Learning to live with poverty

So it may seem as the absolute number of poor has consistently grown – by current estimate an estimated over 1.4 billion women, men and children live in extreme poverty. Increasingly volatile food prices, the uncertain effects of climate change, and stifling of rural livelihoods by development juggernaut have impacted efforts to reduce poverty.

Despite the prescription to eradicate poverty having failed thus far, the Rural Poverty Report stays optimistic about eradicating rural poverty by the application of new opportunities that smallholder farmers can apply to boost their productivity. But, poverty eradication is inextricably intertwined with the need to feed the urban population, projected to touch 9 billion by 2050.

The report positions poverty within the market-driven demand-supply conundrum, seeking the need to strengthen the collective capabilities of rural people. While stressing the need for reforming the distorted global regime for trade in agricultural products, the report makes a demand on national stakeholders to provide an enabling environment for the smallholders.

Curiously, however, existing national policies may have removed poverty in many societies but that has been done by expanding the proportion and the absolute number of the destitute. Being a global agency that aims to ‘combat hunger and poverty in developing countries through low-interest loans’, IFAD views rural poverty predominantly from an asset perspective.

While acknowledging the multidimensional nature of poverty, the report misses out on the fact that poverty is a paradox of plural democracy that is wedded to global capitalism. Further, it does not take into account the glaring reality that as poverty gets increasingly associated with ethnic and cultural groups it loses political plot for its eradication. Consequently, it remains a game in `numbers’ that national governments and aid agencies play with growing immunity.

Published a decade after it had released its first poverty report, IFAD has covered significant new ground in analyzing the status of rural poverty across the world in the latest edition of its Rural Poverty Report. Although its conclusions are largely predictable, the report should nevertheless serve as a useful reference to researchers and planners.....Link

Rural Poverty Report 2011
IFAD, Rome, 319 pages, Price not quoted

Development, as it is not understood

Do those who are subjected to hegemony of dominant development perspectives produce a counter discourse? Doesn’t modernity marginalize the poor to the extent that they only lament their condition? Quite in contrast, even while overwhelmed by irony, distance and cynicism the marginalized produce a counter discourse that despite being context specific reflects resilience and adaptability, and is not only rooted in production and consumption but in regeneration too.

Works of immense scholarship, the twelve essays in the volume provide fresh insights on the role of culture in shaping the attitudes towards economic development of the marginalized community. The ongoing struggle of the marginalized is beyond the basic material entitlements, reflected in their collaborative resistance to stigmatized existence. That the powerless and voiceless need emancipation through aid is a misconstrued notion of development, it argues.

In the world that is reeling under the influence of climate change, ignoring the power of cyclic bio-regeneration and socio-ecological reproduction of the marginalized poor could indeed be catastrophic. Drawing cases from India, Europe and the Americas, Interrogating Development exposes multidimensionality of marginality as it relates to ‘development’. Without doubt, the notion of development has accentuated the destruction of community and its diverse cultures.

Delving deeper into the world of development from the perspectives of the marginalized, the authoritative essays by well-known authors like Frederique Marglin, Ashis Nandy, Gail Omvedt and Maren Bellwinkel-Schempp provide multi-layered insights into cultural dimension of human existence. In the long run, culture is what connects individuals to the social world in meaningful ways. Curiously, culture is what is at stake at the altar of development.

Without doubt, Interrogating Development will enrich the contemporary discourse on development at this time when the world is going through a dramatic phase of self-assertion by diverse communities reeling under the onslaught of development that is impinging on their life, lifestyle and livelihoods.....Link

Interrogating Development
by Frederique Apffel-Marglin, Sanjay Kumar & Arvind Mishra
Oxford University Press, Delhi
307 pages, US$ 29.95