeene
Windhoek
Although the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has delivered political freedom and democratic governance, the regional body has failed to address issues related to poverty eradication.
Lesotho's Prime Minister, also the new Chairperson of SADC during the 2006 Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government, Pakalitha Mosisili, stressed that in its 26 years of existence, the body has not delivered on poverty eradication through economic integration.
The summit acknowledged improvements that have been recorded in the overall food security situation, mainly attributed to improved access to inputs by farmers and increased rainfall during the 2005/6 season.
However, in its 18-point communiqué, the summit agreed that a task force comprising ministers responsible for finance, investment, economic development, trade and industry should work with the secretariat with a view to defining the roadmap for eradicating poverty and to propose measures for fast-tracking its implementation. It was also agreed that this task force reports at the next extra-ordinary summit to be held before October 2006.
"The Summit approved the convening of a SADC Conference on Poverty and Development and directed the Secretariat to make the necessary preparations in consultation with Mauritius," the communiqué reads.
It says that in 2005 the region recorded an overall growth of 5.0 percent Gross Domestic Product, which is below the United Nations target that stands at 7 percent for developing nations to attain by 2015.
Another topical issue that calls for the region's urgent address involves the high rates of mortality especially for women and children. The situation, which is currently worsened by the HIV pandemic, has depressed most countries' health sectors.
Southern African leaders resolved that interventions such as programmes aimed at combating the spread of HIV and mitigating the impact of AIDS be up-scaled within the context of the Maseru Declaration on Combating HIV and AIDS of 2003. On issues related to equality and gender, the summit noted the progress that has thus far been made towards the achievement of the set target of 30 percent women representation in decision-making. The heads of state reaffirmed their commitment to the new target of 50 percent.
Matters pertaining to access, equity and quality of education in the region remain a great concern and thus formed part of the discussions during this gathering in Maseru.
Outgoing SADC Chairperson and President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, observed that the implementation of the region's programmes show limited progress in the achievement of full integration. He urged member states to show commitment by contributing significantly towards the region's projects and programmes. In light of that, the summit mandated the SADC Secretariat to accelerate the process leading to the establishment of the SADC Regional Development Fund to finance development projects based on mobilization of member states.
[Nigeria] In Osun, New Grounds in Poverty Alleviation
from All Africa
This Day (Lagos)
Tokunbo Adedoja
Lagos
The partnership between the Osun State Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has caught the attention of the private sector, with small scale entreprenuers as the beneficiaries
For industrialists and agro-allied experts in Osun State, it is yet another opportunity to break new grounds, with new opportunities provided by the UNDP -Osun State Sustainable Human Development Fund (OSSHDF). Apparently spurred by the need to see Osun State developed, Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola sometime in December 2003, inaugurated the board of trustees of the UNDP-OSSHDF. The board, which is an assemblage of prominent indigenes of the state, was charged with mobilising and sourcing for fund from government, individuals and the private sector "towards meeting the objectives of the then sixth country programme of the UNDP." This include to transform the state industrially, combat poverty and improve quality of life among the people.
The board is chaired by Mr. Segun Aina, former managing director and chief executive officer of defunct Fountain Trust Bank and former President, West African Bankers Association (WABA) (Nigerian Chapter). He is also the second vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Nigeria (CIBN).
Shortly after inauguration, the board went into action. In February, 2004, a fund-raising was held in Oshogbo. Over N250 million was realised with the state government contributing N150 million. Not long after, another fund-raising was held at the Miccom Golf Hotels, Ada, Osun State. This phase was targeted at involving the organised private sector, individuals, corporate bodies and charity organisations.
A whopping N100 million was raised in cash, cheques and pledges. Another N200 million was expected through institutional/corporate pledges through the Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme (SMEEIS)'s programme of banks, a report by the board stated. The focal point of the second fund raising were the organised private sector, individuals, corporate bodies, companies, charity organisations and non-governmental organisations.
To demonstrate his commitment to the cause, Oyinlola announced the donation of his salary for a year. The fund-raising train later moved out of the state. The first point of call was Lagos where some funds were raised for the project on December 16, 2004. Barely a year later, another fund-raising was held in Abuja. That was precisely on August 10, 2005. Again, the governor pledged his annual salary for the project.
So far, over N350 million has been realised. Of this amount, about N250 million is said to have been committed to various ongoing projects and programmes.
Already, the UNDP-OSSHDF is quietly providing the needed boost for entrepreneurs and industrialists in the state. One of such is the UNDP - OSSHDF micro credit/middle level micro-credit in November 2004.
Also, on the occasion of the 2004 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty in Osogbo, "N30 million in cheques were distributed to three leading micro finance institutions (MFIS) in the state.
Equally, over 400,000 people in the 30 local government areas of the state were said to have benefited from the fund disbursed through the institutions. The second phase of the scheme has since started. According to the board's chairman this phase "is targeted at individuals and companies whose businesses require funds of not more than N500,000."
As a result of the successes recorded, the board has decided to put in more money into the scheme. Another sum of N30 million to be spread to beneficiaries in every local government area is to be injected by the board for the middle level micro credit scheme.
In addition to this, the board has also disbursed N60 million to 600 cassava farmers across the state. The farmers belong to the Cassava Growers Association structured on local government basis. This arrangement made the disbursement and monitoring of the scheme effective.
Similarly, plans are said to be in top gear to include rice and fish farming projects in the UNDP- OSSHDF agricultural funding programme. The aim is to use the combination of all the programmes to "propel economic empowerment, additional employment and industrial growth within the state."
Also to give its programmes the scientific foundation and as a follow-up to the pledge by bank officials present at the launch of the development fund at Ada, that the financial institutions would support Osun State-based industries and businesses to access fund meant for SMEIS, the board is said to have commissioned the Centre for Industrial Research and Development (CIRD), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile -Ife to organise seminars for small-scale industrialists in the state. Various topics relating to how SMEs can be developed in an accelerated manner in Osun State will be discussed.
Such issues include easy access to funding, investment opportunities and managerial skills necessary for SME's success.
A novel strategy to encourage the well-to-do and organisations in all communities to assist small-scale entrepreneurs, is the introduction of collaborative community focused micro-credit scheme where individuals and organisations within a particular community are expected to put down an amount not below N500,000 to be distributed within a given community as short-term micro-credit and later recycled to other beneficiaries within the same community.
To kick-start the project, whose fund is managed by the board's accredited Micro Finance Institutions (MFI's), some members of the board have belled the cat. For instance, the Segun Aina Foundation has announced the contribution of N1 million for beneficiaries from Otan Ayegbaju where Aina hails from.
Also, Chief Olu Falomo, another prominent member of the board has also made an announcement of N500,000 to be shared among those interested in his Ifosan community in Ilesa. The secretary of the board, Mrs. Iyabode Opeyokun, on her part, has expressed desire to make available the sum of N250,000 for use in Ijebu - Jesa.
The board, in its bid to raise N1billion for the scheme has appealed to corporate donors which have been identifying with poverty alleviation programmes such as Nigerian Breweries, MTN Foundation, V-Mobile and others for support and collaboration.
This Day (Lagos)
Tokunbo Adedoja
Lagos
The partnership between the Osun State Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has caught the attention of the private sector, with small scale entreprenuers as the beneficiaries
For industrialists and agro-allied experts in Osun State, it is yet another opportunity to break new grounds, with new opportunities provided by the UNDP -Osun State Sustainable Human Development Fund (OSSHDF). Apparently spurred by the need to see Osun State developed, Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola sometime in December 2003, inaugurated the board of trustees of the UNDP-OSSHDF. The board, which is an assemblage of prominent indigenes of the state, was charged with mobilising and sourcing for fund from government, individuals and the private sector "towards meeting the objectives of the then sixth country programme of the UNDP." This include to transform the state industrially, combat poverty and improve quality of life among the people.
The board is chaired by Mr. Segun Aina, former managing director and chief executive officer of defunct Fountain Trust Bank and former President, West African Bankers Association (WABA) (Nigerian Chapter). He is also the second vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Nigeria (CIBN).
Shortly after inauguration, the board went into action. In February, 2004, a fund-raising was held in Oshogbo. Over N250 million was realised with the state government contributing N150 million. Not long after, another fund-raising was held at the Miccom Golf Hotels, Ada, Osun State. This phase was targeted at involving the organised private sector, individuals, corporate bodies and charity organisations.
A whopping N100 million was raised in cash, cheques and pledges. Another N200 million was expected through institutional/corporate pledges through the Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme (SMEEIS)'s programme of banks, a report by the board stated. The focal point of the second fund raising were the organised private sector, individuals, corporate bodies, companies, charity organisations and non-governmental organisations.
To demonstrate his commitment to the cause, Oyinlola announced the donation of his salary for a year. The fund-raising train later moved out of the state. The first point of call was Lagos where some funds were raised for the project on December 16, 2004. Barely a year later, another fund-raising was held in Abuja. That was precisely on August 10, 2005. Again, the governor pledged his annual salary for the project.
So far, over N350 million has been realised. Of this amount, about N250 million is said to have been committed to various ongoing projects and programmes.
Already, the UNDP-OSSHDF is quietly providing the needed boost for entrepreneurs and industrialists in the state. One of such is the UNDP - OSSHDF micro credit/middle level micro-credit in November 2004.
Also, on the occasion of the 2004 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty in Osogbo, "N30 million in cheques were distributed to three leading micro finance institutions (MFIS) in the state.
Equally, over 400,000 people in the 30 local government areas of the state were said to have benefited from the fund disbursed through the institutions. The second phase of the scheme has since started. According to the board's chairman this phase "is targeted at individuals and companies whose businesses require funds of not more than N500,000."
As a result of the successes recorded, the board has decided to put in more money into the scheme. Another sum of N30 million to be spread to beneficiaries in every local government area is to be injected by the board for the middle level micro credit scheme.
In addition to this, the board has also disbursed N60 million to 600 cassava farmers across the state. The farmers belong to the Cassava Growers Association structured on local government basis. This arrangement made the disbursement and monitoring of the scheme effective.
Similarly, plans are said to be in top gear to include rice and fish farming projects in the UNDP- OSSHDF agricultural funding programme. The aim is to use the combination of all the programmes to "propel economic empowerment, additional employment and industrial growth within the state."
Also to give its programmes the scientific foundation and as a follow-up to the pledge by bank officials present at the launch of the development fund at Ada, that the financial institutions would support Osun State-based industries and businesses to access fund meant for SMEIS, the board is said to have commissioned the Centre for Industrial Research and Development (CIRD), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile -Ife to organise seminars for small-scale industrialists in the state. Various topics relating to how SMEs can be developed in an accelerated manner in Osun State will be discussed.
Such issues include easy access to funding, investment opportunities and managerial skills necessary for SME's success.
A novel strategy to encourage the well-to-do and organisations in all communities to assist small-scale entrepreneurs, is the introduction of collaborative community focused micro-credit scheme where individuals and organisations within a particular community are expected to put down an amount not below N500,000 to be distributed within a given community as short-term micro-credit and later recycled to other beneficiaries within the same community.
To kick-start the project, whose fund is managed by the board's accredited Micro Finance Institutions (MFI's), some members of the board have belled the cat. For instance, the Segun Aina Foundation has announced the contribution of N1 million for beneficiaries from Otan Ayegbaju where Aina hails from.
Also, Chief Olu Falomo, another prominent member of the board has also made an announcement of N500,000 to be shared among those interested in his Ifosan community in Ilesa. The secretary of the board, Mrs. Iyabode Opeyokun, on her part, has expressed desire to make available the sum of N250,000 for use in Ijebu - Jesa.
The board, in its bid to raise N1billion for the scheme has appealed to corporate donors which have been identifying with poverty alleviation programmes such as Nigerian Breweries, MTN Foundation, V-Mobile and others for support and collaboration.
[Mauritius] Measuring and understanding poverty
from L'Express
The lean sixties for Mauritians were followed by unprecedented growth and increased wealth but with numerous pockets of poverty, where people who had been left out of the gravy train suffered in silence! Today, for a complex variety of causes, the opportunity of great wealth has opened for some, while, for many, the spectre of poverty is reappearing again.
(This series of articles successively examines the definition, measurement, alleviation and eradication of poverty).
Measuring poverty: The most common way to measure a country’s wealth or poverty is GDP or GNP. A country’s total GDP or GNP is often divided by the population number to give an indication of the average per capita income. This figure, however, gives no indication of actual distribution of wealth within a nation. A few people may be extremely rich while the majority may be very poor. Gandhi defined the ultimate rule of equity in the world when he stated: “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed!”
For example, based on global production levels of staple food (e.g. rice, wheat, barley, cassava, millet, maize, milk and fish, etc) one can ascertain that, if that food was equitably distributed, every person on this planet would have more than a 3,000 calorie diet a day (the average adult needs about 2,000 calories a day for a healthy life). No one would starve!
Reality, as we know, is different! A sad fact is that 50% of the world’s grain supplies goes to the feeding of cattle. In other words, the some time “scarcity” of grain (which causes famines) is artificially produced, to meet the demand for beef by the rich nations, at the expense of the poorer people and nations.
From a humanitarian and moral standpoint, people’s poverty and suffering defies measurement and indeed should not be compared. Also, international comparisons between countries require conversions into a common currency (usually the dollar). This may produce inaccurate results, and does not take proper account of how prices vary from country to country. Such comparisons do not account for inflation either, which in countries whose economy has been destroyed or badly managed can run at anything up to 100% per month or more (witness Zimbabwe recently or Argentina twenty years ago).
Simple truths about poverty: The poet, the philosopher and the doer all have come to different truths about the condition of poverty. Their thoughts can lead us to deeper understanding of it than facts and figures. Let’s review a few of them!
Workers from aid agencies, be they NGOs, UN or Governments, all can ascertain that:
You can alleviate immediate poverty by giving people money, tents, blankets and food, but you cannot “make poverty history” in that way. Self-achieved, sustainable development for everyone is the only realistic, long-term goal.
Thoughts on the human condition:
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is. (Benjamin Franklin);
Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter. (Victor Hugo)
The surest way to remain poor is to try and live like the rich! (Anon)
Hunger being, alas, one of the worst aspects of poverty, brings us to these truths:
No man can worship God or love his neighbour on an empty stomach (W.Wilson) and
Society comprises two classes: those who have more food than hunger and those who have more hunger than food.
The poor is the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid!
Thoughts on governance, very relevant to today’s Mauritius:
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. (J.F. Kennedy)
In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. (Confucius)
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed. (Karl Marx)
“Small is beautiful” was originally uttered in relation to environmental action. Mother Teresa’s ceaseless work with the poor and dying taught her different aspects of this truth: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But, if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things”, and
“We cannot do great things. We can only do little things with great love.”
And on a lighter note this sarcastic comment from Woody Allen:
Another good thing about being poor is that, when you are seventy, your children will not have declared you legally insane to gain control of your estate.
Dr Michael ATCHIA
mklatchia@intnet.mu
The lean sixties for Mauritians were followed by unprecedented growth and increased wealth but with numerous pockets of poverty, where people who had been left out of the gravy train suffered in silence! Today, for a complex variety of causes, the opportunity of great wealth has opened for some, while, for many, the spectre of poverty is reappearing again.
(This series of articles successively examines the definition, measurement, alleviation and eradication of poverty).
Measuring poverty: The most common way to measure a country’s wealth or poverty is GDP or GNP. A country’s total GDP or GNP is often divided by the population number to give an indication of the average per capita income. This figure, however, gives no indication of actual distribution of wealth within a nation. A few people may be extremely rich while the majority may be very poor. Gandhi defined the ultimate rule of equity in the world when he stated: “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed!”
For example, based on global production levels of staple food (e.g. rice, wheat, barley, cassava, millet, maize, milk and fish, etc) one can ascertain that, if that food was equitably distributed, every person on this planet would have more than a 3,000 calorie diet a day (the average adult needs about 2,000 calories a day for a healthy life). No one would starve!
Reality, as we know, is different! A sad fact is that 50% of the world’s grain supplies goes to the feeding of cattle. In other words, the some time “scarcity” of grain (which causes famines) is artificially produced, to meet the demand for beef by the rich nations, at the expense of the poorer people and nations.
From a humanitarian and moral standpoint, people’s poverty and suffering defies measurement and indeed should not be compared. Also, international comparisons between countries require conversions into a common currency (usually the dollar). This may produce inaccurate results, and does not take proper account of how prices vary from country to country. Such comparisons do not account for inflation either, which in countries whose economy has been destroyed or badly managed can run at anything up to 100% per month or more (witness Zimbabwe recently or Argentina twenty years ago).
Simple truths about poverty: The poet, the philosopher and the doer all have come to different truths about the condition of poverty. Their thoughts can lead us to deeper understanding of it than facts and figures. Let’s review a few of them!
Workers from aid agencies, be they NGOs, UN or Governments, all can ascertain that:
You can alleviate immediate poverty by giving people money, tents, blankets and food, but you cannot “make poverty history” in that way. Self-achieved, sustainable development for everyone is the only realistic, long-term goal.
Thoughts on the human condition:
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is. (Benjamin Franklin);
Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter. (Victor Hugo)
The surest way to remain poor is to try and live like the rich! (Anon)
Hunger being, alas, one of the worst aspects of poverty, brings us to these truths:
No man can worship God or love his neighbour on an empty stomach (W.Wilson) and
Society comprises two classes: those who have more food than hunger and those who have more hunger than food.
The poor is the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid!
Thoughts on governance, very relevant to today’s Mauritius:
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. (J.F. Kennedy)
In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. (Confucius)
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed. (Karl Marx)
“Small is beautiful” was originally uttered in relation to environmental action. Mother Teresa’s ceaseless work with the poor and dying taught her different aspects of this truth: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But, if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things”, and
“We cannot do great things. We can only do little things with great love.”
And on a lighter note this sarcastic comment from Woody Allen:
Another good thing about being poor is that, when you are seventy, your children will not have declared you legally insane to gain control of your estate.
Dr Michael ATCHIA
mklatchia@intnet.mu
[Finland] No concrete proposals for poverty package from Finland's SDP
from Newsroom Finland
The parliamentary faction of Finland's Social Democratic Party (SDP) concluded its summer conference in Turku on Tuesday with little in the way of demands for the proposed budget's poverty package. The SDP expressed its satisfaction with the budgetary proposal as it stands, and declined to make any concrete recommendations for the content of the poverty package.
The leader of the parliamentary faction, Jouni Backman (soc dem), said that the party believes that the optimal results would be achieved by directing the package towards a relatively small group of citizens, who would consequently be able to see a tangible difference in their living standards.
Negotiators from the parties in government still aim to reach a joint proposal on the poverty package before the start of the conclusive budgetary negotiations on Wednesday.
The finance minister, Eero Heinäluoma (soc dem), has already stated that there are insufficient funds to finance any elaborate new measures.
The conference was marked by an unprecedented level of agreement among the participants in their evaluation of the proposed budget. In a press conference following the meeting, Mr Backman described the debate as "exceptionally good-natured".
The parliamentary faction of Finland's Social Democratic Party (SDP) concluded its summer conference in Turku on Tuesday with little in the way of demands for the proposed budget's poverty package. The SDP expressed its satisfaction with the budgetary proposal as it stands, and declined to make any concrete recommendations for the content of the poverty package.
The leader of the parliamentary faction, Jouni Backman (soc dem), said that the party believes that the optimal results would be achieved by directing the package towards a relatively small group of citizens, who would consequently be able to see a tangible difference in their living standards.
Negotiators from the parties in government still aim to reach a joint proposal on the poverty package before the start of the conclusive budgetary negotiations on Wednesday.
The finance minister, Eero Heinäluoma (soc dem), has already stated that there are insufficient funds to finance any elaborate new measures.
The conference was marked by an unprecedented level of agreement among the participants in their evaluation of the proposed budget. In a press conference following the meeting, Mr Backman described the debate as "exceptionally good-natured".
[Child Marriage] Anti-Poverty Efforts Face Child Marriage Hurdle
from Woman's E News
By Bojana Stoparic
WeNews correspondent
Around the world, 51 million girls and teens are married so young that they face special health risks and higher rates of poverty. A Senate bill asks for more funding to fight child marriage and advocates say the practice hinders development goals.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Rebeca, who lives in Bangladesh, was forced to leave school at 14 when her parents arranged for her to marry a 39-year-old man. Her family was poor and the man had agreed to waive the dowry requirement. He ended up infecting Rebeca with a sexually transmitted disease, and at 20, she has already undergone surgery twice for uterine ulcers.
Rebeca's story was one of many compiled by the International Center for Research on Women in Washington, which is running an international campaign against child marriage. Other tales describe the plights of girls and female teens raped by their husbands, widowed while still teens, forced to resort to sex work to feed their children. To protect their privacy, the center used only first names in its publications.
About 51 million girls and teens in developing countries are currently married, according to the center.
Another 100 million will be married within the next 10 years, the Population Council, an international reproductive health organization headquartered in New York, estimates.
Child marriage occurs most often in some of the poorest countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In parts of Ethiopia, Nigeria and India, over 40 percent of girls and young women are married by the time they are 15. More than 50 percent are married before 18 in Niger, Chad, Bangladesh, Mali, Nepal, Mozambique and Uganda.
This year, the United States provided $623 million in development aid through its Agency for International Development to 16 of the 20 countries with the highest child marriage rates. If Afghanistan is included, the figure tops $1.25 billion; data on child marriage is not officially collected there although it appears to be a common practice.
Reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and eliminating the gender gap in education are all United Nations millennium development goals, a set of eight targets agreed to by world leaders six years ago in the effort to eradicate global poverty by 2015.
The prevalence of child marriage undermines these goals by increasing health risks for girls and depriving them of educational and economic opportunities, said Mahdere Paulos, executive director of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.
Anti-Child Marriage Push
In July, two Democratic Senators, Richard Durbin from Illinois and Hillary Clinton from New York, and Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, introduced the International Child Marriage Prevention and Assistance Act. The bill calls on the U.S. State Department to integrate efforts to fight child marriage in its overall development assistance strategy.
The bill would provide $60 million over the next three fiscal years to the State Department to support community-based organizations in developing countries that fight child marriage. It also asks the State Department to report on child marriage in its annual human rights reports on foreign countries.
International human rights bodies and treaties, including the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, either discourage or outright prohibit marriage before the age of 18. But child marriage is a deeply entrenched cultural practice and laws alone won't prevent it, according to Paulos.
"We need to work at the grassroots level to educate people about the problems of child marriage," she told Women's eNews while on a speaking tour in the United States last month. Her organization is now working in local communities in Ethiopia to persuade parents to delay marriage for their daughters.
"Parents are very well aware that child marriage is illegal, but exhortations won't work," said Judith Bruce, director of the Population Council's Gender, Family and Development Program. "We need to understand the economic underpinnings of child marriage and create alternatives."
Still Exists in Wealthy Countries
Although the practice is most common in the developing world, child marriage still exists in industrialized countries, where it is intimately linked with poverty.
In the United States, teens can get married as young as 14 with parental consent in some states. After a highly publicized case in Kansas last year in which a pregnant 14-year-old married her 22-year-old boyfriend, the state raised the minimum marrying age to 15 with a judge's approval. The man, Matthew Koso, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced in February to 18 to 30 months in prison.
According to a 2002 study by the Washington-based Center for Law and Social Policy, around 1 percent of U.S. teens between 15 and 17 have been married. However, the 2000 U.S. census found that teen marriage rates increased by nearly 50 percent during the 90s.
Researchers have speculated on a number of reasons for this escalation, including the impact of abstinence-until-marriage programs, welfare policies that promote marriage and the influx of immigrants from societies where early marriage is common.
A 2004 report by Save the Children found that over one-fifth of 20-year-old women in the United States gave birth while still teens, the highest adolescent birth rate among industrialized countries. U.S. teens living in rural communities with high poverty rates and below-average education levels are most likely to become young mothers.
Linked to Poverty
Countries where child marriage is widespread tend to have high rates of poverty; more than three-quarters of the people in Bangladesh, Mali, Mozambique and Niger live on less than $2 a day. Within these countries, girls and female teens living in low-income households are twice as likely to marry young as counterparts in better-off families, according to the Washington-based National Research Council.
"One of the reasons that they marry their daughters off is that there are no other options for girls, no prospects for education or employment," said Leslie Calman, vice president of external relations for the International Center for Research on Women.
The United Nations Children's Fund has found that the more education a girl receives, the less likely she is to become a child bride. With that in mind, grassroots programs in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Bangladesh have focused on providing economic incentives for parents to keep girls in school.
Meanwhile, the International Center for Research on Women and the Population Council work with local partners to offer life-skills training to unmarried girls, helping them build self-esteem and resist pressure to get married, as well as reproductive health education and services to married girls.
Child marriage only reinforces the cycle of poverty, pointed out Calman. "In addition to the lost potential of girls who are married off, you have real costs associated with women's health and infant mortality."
Teens younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women in their 20s and mortality rates for their infants are higher as well. Child brides may face a higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases than unmarried sexually active teens, according to research by the University of Chicago. And a 2004 study by the International Center for Research on Women in the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand found that girls married before 18 were twice as likely to have suffered physical abuse or threats than those who married later.
Bojana Stoparic is a freelance writer based in New York.
By Bojana Stoparic
WeNews correspondent
Around the world, 51 million girls and teens are married so young that they face special health risks and higher rates of poverty. A Senate bill asks for more funding to fight child marriage and advocates say the practice hinders development goals.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Rebeca, who lives in Bangladesh, was forced to leave school at 14 when her parents arranged for her to marry a 39-year-old man. Her family was poor and the man had agreed to waive the dowry requirement. He ended up infecting Rebeca with a sexually transmitted disease, and at 20, she has already undergone surgery twice for uterine ulcers.
Rebeca's story was one of many compiled by the International Center for Research on Women in Washington, which is running an international campaign against child marriage. Other tales describe the plights of girls and female teens raped by their husbands, widowed while still teens, forced to resort to sex work to feed their children. To protect their privacy, the center used only first names in its publications.
About 51 million girls and teens in developing countries are currently married, according to the center.
Another 100 million will be married within the next 10 years, the Population Council, an international reproductive health organization headquartered in New York, estimates.
Child marriage occurs most often in some of the poorest countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In parts of Ethiopia, Nigeria and India, over 40 percent of girls and young women are married by the time they are 15. More than 50 percent are married before 18 in Niger, Chad, Bangladesh, Mali, Nepal, Mozambique and Uganda.
This year, the United States provided $623 million in development aid through its Agency for International Development to 16 of the 20 countries with the highest child marriage rates. If Afghanistan is included, the figure tops $1.25 billion; data on child marriage is not officially collected there although it appears to be a common practice.
Reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and eliminating the gender gap in education are all United Nations millennium development goals, a set of eight targets agreed to by world leaders six years ago in the effort to eradicate global poverty by 2015.
The prevalence of child marriage undermines these goals by increasing health risks for girls and depriving them of educational and economic opportunities, said Mahdere Paulos, executive director of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.
Anti-Child Marriage Push
In July, two Democratic Senators, Richard Durbin from Illinois and Hillary Clinton from New York, and Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, introduced the International Child Marriage Prevention and Assistance Act. The bill calls on the U.S. State Department to integrate efforts to fight child marriage in its overall development assistance strategy.
The bill would provide $60 million over the next three fiscal years to the State Department to support community-based organizations in developing countries that fight child marriage. It also asks the State Department to report on child marriage in its annual human rights reports on foreign countries.
International human rights bodies and treaties, including the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, either discourage or outright prohibit marriage before the age of 18. But child marriage is a deeply entrenched cultural practice and laws alone won't prevent it, according to Paulos.
"We need to work at the grassroots level to educate people about the problems of child marriage," she told Women's eNews while on a speaking tour in the United States last month. Her organization is now working in local communities in Ethiopia to persuade parents to delay marriage for their daughters.
"Parents are very well aware that child marriage is illegal, but exhortations won't work," said Judith Bruce, director of the Population Council's Gender, Family and Development Program. "We need to understand the economic underpinnings of child marriage and create alternatives."
Still Exists in Wealthy Countries
Although the practice is most common in the developing world, child marriage still exists in industrialized countries, where it is intimately linked with poverty.
In the United States, teens can get married as young as 14 with parental consent in some states. After a highly publicized case in Kansas last year in which a pregnant 14-year-old married her 22-year-old boyfriend, the state raised the minimum marrying age to 15 with a judge's approval. The man, Matthew Koso, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced in February to 18 to 30 months in prison.
According to a 2002 study by the Washington-based Center for Law and Social Policy, around 1 percent of U.S. teens between 15 and 17 have been married. However, the 2000 U.S. census found that teen marriage rates increased by nearly 50 percent during the 90s.
Researchers have speculated on a number of reasons for this escalation, including the impact of abstinence-until-marriage programs, welfare policies that promote marriage and the influx of immigrants from societies where early marriage is common.
A 2004 report by Save the Children found that over one-fifth of 20-year-old women in the United States gave birth while still teens, the highest adolescent birth rate among industrialized countries. U.S. teens living in rural communities with high poverty rates and below-average education levels are most likely to become young mothers.
Linked to Poverty
Countries where child marriage is widespread tend to have high rates of poverty; more than three-quarters of the people in Bangladesh, Mali, Mozambique and Niger live on less than $2 a day. Within these countries, girls and female teens living in low-income households are twice as likely to marry young as counterparts in better-off families, according to the Washington-based National Research Council.
"One of the reasons that they marry their daughters off is that there are no other options for girls, no prospects for education or employment," said Leslie Calman, vice president of external relations for the International Center for Research on Women.
The United Nations Children's Fund has found that the more education a girl receives, the less likely she is to become a child bride. With that in mind, grassroots programs in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Bangladesh have focused on providing economic incentives for parents to keep girls in school.
Meanwhile, the International Center for Research on Women and the Population Council work with local partners to offer life-skills training to unmarried girls, helping them build self-esteem and resist pressure to get married, as well as reproductive health education and services to married girls.
Child marriage only reinforces the cycle of poverty, pointed out Calman. "In addition to the lost potential of girls who are married off, you have real costs associated with women's health and infant mortality."
Teens younger than 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women in their 20s and mortality rates for their infants are higher as well. Child brides may face a higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases than unmarried sexually active teens, according to research by the University of Chicago. And a 2004 study by the International Center for Research on Women in the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand found that girls married before 18 were twice as likely to have suffered physical abuse or threats than those who married later.
Bojana Stoparic is a freelance writer based in New York.
[Liberia] Bad Roads Hamper Commercial Activities In Rural Liberia-Poverty on the Increase
from The LLiberian Times
by J. Cholo Brooks / Senior Staff Writer
Liberia's rural dwellers, specifically those in the southeast of the country are calling on the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led Government to quickly come to their rescue by rehabilitating their major farm to market roads in their area in order to help ease the high cost of living in that part of the country.
Speaking to the Liberian Times over the weekend on the Ganta/Sanniquallie highway, some of the stranded marketers and other passengers riding in several vehicles said they were frustrated of the condition of most roads in rural Liberia, "you won't believe it since I left Monrovia this is my third week on this road. All my goods that I bought to take to Grand Gedeh County for sale are all spoiling due to bad road condition," a businessman, Jacob Swen told our Correspondent.
Jacob is among dozens of other marketers and ordinary travelers who spoke to our Correspondent, including several trucks drivers who also said they were caught up in the high piled of mud and were facing an embarrassment situation, "we are taken goods from Guinea to our Monrovia buyers, but since one week now it is very difficult to get out of this mess," a drivers of one of the several trucks caught up in the mud said.
Due to this bad road condition in rural Liberia, goods and services have reportedly been sized, making it difficult for rural dwellers to buy those essential items that they can not get in their town or village, "all my goods have been sold out, I just decided to reach Monrovia to get some goods, but since last week we got stuck here I don't know what to do. I even left my 3-month old baby with my husband, I am confused my brother I don't know what to do," a distressed market woman told the Liberian Times.
Also expressing his frustration, the Nimba County Superintendent, Robert Karmine said he was unhappy of the bad road condition in the county, "myself, despite I have 4-wheel drive, I feel horrible when I see people sleeping on the highway due to the condition of the road. I have made contacts with the appropriate agency to come over and help in this direction," Superintendent Karmine told our Correspondent in Ganta.
Bad roads condition are not only limited to rural Liberia, but also engulfed the entire country, even the main streets of the capital city of Monrovia are no different from that of the major roads in rural Liberia. The Ministry of public works, agency responsible to patch up roads, has already started the process in Monrovia and it's environ.
by J. Cholo Brooks / Senior Staff Writer
Liberia's rural dwellers, specifically those in the southeast of the country are calling on the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led Government to quickly come to their rescue by rehabilitating their major farm to market roads in their area in order to help ease the high cost of living in that part of the country.
Speaking to the Liberian Times over the weekend on the Ganta/Sanniquallie highway, some of the stranded marketers and other passengers riding in several vehicles said they were frustrated of the condition of most roads in rural Liberia, "you won't believe it since I left Monrovia this is my third week on this road. All my goods that I bought to take to Grand Gedeh County for sale are all spoiling due to bad road condition," a businessman, Jacob Swen told our Correspondent.
Jacob is among dozens of other marketers and ordinary travelers who spoke to our Correspondent, including several trucks drivers who also said they were caught up in the high piled of mud and were facing an embarrassment situation, "we are taken goods from Guinea to our Monrovia buyers, but since one week now it is very difficult to get out of this mess," a drivers of one of the several trucks caught up in the mud said.
Due to this bad road condition in rural Liberia, goods and services have reportedly been sized, making it difficult for rural dwellers to buy those essential items that they can not get in their town or village, "all my goods have been sold out, I just decided to reach Monrovia to get some goods, but since last week we got stuck here I don't know what to do. I even left my 3-month old baby with my husband, I am confused my brother I don't know what to do," a distressed market woman told the Liberian Times.
Also expressing his frustration, the Nimba County Superintendent, Robert Karmine said he was unhappy of the bad road condition in the county, "myself, despite I have 4-wheel drive, I feel horrible when I see people sleeping on the highway due to the condition of the road. I have made contacts with the appropriate agency to come over and help in this direction," Superintendent Karmine told our Correspondent in Ganta.
Bad roads condition are not only limited to rural Liberia, but also engulfed the entire country, even the main streets of the capital city of Monrovia are no different from that of the major roads in rural Liberia. The Ministry of public works, agency responsible to patch up roads, has already started the process in Monrovia and it's environ.
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