The Redefinition of Poverty

Poverty Line

The World Bank has just reset the poverty line at $1.90 per day. The increase from the previous $1 has been necessitated by the rise in the cost of living. It is true I am a layman and my understanding of these matters is wanting. However, I know that it is hard to peg poverty, or deviation thereof, to a number. I believe there are many factors at play in poverty that many of the experts from the west (I can’t figure out the west of what), obviously can’t understand.

Monetary Value

It is true that not everything that is important in life has a monetary value. It is also true that some of the most valuable things in life are free. Health, peace, happiness, and love, to name just but a few are freely available to both the rich and poor. The acquisition of these things therefore does not depend on how many dollars one can raise in a day.

Who’s Reality Counts?

I have seen many people in this country who get the bulk of their food directly from their land through subsistence farming. They never handle a lot of money and they are well below the poverty line according to the World Bank. I would however hesitate to call them poor. I can consider them richer than some of the richest people in the world. They are completely debt free. They eat a healthy diet. They get proper exercise for free as they till their land. They live and work with their family members and are part of a closely knit society whose children are taught the unadulterated values of their community passed down over the generations.

Bottled mineral water now costs more than petrol. This is the same water these people have been taking for eons. They have been taking it straight from the source. This is strange because for any water to be licensed as mineral water, it has to be bottled at the source. Who’s richer now?

I once met a development worker and university professor from the UK who is deeply involved in poverty eradication. He is the one I heard asking some people he was training, “Who’s reality counts?” He was asking this in reference to donor organisations and the relationship they have with their beneficiaries in developing countries. From his study, it came out that a lot of this aid is ineffective because it is given on the premise of the wrong reality; that of the giver and not of the recipient. The professor is the one who came up with this “inverted” globe and asked, “Why not?”

Needs vs. Wants vs. Luxuries

If you ask me, I think Africa was doing okay before the Europeans ‘scrambled’ for it and divided it amongst themselves. There were functioning systems of governance and economics. There was sufficient technology and knowledge in all areas of human life. People could grow food and make their own forms of clothing. The Europeans changed our definition of needs and wants. They also added the element of luxury which does not appear to have been an important aspect of life here.

Electricity and piped water have almost become a matter of life and death. The same applies to sewerage systems. Whereas all the food we ate was both nutritious and delicious, the western concept is one where food is divided into healthy food and junk food. Healthy food is that which everyone knows is good for the body but nobody wants to eat while junk food is that which is known to contain certain death but is taken as a treat when people are in a celebratory mood.

Having What You Want vs. Wanting What You Have

It is a popular modern philosophy that the pursuit of happiness is better than the attainment of happiness itself. We are taught never to be content with what we have and we therefore have to be on the constant quest for more. We are engaged in fierce competition with each other as individuals and as groups. The poverty index is just one of the many indexes that we have to try and live up to. Our lives have been reduced to numbers that we have to try and attain. Probably for the first time in history, human beings think they can turn infinity into an actual achievable number. Maybe mathematicians will eventually attach a value to ∞. Let’s wait and see.

P.S. "Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the 'gotta have it' scale" - Zig Ziglar.