Fiji poverty level at 45 percent

New statistics revealed at a conference held in Fiji finds that almost half of the island residents live in poverty. The government of Fiji hopes a new poverty reduction plan will drop that to only 15 percent by the year 2020.

From this AFP article that we found at WA Today, we find out more about the new statistics.

In a bid to improve the living conditions in Fiji, the local government dedicated $FJD1.5 billion ($A8.37 million) to poverty eradication programs between 2000 and 2008, the Fiji Times reported.

Despite this, poverty had increased since 2000, and now 360,000 people - 45 per cent of the population - are struggling, a Household and Income and Expenditure Survey, presented at the conference this week, revealed.

Director of International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, and the event's facilitator, Howard White, said poverty has risen more than 10 per cent in the country since 2007.

Fiji's children seeking work

Fiji's economy was already in bad shape before the global economic crisis. Fiji already had almost half of it's citizens in poverty, and lacked many social services to help them. Now the numbers of children who now have to work to support families has increased as dropout rates in the country are at 66 percent.

From this IPS article, reporter Shailendra Singh focuses on the children who have bleak futures.

According to Fiji’s 2002/2003 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, an estimated 43 percent of the total population of 850,000 lives in poverty of varying degrees.

Observers believe that the situation of tens of thousands of poor families like Chand’s has become even more desperate since the global economic crisis struck in 2007. Such families are now forced to prematurely pull their children out of school and send them to work.

Fiji’s compulsory education age is 15, which is also the minimum legal age for work. The law also prohibits Fiji children below 18 from working during school hours. But just as in many developing countries with high levels of poverty and low levels of social welfare, child labour laws are either poorly enforced or ignored as strict implementation could lead to the affected family going without food.

Biman Prasad, an economics professor at the University of the South Pacific, said that despite having more than 95 percent of children in school, there are more children living in poverty and more of them engaged in child labour than before.

"The main reason why we see more students not being able to complete primary education is financial difficulties," said Prasad. "While we have made some economic progress, we are still far from achieving levels of economic growth that can effectively lead to the reduction in poverty."

More ominous for Fiji is the finding by a non-government organisation, Save the Children Fiji, of increased child prostitution. A 2009 survey of 87 adults and 104 children below the age of 18 in seven sites around Fiji uncovered evidence of more young people engaging in prostitution as a result of the economic hardships brought on by the crisis.

The results of the survey of sex workers commissioned by the International Labour Organisation have yet to be released , but a spokesperson for the international children’s charity said that many of the children interviewed had fallen into prostitution in the last two years as a result of economic hardships.

FRIEND's in Fiji

The Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprise N Development or FRIEND is a NGO from Fiji that we were introduced this morning. FRIEND sells homemade jams pickles and crafts made by those in poverty to help them climb out of it.

From this profile in the Fiji Times, we learn more about organization that started in 2001.

The aim was to link the use of natural resources and skills to alleviate poverty.

The vision was to create a base where communities with no outreach opportunities could come together within different programs such as income generation, a saving scheme and educational workshops to create an environment of self reliant people.

Ms Kiran moved to Lautoka to start the organisation although this was challenging.

She said initially not many people were willing to come on board but now there are many strong partnerships. Three volunteers started working with her seven years ago, two of whom are still with FRIEND as full-time staff.

"Although we were complemented for being a breakthrough NGO, we've also been accused of being a social enterprise and business oriented but we have shown we're here to stay," Ms Kiran said. "It's not a simple task marrying the natural resources and skills it is also about community building."

Apart from food products, art and hand-crafted cards available in up market outlets around Fiji, FRIEND's products include recycled paper frames, paintings and stone paper weights.

More Indo-Fijians live below poverty line

from Fiji Live

This story introduces a book that gives statistics on the number of poor in Fiji. - Kale

More Indo Fijians are living below the poverty line (37 per cent) compared to Fijians (34 per cent).

This was one of the findings (incidence of poverty) highlighted in the book, the Quantitative Analysis of Poverty in Fiji written by University of the South Pacific (USP) academic, Professor Wadan Narsey

USP vice Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra launched the book today at the USP.

Speaking at the launching Dr Narsey highlighted that knowing the difference between “incidence of poverty” and “poverty gap” was vital for understanding Fiji’s lack of genuine political dialogue on poverty.

He said Indo-Fijian political parties would like to use this result while major Fijian political parties chose to ignore it.

“But what share of poverty alleviation resources should the two groups get, based on ‘need’ alone,” he asked.

“For example, what would each group get if taxpayers were to give each “poor” household just enough in cash or subsidised services to just bring them up the poverty line values?

“That depends not just how far the households are below the poverty line but also how many people there are below the poverty line.

“It depends very strongly on the number of people who are poor.”

Dr Narsey also noted in his book that even though a higher percentage of Indo-Fijians were poor (compared to Fijians) population wise, there were more poor Fijians than poor Indo-Fijians.

So the ethnic share of the ‘poverty gap’ using differentiated basic need poverty line (BNPL) values is as follows: Fijians 49 per cent and Indo Fijians 47 per cent.

According to Dr Narsey, “Indo-Fijian political parties ignore this result, while Fijian political parties use it.”

Dr Narsey said that an affirmative action policy on poverty alleviation based purely on need (not on ethnicity) would still give a higher proportion of the resources to indigenous Fijians.

This was noted in the 2007 census results that showed Fijians getting 57 per cent share (and share will keep on rising over time) while Indo Fijians got 37 per cent (share is falling with emigration and lower birth rate).

“Why are our political leaders blind to the poverty needs of different races,” he asked.

The professor also highlighted other points outlined in his book.

For instance, he pointed out that in Chapter 8 of the book with its profile of “the conditions of life”, of the poorest 30 per cent shows clearly that Rural Fijians are far more deprived than other groups in terms of housing, transport, electricity, water, toilets, cooking apparatus, television/videos and telecommunications.

“Everything except food,” Dr Narsey added.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Pacific Partnership for Development

from Island Business

Help-out, not hand-out!

Dr Satish Chand
Kevin Rudd, the new Australian Prime Minister, made an official tour of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands mid-last month. If the reception he received in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and its capital Port Moresby is any indication, than this was more than a welcome visit.

Just over 100 days in office, PM Rudd has signalled that the close neighbours and developments therein will get their fair share of attention.

The PM and Bob McMullan, his parliamentary secretary for development assistance, had announced in the lead-up to the Australian elections of their intentions to use the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to build consensus on future international cooperation.

For readers not familiar with the MDGs, suffice to note here that these were initiated at the UN Millennium Summit of September 2000 where an agreement was reached amongst the leaders attending on progress with respect to eight specific goals.

These include: eradicating extreme hunger; achieving universal primary education; improving gender equality; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS and malaria; ensuring environmental sustainability; and, developing a global partnership for achieving the above-listed.

These goals have specific targets; the first MDG, for example, stipulates that the proportion of people living on less than one US dollar per day (at 1990 prices) is to be halved from 1990 to 2015.

Rudd, through a declaration made in Port Moresby on the March 6, 2008, committed his government to the 8th MDG; that of a ‘Pacific Partnership for Development’. No sooner had he been back in Canberra, Dr Puka Temu, the deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, was speaking in the Australian Parliament endorsing the proposal.

All healthy signals for deepened development cooperation between the close neighbors for sure.

Getting endorsement on the ‘Port Moresby Declaration’ was little sweat; achieving results may be a different matter altogether, however. While some Pacific nations are well on the way to achieving their MDG-targets, the region as a whole will struggle to meet the 2015 deadline. This is simply because the more populous of Pacific nations, Melanesia in particular, has been lagging on several of the MDGs. The spread of HIV/AIDS in PNG, for example, is far from being contained when Target number 7 for the 6th MDG stipulates that its spread will he halted by 2015.

Fiji, one of the more developed of Pacific nations, is witnessing a resurgence in poverty-the proportion of the population living in poverty climbed from 25 percent in 1991 to 34 percent by 2002. Halving the 1991 figure by 2015 will require some concerted effort on the part of the Fijian authorities and donors.

More and better aid to the rescue

Australia, under the proposed ‘Partnerships for Development’, will “provide increased development assistance over time in a spirit of mutual responsibility embracing commitments by the Pacific islands nations to improve governance, to increase investment in economic infrastructure, and to achieve better outcomes in health and education”. Furthermore, targetted support to local employment-creation initiatives, including those via investments into improving economic infrastructure, has been promised. Support has also been promised to achieving universal primary education (MDG 2) and improving health outcomes (MDGs 4, 5, & 6).

Progress on the outcomes foreshadowed in the MDGs will require more funding as much as better use of the expended dollar. Some new ideas on how this may be done are long overdue. Why not pay, from a joint (partnered) fund, on progress made with respect to specific outcomes? As an example, I have proposed a Progress Education Fund (PEF). The PEF would pay $50 for each additional child that completes primary school and another $50 for each additional child that passes the nationally set external examination. ‘Additional’ is defined as the number in excess of the average for the previous five years. Participation could be totally voluntary with the proviso that payments for progress on specific outcomes would be made public—this to facilitate competition between suppliers and to create the demand for improved governance.

Improving growth as the plank to make progress on the MDGs

Progress on the MDGs requires resources. Aid, and the promised Australian support in particular, can fill this void but this on its own would not be enough. The biggest inroads into poverty reduction globally, those achieved by China and India in the recent past, have been made on the backs of sustained and rapid economic growth in per capita income—not aid!

While good donor support, and the willingness of Australia to come to the party, is helpful, genuine and sustained progress on the MDGs can only be rested on sustained growth of the economy.
Health and education services can be ‘provided’ by donors, but for how long? Why would people invest in education if doing so was of no value to them?

A preferred route to achieving better education and health outcomes would be via conditions that induced people to increase demand for these services. There could be no better incentives than improved employment prospects to induce parents to invest in the education of their children.

Similarly, sustained progress on health and gender outcomes can be better girded on greater income-earning opportunities for women. Some new thinking on this front is also warranted.

Yet, the record on economic growth has been less than enviable. Could the Pacific be at the cusp of change with respect to the above? Dr Temu, in the context of PNG, believes so.

Another Australian government report, the Pacific Economic Survey 2008, just released by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), claims that the regional economy is set to expand by 4.5 percent in 2008. While such optimism is welcome, the growth record will differ considerably across the individual economies—PNG, for example—is foreshadowed to power along on the back of its resource boom. But many others may not be so lucky. Making matters worse is the rapidly cooling global economy. The political turmoils in Timor Leste and Fiji could compound the economic problems further.

The survey does suggest areas for attention at the regional level. It argues for deeper ‘connectivity’ within the Pacific region as a whole. Mobile (and modern) telecommunications and transportation technologies provide the means for the above. The islands nations of the Pacific have been hampered by isolation from major markets—a handicap being ameliorated by the advent of modern technology making telecommunications, shipping, and aviation services cheaper by the day.

Pacific governments, however, have been slow to embrace these developments—held back, in many instances, by public sector monopolies loath to face competition.

Uptake of mobile phones, as pointed out in the survey, skyrocketed after prices fell in the face of competition in Samoa and Tonga. The one clear lesson from this experience is that the sooner we remove the shackles from competition in these sectors (and the economy more generally), the better for regional integration, consumer welfare and growth of these economies.

Poverty group meets

from the Fiji Times

THE National Council's Task Force on poverty, social justice and human rights has been given working papers to discuss.

"This is the committee dealing with poverty issues, social justice and human rights so those were the three issues that we were discussing with the paper that had been prepared," said chairman, Father Kevin Barr said.

"A lot of information has been prepared and a lot of information has been available on those three issues so the working group had all these papers made available to us."

"And we looked at what still needed to be done, we had a look at our tasks, also papers that still needed to be written but it was a very enthusiastic meeting because these are issues that concern people.

"That was our first meeting we're getting off the ground and deciding when we're going to meet again and all those of sorts of things."

Father Barr said discussions centred around various issues related to the issues the group had to work with but these were looked at in totality.

He said there was a fair amount of discussion on the idea of poverty to access particularly in rural areas and outer islands where access to good schools, good health care, good roads are lacking.

The group comes under National Task Team three or NTT3 which deals with social-cultural identity and nation-building.

There are three teams under the National Council for Building a Better Fiji and three working groups in each national task team.

Challenge for children

from The Fiji Times

Every year, some 9.7 million children die before their fifth birthday. Most of these children live in developing countries and die from a disease or a combination of diseases that could be easily prevented or treated antibiotics for pneumonia, for example, or a simple mix of salts and sugars for diarrhoea.

Malnutrition contributes to around half of these deaths.

Child mortality is closely linked to poverty.

Advances in infant and child survival are more slow in poor countries and to the poorest people in wealthier countries.

Improvements in public health services are key, including safe water and better sanitation.

Education, especially for girls and mothers, will also save children's lives. Raising incomes can help, but little will be achieved unless a greater effort is made to ensure that services reach those who need them most.

According to the Pacific Islands Regional Millennium Development Goals Report 2004, prepared by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, children's health status in the Pacific region has improved significantly from the 1960s, by establishing and/or improving health programmes, focusing on maternal and child health as well as social and economic developments.

Pacific regional achievements include:

1. Eradication of polio (the WHO Western Pacific Region was declared polio-free in 2000);

2. Indigenous measles transmission (outside of PNG) interrupted since 1998 (the most recent outbreak in Marshall Islands in 2003 but controlled through a vaccination campaign); and

3. High reported routine immunisation coverage (greater than 90%) for most Pacific countries. Currently, leading causes of death in children under five years of age include chest infections, diarrhoea, malaria (in PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu only), and newborn complications and injuries.

UNICEF is calling on Pacific leaders and communities to step up to the challenge of further reducing child mortality (MDG 4).

Former and current leaders around the Pacific have pledged towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs):

"The government's village focus will be meaningless without serious investment in the Millennium Development Goals. The government will endeavour to deliver in villages: clean piped running water and sanitation by 2010; an adequately supplied health post within an hour's walk of every Solomon Islander by 2010; and basic education to year 9 for all Solomon Island children ..." __ Major Policy Address by Prime Minister of Solomon Islands David Derek Sikua on January 18, at the launch of the CNURA Government Policy Document.

"While all of our Pacific Island countries have endorsed the MDGs, we are at different stages in implementing them. This underscores the importance of in-country efforts in formulating appropriate strategies that will raise the quality of life of the Pacific community," said Prime Minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Chair Pacific Islands Forum, Preface for Pacific Islands Regional MDG Report, 2004.

"It is now time to update the 2003 Priorities and Action Agenda and this new Priorities and Action Agenda (for Vanuatu 2006 - 2015) builds on the experience since the first was developed. It also builds in the Millennium Development Goals." __ Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Ham Lini Vanuaroroa, Foreward of Priorities and Action Agenda for Vanuatu 2006 - 2015, June 2006.

These are encouraging commitments. But there is still much to be done to reduce child mortality. UNICEF calls for combined action to reach the thousands of Pacific children still excluded from health interventions.

Reducing child mortality (MDG 4) requires the achievement of the health-related MDGs - reducing poverty and hunger (MDG 1), improving maternal health (MDG 5), combating HIV and AIDS, malaria and other major diseases (MDG 6) and improving water and sanitation (MDG 7). Reaching MDG 4 - which requires two-thirds reduction in the under-five mortality rate between 1990 and 2015 - is still possible, but the challenge is not easy.

It is clear that meeting all of these goals in the Pacific requires political will, community mobilization and investment in simple yet effective interventions such as water, sanitation, vaccination, education and accessible health services.

Poverty fight starts at home

from the Fiji Times

About 200 youths from all over Fiji converged on Lautoka for the Youth at Risk 2007 seminar.

Part of their program was to sign a petition for a "stand up against poverty" banner to eventually reach Africa.

This youth-driven project aims to achieve a Guinness world record by creating the globe's biggest banner for Make Poverty History

The joint banner will be a huge show of support for the world's poor and a call for world leaders to make poverty history, especially in African countries.

In every region of the world Oceania, Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America and the Middle East youth organisations are creating Banners Against Poverty.

These banners will be displayed over October 16-17 as part of Stand Up and Speak Out against poverty as well as for the Millennium Development Goals.

After October 17 national banners will be joined together to form a global Banner Against Poverty.

The banners creatively express people's demands for the world to take action to end extreme poverty and are an expression of the White Band, the global symbol for action against poverty.

In more than 30 countries massive banners are being created by students, trade unionists and citizens who want to artistically express their demands for an end to poverty.

Everyday 30,000 children die as a result of extreme poverty.

To tackle these problems:

- Richer countries should increase aid and ensure it is used effectively;

- trade must be fair;

- debts of poor countries must be reduced;

- governments in poor countries must be accountable, and

- climate change needs to be tackled.

In Pakistan more than 1.2-million people have signed a 10-kilometre banner that will be displayed in Bahawalpur.

In Ghana, students have joined individual banners to create a large banner that will be displayed at the Independence Square in Accra.

In Canada, local chapters of the Make Poverty History campaign have created a banner that will be displayed in front of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.

Fiji Council of Social Services executive director Hassan Khan said instead of following the world trend of signing banners, youths in the country could be more active by doing something practical to eradicate poverty where they lived.

He said they could make better use of their time by being involved in farming initiatives to provide local fruits and vegetables for the hotel industry in Fiji as there was not enough local supply.

I mean what is the relevance of this banner to Fiji.

"Even the civil society organisations like ours did not know about this banner signing initiative but even if we did we would have suggested something else be done like farming," he said.

Mr Khan said some people were just making money or having free meals out of researching and discussing issues related to poverty but were really doing nothing to help the poor.

"It would have been a better idea to have local initiatives rather than adopting overseas ones that meant nothing to the local communities," he said.

"There are grassroots program that could better utilise funding in their projects that would improve the lifestyle of people in Fiji."

Mr Khan said there were people travelling business class by plane to overseas conferences, sleeping in five-star hotels talking about poverty in Fiji and they simply had no idea about the problems, struggles and stories of the poor as well as what they were talking about.

"Some even publish books and make money yet not a single cent goes to the poor from the profit, these people are just hypocrites," he said.

Ministry of Youth director Josefa Matau, at the official opening of the Youth At Risk seminar 2007, told young people at the seminar they represented one of Fiji's biggest windows of opportunity for national growth, development and prosperity.

"And this isn't something that's being realised here in Fiji alone but all across the world as leaders begin to digest the findings of the World Bank report titled Development for the Next Generation."

Mr Matau said Fiji's provisional census results indicated that the youth population has risen by 6 per cent since 1996.

"Youth now make up 26 per cent of Fiji's population and can become a potentially creative, stronger and therefore a more productive workforce," he said.

Mr Matau said the three-day seminar was about exploring and highlighting issues that could affect young people and proposing solutions and plans to counter them.

This year the focus was on health including overcoming the challenges and adversity of HIV/AIDS particularly as many of those affected and at risk of being affected were youths.

He said the announcement of the 2008 Budget last week cemented the restructure of the Ministry's Youth Development programs under the National Youth Service Scheme.

Mr Matau said the ministry would target the development of annual school leavers and job seekers to improve their competency skills as well as their employability through a customer and a market oriented approach.

He told youths the future was really in their hands.

"You just need to take ownership of your own development and that of your peers.

"Stop looking to others to do things for you, come out of your shells, interact and network to tap into the window of opportunities that your peers as a group represent."

Today 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day.

Eight hundred million people go hungry every day.

Targets for the Millennium development goals include that all children should complete a full course of primary schooling as 133 million young people cannot read or write.

There is the aim to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education as two thirds of the world's illiterate people are females.

Another goal is to reduce mortality for children under five years as more than 11 million children under five die annually from preventable diseases.

Fiji too needs to wake up and work towards reducing poverty.

It must start from our leaders and trickle down to individual members of our families, where everyone realises the value of hard work.

Only then will we, as a nation, be able to improve our lifestyles for ourselves and that of our children's.

Everything begins at home.

Youths race for poverty

from The Fiji Times

A race was held in Lautoka to shed light on the issue of poverty.

The event, organised by the Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprise N Development, attracted attention.

Event coordinator Jone Nawaikula said with its theme, "Stand up and speak out against poverty", teams from various social backgrounds from schools, security services and businesshouses took time out to participate in the one-day event.


He said the organisation decided against holding a seminar or training-like format in the usual training rooms, opting for an outdoor fun activity but with a serious message.

He said it also gave participants the opportunity to work as a team.

"Humor, passion and courage were displayed here today as 100 young people hustle through Lautoka City," he said.

"Amidst cracking clues and participating in team challenges, the teams visited 16 check points around the city." Mr Nawaikula said at every check-point, teams were presented with information on poverty in Fiji and the social services available when they were in need. "Next year we hope to organise this event on a larger scale where the teams would have to go out to places like Vunato to see for themselves people who scavenge down at the dump and other places in and around Lautoka."

City launches campaign to eradicate poverty

from The Fiji Times

THE country's second city has placed itself in the driving seat of a campaign against poverty.

On Friday, Lautoka Mayor Councillor Rohit Kumar launched a month-long campaign hoping to encourage others to join the fight against poverty.

While unveiling a momentum to commemorate the launch of the "Global Call for Action against Poverty month," Mr Kumar said it was vital to play a part in the campaign because the situation in Fiji was worsening.

"I'm very hopeful this would encourage people to acknowledge poverty and take at least one action against poverty around them," he said.

"It could be very small and within the community or it could be talking to your leaders and ensuring things change for the many suffering around us."

Mr Kumar said the council was grateful to be part of the campaign as a means of contributing to Fiji's commitment of achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The MDGs signed by world leaders in 2000 stressed the importance of eradicating poverty.

The launch was done in conjunction with the non-government organisation, Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises N Development (FRIEND).

Mr Kumar also acknowledged the work of FRIEND, saying it has made a significant impact on people living in poverty around Lautoka and the country as a whole.

Mr Kumar said FRIEND was successfully engaging communities at different levels to create awareness along with meeting the economic needs of many.

FRIEND's campaign co-ordinator Jone Nawaikula said more than 250,000 people in Fiji were living below the poverty line.

Mr Nawaikula said of that figure, about 10 to 12 per cent or 80,000 people were living in squatters.

Any poverty budget cut regrettable: Activist

from The Fiji Times

The Interim Government's intention to cut funding for poverty alleviation is regrettable considering the growing number of poor people, social activist Father Kevin Barr says.

"I hope we can look forward in future budgets by this Interim Government to more being allocated for the poor," said Fr Barr, the director of the Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy (ECREA).

"It is very regrettable there is a diminishing of funds for poverty alleviation as there are so many poor people in the country."

Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry announced a cut was likely for poverty alleviation in the revised budget. Fr Barr said if past surveys of poverty were anything to go by, the situation could be worrying and more money was needed to counter that. A Housing Income and Expenditure survey carried out between 2002 and 2003 found 34.8 per cent of Fiji's population living in poverty. "This has obviously increased since then, contributed by the numbers of those who have been displaced by the expiry of land-leases," said Fr Barr.

The Ministry for Women, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation confirmed they had received dozens of new applications since January for State assistance from needy families.

Interim Minister Adi Laufitu Malani said they were still trying to clear a backlog of cases pending from three years ago. She said 50 new applications had been received since January.