Poverty in Yemenis' viewpoints

from The Yemen Times

By: Abdull-Wadood Al-Ghaili For Yemen Times

Poverty is a very dangerous soci-economic phenomenon in Yemen especially after the poor increased and situations of a large category of population worsen. It is firmly connected with the weak performance of economy, facing external and internal shocks particularly in the middle of the nineties. It was reflected by the budget, deficiency of payments balance, inflationary pressures, deterioration of foreign fund reserves, national currency rate and administrative and regulatory imbalances. It was just mere predictions to talk about the level of poverty in Yemen. No studies or field surveys were conducted.

However, the recent indicators of the main unit of poverty monitoring, in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, showed that poverty ratio declined from 41,8 percent of the population to 35,5 percent in 2005.In light of this, the soci-economic development plan was determined 2006-2010 aiming at minimizing poverty ratio gradually to 24,8 percent in 2010 with 10,7 percent .This is in comparison with the current situation under the economic growth rate, 5 percent.

Dr. Mohammed.A.Afandi, the head of Yemeni Center for Strategic Studies, criticized the government future initiatives in fighting poverty included in the development plan. He said, "The government attempts to reduce poverty ratio at 10,7 percent. This goal is not up to the standard of the problem and its enormity. To achieve this objective, the local and international supply sources must be best provided. The private sector must be engaged in the process, too. It has simple operational capabilities besides the administrative imbalances, making the administrative system weak."

Afandi also held the government accountable for the aggravation of poverty ratio among citizens, saying:" The political and economic measures are limited to contain the negative impacts owing to the economic reforming program especially when the economic policies, during the implementation of the second five-year plan as well as the national strategy for alleviating poverty 2000-2005, had led to poor increase. It resulted in reducing the incomes due to the price hikes and devaluation of currency and exchange rate."

The policies of economic growth and development were very weak in every sense of the word in the last period. They did not work to generate high growth rate enabling people to increase their income and subsequently improve their living standards, he added.

Annual report issued by the UNDP, United Nations Development Program stated showed that Yemen came as the least country regarding individual's allowance of the local revenue at US$889. The report also indicated that the rate of an Arab individual of the total local revenue is US$ 5000 to 6000. Qata topped the Arab countries concerning the individual allowance of local revenue with US$ 19,8000, Afandi further explained.

He also pointed out that there is a variation phenomenon concerning incomes and resources according to the survey of family budget of 1998. "The statistics indicate that there is a wide gap in incomes levels. The data of family budget of 1998 showed that 17,2 percent of the population receive 39 percent of the income. Whereas, 27,2 of the poor population get double of what the second class receives. However, 5,5 percent of the population take 18, 1 percent of the income. At the same time, 83 % of the population get 61 of the income whereas, 17 % get 39 percent of the income.

1999 poverty survey data indicate that approximately 40 percent of the families and 34 percent of the individuals have less than YR 10,000 income average per month. However, 58 percent of the families and 51 percent of the individuals receive less than 15,000 of their income average per month, whereas, 8 percent of the families and 7 percent of the individuals get 50,000 to 100,000 thousand monthly as income average. 3 percent of the families and 4 percent of the individuals have monthly income of more than 100,000.

Dr. Mohammed A. Al-Zaidi, an economic researcher, said, "There are few people who are not exposed to poverty live but there are a lot of people are fully exposed to it."

He added that most of the poor confirm that their living situations worsen year after year. Despite the governmental measures which aim at reducing the brunt of poverty, the incomes of poor people are very low. They did not get any things out of these measures. They are living under strained circumstances and abstained policies.

Poverty leads to wasting a considerable amount of human energy without utilizing it in enhancing the process of civil development in the community. It also prevents people from getting sufficient income to meet their basic needs, resulting in disturbing social lives of the poor families as well as shaking the stability of the families.

However, poverty may cause the emergence of robbery, burglary, store raid and rebellions against law and system. It also provides a good environment for criminal acts, disputes, extremism as well as immoral acts.



How poor people describe poverty

The poor people describe poverty as the second way of portraying social discrimination, inequality and lack of justice. They also said that the poor people hardly see themselves as the community do. Likewise, rich people do the same thing but the only difference that can be noticed between them the later do not show their faults. This is the key reason behind threatening the human life whether individuals, groups or communities and countries.

Qasim Awadh, one of those who suffer from poverty, wonders about the role of the state and the undertaken remedies to reduce the brunt of poverty prevailing among the community. He also added "poverty brought about differences between individuals. If you are poor, you are nothing when compared to others. You have no value but only a human entity walking on the ground. My poverty makes me buried alive."

"Poverty is an enemy of human beings. We must fight it by all means possible so as not to make people deviate from the right way by degrading themselves throughout begging other people. I resorted to vacate one of my three rooms to make a small shop to sell commodities worthy of YR 20 to 50 maximum so as to sustain my family," Qasim shared.



Influence of Poverty

A study conducted by the central unit for monitoring poverty in the ministry of planning and international cooperation, revealed that the influence of poverty varies according to the living conditions as well as environmental factors surrounding of the poor.

The study, conducted by 14 researchers, male and female in the areas where poverty ratio is more than 50 percent spanning six governorates Hadhramout, Hodidah, Hajja, Ibb, Taiz and Shabwa, showed that a group of poor has different viewpoints regarding the most dangerous impacts of poverty. However, they unanimously agreed that diseases and the inability to pay medication costs as well as education expenditures are the most dangerous impacts of poverty. Starvation and malnutrition come second in addition to the lack of uniting efforts among individuals to solve problems of family collapse.

Some of the poor told Yemen Times that there are numerous impacts due to poverty. Nassir Al-Raimi, a daily wage worker, said that the most prominent impacts caused by poverty are the psychological illnesses due to sever sufferance occurring inside the humans' thoughts and feelings because they are unable to provide their families with what they need.

However, Fatima Yahya, 34, and also a widow providing a four member family, said that psychological turmoil is mostly caused by poverty especially when she lacks money to provide her family with necessary needs. She agreed to marry her elder daughter early in order to minimize the family members as well as to reduce the expenses.

"Poverty has affected us especially after the death of my husband more than 13 years ago. The lack of money as well as life's requirements such as food, rent, education fees, etc compelled me to sell all my jewels to such things. I did not sense poverty but when one of my kids goes sick," Fatima elaborated.



Causes of Poverty

The study showed that the poor in the surveyed areas unanimously agreed that there are four main reasons of poverty. They are represented by the lack of job opportunities that enable them to live, the lack of properties such as agricultural lands, price hikes and rarity of water sources as well as drought. The study also said that the majority of men gave similar importance to the weak productivity of agricultural land owned by poor people because they possess small lands. And these lands are exposed to disasters or to division. They do not have instruments of agricultural production. However, the majority of women argued that the big size of the family is one of the key reasons behind poverty. Illiteracy is another factor of poverty, they said.



Social insurance services

The study confirmed that all the poor do not hear about services of Social Fund for Development or about Project of Public Works except for some areas. In those areas some men said that they have heard that these two institutions have staged some projects. Some poor do not know how to access these two points. However, the Social Fund for Development has delivered services to those areas where poor people formed good impression for its services that reached to needy people. But in some areas men and women were not satisfied with the fund activity and performance due to several reasons of whom corruption and infringements. Needy people were not included or covered. Some poor resorted to pay sums of money to register their names or to re-register if files missing. The majority of poor people expressed their dissatisfaction over the undertaken measures concerning selecting the needy people. The influential figures registered their families and relatives. So, it was suggested to form committees of the same areas to identify who deserve subsidies. The majority shows that the sufferance of poor women is doubled due to the lack of providers as well as prolonged measure to get assistance of social insurance. Some people manipulate with their rights due to women's illiteracy.



Solutions raised by the poor

The poor raised several solutions helping them to get rid of poverty dilemma. Some of them said that providing job opportunities and loans to be invested in small enterprises whether in the rural areas or in the urban ones will help enable poor people to live with dignity. However, men raise some solutions such as repairing lands, building dams; water harvest projects to enable them make use of agricultural lands because they say that draught is the main reason of poverty. The majority of women emphasize the importance of providing water projects, schools, health services, roads and social insurance pensions so as they can get rid of poverty. This is attributed to the fact that women suffer from the lack of infrastructure services more than men. Women as well as their children need more care and attention in terms of health aspect. They bring water from remote areas. They stress the necessity of literacy while men did not mention this point. Illiteracy spreads among women more than men .The later can depend on their physical strength to sustain themselves.

However, Dr. Abdulla-Hakeem Al-Sharjabi, expert in the central unit of monitoring poverty in the ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, said that there are so many remedies included in the third five-year plan. The strategy of reducing poverty is included where local councils, at the level of districts and governorates, civil society organizations, private sector and donors are engaged to widely participate in alleviating poverty since the beginning of 2001 and 2002.

He also pointed out that the third five-year plan strives to achieve sustainable development throughout two key initiatives. The first one is to encourage economic growth in the entire economic sectors as well as to indulge growth energies in the promising sectors to achieve high and sustainable economic growth rate. The second thing is to minimize the brunt of poverty, considering it an economic and social phenomenon. The first parameters had been determined to tackle poverty crisis. It can be reduced by giving priority to projects, investments programs with huge manpower in the sectors as well as enterprises. Reviewing economic policies, laws financial and tax legislations are also required to enhance the economic growth and investment climate. The poor must be able to possess properties such as agricultural lands and productive enterprises. It can be done through granting them loans and supplying small enterprises as well as activating the mechanism of social insurance program to expand social protection in addition to deliver its services to the poor class.