This post was originally published in September 2019 under "Heaven on Earth" and was republished under "Eureka for the Common Good" in July 2019.
Last summer I quit Facebook cold turkey after getting fed up with online social media and developing an addiction to checking news feed constantly. I lived happily in the real world for about four months before I reactivated my account. I had to join a FB group to get up-to-date information and advice for my West African journey. I am once again active in social media. But I am a bit smarter this time. I would use social media as a platform to educate and to change mindsets in addition to sharing my travel photos and experiences.
Recently I did a series on Eradicating Poverty on Facebook. I am going to copy and paste the posts into this blog and hopefully create the first ever multi-media post on blogger. Here it goes:
Day 1 For the next week, I am going to post ways to eradicate poverty. This issue has been on my mind for a long time. I don't have solutions to the problem yet; however, by going through the discovery process, hopefully we will be inspired to do something about it.
Douglas Kruger is a South African author whom I recently discovered on YouTube. He is a very convincing speaker. I also like the topic he writes about - Getting out of Poverty. He tackles the issue at a micro level. By changing our mindset, we can escape poverty. Today I want to highlight two of his principles:
1) Raise your personal value
2) Repay trust with ''Excellence''
Dr. Rosling was an expert in presenting data, even meta-data. This 5-minute video clip does not tell us how to eradicate extreme poverty; however, it certainly makes the task not so daunting. Unfortunately, Dr. Rosling passed away in February 2017.
Back in 2015, the United Nations announced its goal of eradicating poverty worldwide by 2030. How could we eliminate poverty in fifteen years? The old model of foreign aid has been gradually replaced by sustainable development. I am sure you have heard about "sustainability. But what is it exactly? The following clip provides a very basic explanation of sustainable development.
Day 4 Eradicating Poverty - Defining Poverty Line
In October 2015, the World Bank updated the international poverty line, a global absolute minimum, to $1.90 a day.
To me, $1.90 USD a day makes no sense and is an arbitrary figure. I have visited countries which are in the Top 10 Countries with the Lowest GDP per capita. I expected food cost to be much lower so that most of the working class would be able to afford basic necessities. That is often not the case.
For example, in a medium-sized city in Ethiopia, a hotel clerk earns $120 USD a month. He could barely provide food for himself, his younger brother and grandmother living in his grandmother's house outside the city. He could not even afford bus fare and walked to work six days a week. He supplemented the household income by selling gadgets and working as a local guide in his spare time. His grandmother grew vegetables for their own consumption in front of her house. Meanwhile, the cheapest room in the hotel was $40 USD per night.
One day last summer in Vancouver while waiting for the bus, I had a conversation with a new Canadian who was also waiting for the bus. He works part-time as kitchen help in a restaurant and gets paid minimum wage. After payroll deductions and taxes, his monthly disposable income is roughly $750 USD a month. He pays $400 USD for a room in a shared house. His biggest and only entertainment is talking to his wife and children on Skype. He scrambles to send $100 USD to his family in El Salvador every month.
In a rural setting, basic survival is more about having clean drinking water and proper shelter. Subsistence farming would provide food for the villages. $1.90 might just be enough to live by...
Day 5 - A Case study: Zero Poverty 2020
A plan to eradicate poverty in the municipality of Concepcion, Iloilo in the Philippines was launched in August 1999. The following link is a short summary of the results of the initiative. The plan was executed in a top-down approach with emphasis on population control and changing mindsets.
Today, Concepcion, Iloilo is a tourist attraction with many resorts. Its residents enjoy a much higher standard of life though a second coal-fired power generation plant is in the works. Is it urban development that has gone wrong? You be the judge. I hope to visit the place in my upcoming journey and see for myself.
https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/eradicating-poverty-completely-2020?fbclid=IwAR2xvkSgyjju8Rxr3pKgcplvhi4h9WMF3udc22HFzKnDjDDKHYpoh153cUc
Day 6 - Alleviating Poverty Through Entrepreneurship
After the basic needs (such as food and shelter) are met, we should consider ways of improving the local economy to create and maintain sustainable development. Do not underestimate the power of street vendors. I am going to illustrate my point with a couple of examples.
While trying to find some lotion for my bedbug bites in Gabu, Guinea-Bissau, I had a conversation with a store owner who sells plastic household items imported mainly from China. He told me that a big part of his business comes from his "mobile sellers". These people would visit nearby villages with his merchandise regularly. Even though the profit margin is not that great, these sellers do make a good living. At the same time, they are also providing an invaluable service to the villagers because the paths in between are not particularly easy to travel in, and people often have to walk 20 kms or more return trip to get a few items from town.
When I was visiting Goree Island in Senegal, I noticed that souvenir shops and art galleries are everywhere on the island. They were mostly empty and the storekeepers would be aggressively soliciting business on the streets. There were only two fruit carts in the town square. They were both run by older ladies. They had so much business that they did not have to sell for more than four or five hours a day. These ladies make enough money to send their grandchildren to school.
I always "preach" to the vendors in developing countries. Sell what people need and try to sell something different from time to time. Now, I ask the customers to buy local, and from small vendors. When traveling, I always eat local food and buy from street vendors.
Day 7 Eradicating Poverty - Some final words.
Poverty is a worldwide issue. There are some exceptions but not many. As with any other mega issues, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Often the rectification process would have to be tweaked to make the results jibe with the ever-changing environment.
In the more developed countries where there is a high level of infrastructure, socio-economic and political stability and automation, wealth distribution is transforming from a bell-shaped curve to a bipolar distribution. The size of the middle class is shrinking rapidly. As the median age of the general population in developed countries increases, the need to replenish the work force also increases. Human ingenuity to re-invent ways of doing things and maintaining sustainable development might be the key to eradicating urban poverty. The top-down approach would be more suitable.
In the developing countries where there is less infrastructure, more political instability and an agriculture-based economy, improving the standard of basic needs such as food supply and living conditions is paramount. In statistical terms, we would try to shift the bell curve to the right. The median age of the population is much lower than that of the developed countries. Therefore, education is the key to developing sustainable development. The bottom-up approach would be more suitable and escaping from poverty happens at the micro level.
As I mentioned on Day 1, I don't have a particular set of solutions to eradicate poverty. I welcome your comments and opinions.
