There are those who are, but have been forgotten
There are those who can, but have been excluded
There are those who know, but have been ignored
There are those who are, but have been forgotten
It is no secret; the world that we live in is plagued with a number of social, economic and political challenges. Poverty, it seems, has always been one of them. The term poverty was once a word that was given as it was taken, with little regard of the depths of this condition. For several decades it was equated to or associated with a lack of income and wealth creation opportunities for people. Over recent years, however, significant advances in the conceptualization of this condition coupled with increasing documentation of the experiences of people living in poverty have contributed to a more multi-dimensional perspective and understanding of poverty.
Although it takes considerably longer than a day to thoroughly unpack, discuss and debate the complexities of this social-ill, the Overseas Development Institute (www.odi.org.uk) was able to facilitate a dialogue on the issue of chronic poverty through hosting a workshop on Understanding and addressing Spatial Poverty Traps on the 29th of March 2007, in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
The workshop included a panel of over thirty local and international delegates who represented academic research institutions; civil society organisations; donor organisations and southern governments. DEVELOPMENT WORKS representatives were among the delegates who came together for a day to consolidate lessons from recent analytical work on the drivers of poverty and chronic poverty in spatial poverty traps’ and to review experience from government and civil society policy experiments in such areas.
Defining Spatial Poverty Traps
In order to understand spatial poverty traps, one must first have an understanding of chronic poverty. People living in chronic poverty are those who remain poor for much of their lives, many of whom will pass their poverty on to their children, and all too often die from easily preventable deaths. Additionally, people in chronic poverty are those who have benefited least from economic growth and development.
Spatial poverty traps are defined as geographically remote areas or regions that may have low potential’, or may be marginal areas with poor agricultural or industrial potential; they may be less favored’ politically or they may be weakly integrated’ into the nation state and into markets.
|
Table 1: Characteristics of Spatial Poverty Traps
|
|
Remote
|
Areas that are far from the centers of economic and political activity. Far is calculated in terms of not only distance, but also time taken to get there.
|
|
Low potential
|
Areas that have low agricultural or natural resources, often crudely equated with drylands
|
|
Less favored
|
Politically disadvantaged areas
|
|
Weakly integrated
|
Areas that are not well-connected, both physically and in terms of communication and markets
|
Source: Chronic Poverty Report 2004-2005
From the above table, it is clear that exclusion is an underlying theme in the understanding of spatial poverty traps. People are not only excluded from opportunities that may contribute to the enhancement of various aspects of their lives, they are actively ignored and less favored. This social exclusion is strongly linked to both state and market failures. Sources of exclusion include: physical isolation, ethnicity and religious discrimination, bureaucratic barriers, (tarmac) road bias, corruption, intimidation and physical violence, and the nature of the local political elite.
Addressing the traps
Addressing spatial poverty traps can only be effective when those who are concerned with implementing policies and agendas for poverty reduction begin with acknowledging and understanding the existence of this type of poverty. Despite evidence of economic growth in most regions around the world, there remains strong evidence of more and more people living in conditions of poverty, and not rising out of them. Development interventions of the past have thus not quite succeeded in reducing poverty for the millions of people who experience the realities of social exclusion on a daily basis. Increasing significance has thus been placed on conducting relevant research in order to begin to better design and develop interventions which can effectively address spatial poverty traps.
In an effort to better understand spatial poverty and the manner in which different sectors address the challenge, a range of papers addressing critical factors to consider were presented at the Stellenbosch workshop. Important factors that arose through presentations included the consideration of the dynamics of spatial poverty traps beginning with breaking away from homogenizing those who experience this type of poverty. Ibraimo, for example, notes that when analyzing poverty, it becomes clear that a population cannot be taken as a homogenous group. Rather, individuals and their geographical location have different physical and human endowments, and are differently exposed to the prevailing social and economic environment and respond differently to the same environment. Hence, the probability that poverty manifests itself differently among different groups of the population and across regions is high. An appreciation of this thus leads one to carefully begin analyzing the context that one is operating in, in order to grasp as fully as possible, the factors that contribute to spatial poverty traps.
Exclusion is, among other things, a result of lack of access to important resources. People may remain outside of areas from which they can gain access to any opportunities, because they are physically separated from these areas in terms of proximity. Additionally, the means by which they can begin travel to these areas are few and far between. Although this challenge applies to all people living in excluded areas, it is also important to factor in the consideration of the different experiences that men and women undergo. Porter, for example, highlights that women and girl children are particularly likely to suffer poor access to health and education services because of constraints on their mobility, with important implications not only in terms of immediate health and educational outcomes, but also subsequent livelihood opportunities.
Additionally, an exploration of the dynamics of the opportunities available to individuals within households are important in better understanding the context in which one is working. Burke et al. show how certain initial conditions, household decisions and other factors that may change over time affect poverty. They add that important implications for the design of strategies, policies and instruments for reducing poverty and supporting (agricultural) growth in rural areas in Africa are:
1. That the majority of households are static in terms of wealth may suggest that there are relatively few profitable growth opportunities in rural Kenya that are accessible to poor households.
2. Where asset holdings define a household’s capability to pursue different livelihood activities that generate income.
Who will dig out the traps?
Although a number of factors were raised at the workshop, key questions remained with regard to the drivers of development. Government departments, donor agencies and community based organizations all have an important role to play in the development of regions in which spatial poverty traps exist. It is important, however, that the work of these drivers of development is not made redundant through duplication and a lack of effective communication with other stakeholders. The obvious solution to avoiding this would be that of working with those who are directly affected by the various social, economic, and political conditions that negatively affect their livelihoods and lead to conditions of poverty. Secondly, emphasis needs to be placed on creating open lines of communication between the role players (both service providers and the people with and for whom one is working).
The way forward: When you know better, you do better
Understanding spatial poverty traps in relation to broader poverty (particularly chronic poverty) allows significant stakeholders to more effectively address the issues that pertain to this form of poverty. Rather than questioning who the drivers of development are, perhaps the more pertinent question to pose is that of whether spatial poverty traps have been fully and exhaustively understood in the particular context. Until this is done, these spatial poverty traps are forms of poverty that will remain with us. Development interventions should look towards contributing to acknowledging those who are, paying attention to those who know, and providing opportunity to those who can.
Researched by Neema Ndunguru
