CARIBBEAN-POPULATION: Regional Governments Attack Poverty

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Wesley Gibbings

PORT OF SPAIN, Oct 21 1996 (IPS) - Caribbean governments are, for the first time, coming together to see if they can come up with some ideas to at least minimise the levels of poverty plaguing the countries in the region.

And this decision could not have come sooner, say observers. With some 38 percent on average of the English-speaking Caribbean population of just under six million living below the poverty line, the urgency of the situation cannot be overemphasised.

In French-speaking Haiti, regarded as the poorest country in the hemisphere, the figure climbs to 65 percent.

Regional leaders are expected to meet in the twin-island state of Trinidad and Tobago later this month to look at ways to tackle the problem. The regional meeting is in-keeping with a mandate from the 1995 Social Development Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark which called on world governments to put poverty eradication plans in action by the end of this year.

The meeting, being hosted by the subregional office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), will examine the situation prevailing in each country and develop a coherent Plan of Action to tackle the problem.

“This is the first time that we are having a Caribbean-wide discussion on poverty at such a high political level,” says ECLAC deputy director, Barbara Boland.

“We feel that the meeting will certainly offer the opportunity for ministers to accord social issues the highest national priority through a process of sensitisation to issues of human and social development.

“One of the key outputs we are hoping will come out is that it will allow governments to articulate in a fairly coherent fashion some form of directional plan of action so that they can then take from that whatever will be required to develop their own action plans,” she adds.

ECLAC social affairs officer Asha Kambon says the meeting will also offer an opportunity for the region to take stock of what is already happening in the various territories. “From the research that we’ve been doing at ECLAC it’s quite evident that quite a lot of activities are taking place at government level, at the non- government level and even the private sector is also involved in action against poverty,” she says.

Kambon says it is however evident that these diverse actions are not being properly coordinated and that the regional information base is still too weak “to allow governments to plan their strategies and to see effective outputs from what they are doing.”

She also observed that “too much of what is taking place, now, falls into the category of relief and mitigation and not enough falls into the category of human development.” This, Kambon says is among the principal issues ministers will explore throughout the meeting, resulting in the end in plans of action that will lead to truly sustainable development.

Social affairs officer Sonia Cuales, who has been involved in post- Copenhagen consultations throughout the Caribbean region says she believes the objectives of the World Summit mandate are still “very much on the agenda” but that there are several difficulties.

“You cannot accuse any government of doing nothing,” Cuales says, “but what governments and the public now realise is that a lot of these projects have depended on external funding and such funding from external agencies is drying out.”

Cuales is also in favour of more programmes that offer solutions to poverty over the long term. “People can get by,” Cuales says, “but the way the programmes are set up is not meant to bring these people to a stage where they have new hopes that one day they will no longer be poor.”

A World Bank study of the incidence of poverty in the Caribbean concluded that several complex, interrelated factors have contributed to the problem. These include low economic growth, macroeconomic instability, deficiencies in the labour market resulting in limited job growth, low productivity and low wages in the informal sector, and a decline in the quality of social services.

Observers say the need to develop a systematic, integrated assault on poverty remains a matter of unfinished business in the region.

The 1996 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggests that although economic growth expands the material base for the fulfillment of human needs, the extent to which these needs are met depends on the allocation of resources among people and uses and the distribution of opportunities, particularly with respect to job opportunities.

ECLAC, in collaboration with other regional and international agencies, has been examining the issue closely. It has proposed an integrated approach to development involving a mix of economic policies favouring growth and social equity and a focus on social policy which also targets greater productivity and efficiency.

The central elements of the ECLAC approach include technical progress, productive employment at fair wages, investment in human resources and consensus building. The underlying argument is that the objectives of growth and equity must be advanced simultaneously.

The Caribbean ministerial meeting takes place from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 and will be attended by more than 120 persons from 23 Caribbean countries and a host of national, regional and international organisations.

The meeting will review special issues related to poverty, examine strategies for poverty eradication and identify priority actions to deal with the problem.

Several United Nations organisations are expected to make presentations at the meeting.