Summary
The treatise reviews a couple of things that could be
revamped to fight against extreme poverty in developing countries. These are
essentially transparency discussed under religion and agriculture. Examined are
the challenges and implementation of probable solutions to overcome entrenched interminable poverty
that is attributed to lack of education, managerial skills and appalling
governance of the day.
Introduction
If you were to ask a bunch of students today what they
thought were necessary to stamp out extreme poverty in the world they would
enumerate a plethora of lofty tasks that must be thoroughly executed. The vista
of commendable solutions that may be as variegated as from one person to
another and as from one economy to the next could fill the Encyclopedia Britannica: We have fifty of them in our budding
arsenal. For the sake of our exercise at this juncture, we will only examine a couple.
Some of the prescribed remedies would be described as enchanting,
frightening, indigestible, unfathomable or untouchable. However they may be, some would have to be prescribed as they might be applicable in some idiosyncratic cases. So we are trading on diffused
generalities as myriad colors of materials that could clad our prognostications.
The truth before we proceed into this subject matter is that it is impossible to have an Utopian situation where poverty could be wiped out from our world. However, we could attempt to have a partial elimination
of poverty. Why? It is because under normal circumstances we cannot expand
economically without inequality in our society. Let us come home to
fundamentals. The very survival of any biosphere or ecosystem is pivoted on its
diversity. That diversity does not exclude humankind owing to natural or
self-implicated or insensitive imposition of poverty on the have-nots by the
haves often deliberately or inadvertently.
Background:
Transparency and corruption
The world is still a muddled planet where any conjured
solution to our economic needs still garner wide audiences. If all persons
would be employed excepting the mentally and physically impaired, pills suggested
to cure ailing economies could be hawkish or bilious and may never be
accepted by all and sundry. Yet those suggested would not suffice to purge
pecuniary elimination by any stipulated period. It is because our students earlier mentioned or we would forget one vibrant factor seasoned economists tending to ignore, indispensable
to all extant creatures as air. What is this?
That last and not the least factor many would not ponder
upon is religion or ethics. I will
call this ‘transparency’ so as not
to tread on the toes of those who believe their life ends when they die on earth
and to the modern generation that believe in what they see and enjoy now and
not in prognostications. Many would deliberately not mention religion for man by
nature is inclined to be crooked, incorrigible and cannot be totally exonerated.
Whatever their inclinations this must be pointed out. Hence many envisage
transparency or religions as obfuscating and prohibited territories.
They advance
that even to the untutored eyes, religious beliefs are responsible for
stupendous havoc, incessant internecine raging wars plaguing mankind as Islamic
fundamentalists instilling pusillanimity in our hearts in North America, Europe, Africa and even in Australia. In others people who had lived as peas in one pod are
torn apart in broad day light, as in Nigeria, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia,
Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan and many more.
If their argument is that
religions bring wars, they could be right. But they could be right to be
wrong when the wrong beliefs or philosophies are pursued as not all religions or philosophies are
warmongering. Others will advance that those that are apparently pacific today were belligerent in the past and could still change for the worst in due course. However they got to know that capitalism, socialism and communism that influence some of our economies also brought and still incubate wars. Many do not sleep peacefully with the stoic stance
of communist regimes in Northern Korea, remnants in Russ, and the regime in
Havana at their backyards. Nonetheless, the fact remains that if there is no transparency/religion[love of God and one’s neighbor as oneself] in our societies, as some atheists would like to have, nothing would be done effectively
particularly where laws and order are brazenly disdained.
The author once met a group of students at Paris who
submitted that laws were meant to be broken, with a rider, ‘that provided the
defaulter was not apprehended.’ Not only that, another person stated that in
some Muslim communities one was allowed to steal provided one was not caught red-handed. Those were decadence.
Minus good behavior or fear of God, our set goals to eliminate
poverty by whatever system we adopt would be futile. With no transparency or fear of God/religion or seasoned paragons, boldfaced
corruption would step in. A well known African philosopher, Dr. Bernard
Fonlon (1972) in his booklet As I see It, propounded that without religion, “teachers would poison the minds of scholars entrusted in
their care.” And I would expound: that bankers would become rogues, and law
enforcement officers would become highway men in uniform. It is not a matter of
will but it is already eating away some nation states as gangrenes. We would
add that instead of governments being bipartisan they would become money
plundering bazaars peopled by embezzlers who would cater only for those who
voted them into office. Cast your eyes in the poorest of the poor countries around the globe and you will see this scenario.
In the absence of morality, traders would charge for
commodities way above their face values exorbitant prices. Others would hoard
to create artificial scarcity so as to command higher prices for basic commodities. Many economies would revert
to bygone days of starvation, slavery, slave trade and without economic rights. There
would be no accountability and scenarios of dog-eat-dog would prevail. That
is a modicum of a world deprived of morality we often see in some autocratic
regimes. The question that would be posed is which religion or philosophy would
be chosen as ideal now that Islam does not see eyeball to eyeball with
Christianity and others and its extreme hardliners as the Islamic State of Iraq and
al-Sham (ISIS) prefers to settle scores by intimidation and duels?
Agriculture
Space does not permit us to examine all the outlined
problems that are bases for hefty theses. Nonetheless, we will proceed with the
example of agriculture in Western Africa
[that is still a long way from being technologically intensive and enhanced,]
as it is likened to a skeleton upon which is moored the pendulous of most
vibrant economies. It should be underlined that without a good agricultural base, we cannot make economic progress
with whatever meager factors of economic production at our disposal.
If there
are enough eateries to go round, the rest of the spirited factors of production would fall
into line. Successful economies as the USA, France, Canada, Italy, UK, Australia,
Italy, South Korea, Japan, South Africa and Germany that many developing economies
emulate, are living testimonies. They evolved from solid agricultural bases. If
you cordon off the Republic of USA, it would survive as Rhodesia now called
Zimbabwe did during the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the
British Government by Prime Minister Ian Smith in 1965. Why? It was because it
was self-sufficient in food production, packaging, distribution and storage. Do
this with a good number of developing states and there would be outcries and
starvation of Ethiopia (1983-85) and Biafra Republic (1967-1972) of yesteryear would be a
child’s play. Without wars, most African states south of the Sahara are
malnourished. It is because their food production bases are weak.
Adopt and adapt
Successful agricultural programs would be pivots of
industrialization, job creation. The aphorism that an army marches on its
stomach holds in this case. Without food workers would not work hard; they
would be prone to diseases triggered by malnutrition and the general productivity in their economy would plummet. Food production could be ameliorated by adopting and adapting
the right methods of agriculture that are commensurate with climatic factors,
resources, appropriate management and the rate of mechanization of the economy.
By climatic factors, we mean that farmers have to take care not to disrupt
natural ecosystems conversant with the local climate, by the use of chemicals not well tested in the locales that may lead to the extermination of fauna,
deforestation, de-savannahsation, creation of dams and dykes likely to incubate
vectors of diseases as snails for schistosomiasis, mosquitoes leading to
malaria, river blindness and dengue fevers.
 |
| These farmers who belong to a cooperative were glad to show the author their vegetable field (2012). They explained that productivity could have been increased if their plowing was mechanized and if they had good storage and transshipment facilities. |
For the use of appropriate technologies to be ensured,
considerations unique to locales, as climatic conditions had to be scrutinized
if famine of the type in the Sahel region of Western Africa and the Horn of
Africa in the past are to be avoided. Measures must be taken not to exacerbate
excessive exploitation of resources, indiscriminate usage without due respect
for the ecosystem as in Sri Lanka that suffers constantly from landslides, drought, future generations, developed traditional
methods of land use, taboos arrived at after experimentation existing since
time immemorial.
Armchair farmers
On anathemas, innovation technologies have to reflect on
local practices. In the former British Cameroons to the east of Nigeria, it was
found out that men presented themselves in some communities as farmers whereas
when it came to pragmatism, it was women who were the real farmers. Why was
this so? Tradition forbade contact of women in some tribes by aliens. If agronomists
came to impart agricultural innovation technologies from the capital city of
Buea or from the UK men attended the training sessions. However when it came to practical works,
women were the ones set upon field drudgeries. In consequence, poor farming
practices were not ameliorated and time and efforts expended in inculcating beneficial innovations were wasted. In
some cases the government officials had exerted force to change certain
attitudes of men to allow women to attend government or NGOs sponsored refresher
or training courses. One of these was mechanization.
Mechanization of agriculture was not the. sine qua non. Where food stuffs were
produced in abundance, there was need for proper harvesting, preparation,
processing, storage and distribution employing opportune technologies. Where
they are known the costs are prohibitive or would-be users are not taught how
to operate them. Purchasing of equipment could be by agricultural cooperatives gradually initiated so as to have economies of scale. Furthermore, when new
methods are presented, there is need for incentives and backups.
In the 1970s Americans Peace Corps volunteers taught many West
Africans inland fisheries. Tilapias introduced provided badly needed
proteins for famished communities in the hinterland without fridges or waters where
fresh fish could be caught. Their teachings were enthusiastically welcome but barely
five years after their departure village fish ponds were overgrown and infested
with dangerous serpents. Others introduced the use of tractors but locals could
not afford spare parts and they became derelict. Many did not know that the engine oil had
to be changed and many more and before long tractor engines knocked and were
left derelict in the wilderness. A similar case was observed in Senegal.
Therefore were needed expensive innovations sustained?
The farmers reverted to their traditional methods. In
another sad scenario observed in British Cameroons/ now part of Cameroun republic some farmers were trained for animal
traction, plowing. When the experts were away, the trained animals were
slaughtered for food. Another love of
labor lost. Men reverted to primitive plowing with crude hoes, sticks, assegais
and productivity was stagnant or abysmally low. Consequently before launching
any programs, scientific studies must be carried out and sustainability
ascertained if poverty is to be eliminated at the envisaged time.
Drawbacks were not associated with newcomers, national agronomists
only. Other field scientists tended to look for urban armchair jobs instead of bucolic services where their skills
were/are badly required. In one third world state in Western Africa there are more
cattle heads than in Holland whereas children there grow up to adulthood without
tasting nutritious animal milk. Peak Milk from Holland that dominates
the local markets cannot be afforded by many.
Impediments:
Transport and Storage
Where innovation technologies were accepted grudgingly, it
was found out that there were no
road-to-market roads. Where they were, they were impassible during the
rainy season where there was abundance of harvest. Excesses could not be stored but were putrid in the farms or in
primitive storage facilities where farmers fought with rodents, weevils and
other pests for the harvest. You would not imagine it that when cabbages and
potatoes were in high demand in coastal cities in West Africa, and many more
the demand could only be met by importation
vegetables from Europe. The irony was that children used cabbages and
potatoes in rural areas as playing-balls whereas others were starving in urban
areas as they could not afford exorbitant ones imported from Europe.
 |
| Corn storage at an experimental farm. Silos could be ideal but the few that were introduced are abandoned. Peasant farmers prefer storing their corn the traditional way where they are destroyed by mice and weevils. Often they do not have enough seeds for planting the next season. |
So it is crucial not only to provide all-weather roads
linking production areas with the markets but to ensure that adequate trucking were used to evacuate
produce to the market. Cattle are still driven for thousands of miles on foot from
rural areas to coastal settlements where there are abattoirs. By the time these
animals reach their destinations they are/were wizened skeletons. Solution is in special
trucking or use of trains to convey cattle to abattoirs for slaughter instead of taking months trekking. Alternatively
abattoirs could be set up in animal husbandry zones and refrigerated trucks
could ferry carcasses to the coastal markets.
Local shepherds had to be taught that modern transshipment is economical instead
of driving cattle for months on dirt routes where they fought for spaces on
those routes with motorized vehicles and pedestrians to the markets. Even
when modern implements are brought in to help farmers, they cannot afford them
for they are expensive. Often urban storage facilities are vacant as electricity supply is putatively intermittent.
Humped and heavily
hoofed cattle being driven from the Savannah to the coastal markets in West
Africa. It will take one and a half to two months to reach their journey’s end of
no-return, abattoirs in the coastal region. They will be wiry, skinny by the
time they reach. There are no end to these miserable journeys for the Fulani
shepherds and their interminable drives in site. A modern railway or specially
constructed articulated trailers as those in Australia could alleviate their
misery. Totally no human and animal rights! This pliable dirt roads had to be shared
with battered vehicles and pedestrians.
How do they buy silos as found in the dust bowls of USA, the
prairies of Canada, the Champagne Region of France, the velds of South Africa and the downs of Australia where there are similar conditions? The few silos
introduced in some West Africans countries were abandoned and one often found
them dismantled or derelict.
Managerial skills
Apart from managerial
skills, they lack capital. They do
not have collateral securities to have loans from banks. It is just of
recent that Africans have started valuing lands and this idea is still to be
instilled into Africans. To talk of land as capital to an African before the
white came was inconceivable. Any land could be used and abandoned. The value
of the land was its usufruct and not the land per se. Therefore what do they have to present to the
bank managers as collateral securities if they want to obtain loans? The modern
bank managers are hawkish and would not give anyone loans when they were not
sure of consistent returns or collateral. Often the bankers put before farmers higher interests. Should they weaver, they asked for bribe or a share of the clients' business.
Africans have been used to their mini credit unions [Credit Unions] or Rotating Saving and Credit Associations (ROSCA) and as from the 1960s the Credit Union but these cannot raise enough cash for peasant farmers
to buy a modern combine harvester or a tractor that is imperative. A modern
farmer in Switzerland is able to feed 100 hundred farmers in Africa that is
almost five hundred persons whereas one peasant farmer in Africa cannot feed
himself not to talk of his immediate or extended family. Why? He needs credit
and modern methods of agriculture, education, managerial skills, health,
adequate irrigation techniques, good seeds, storage facilities, and processing
equipment, and as we saw above all-season farm-to-market roads to evacuate his
produce to consumers. He needs refrigerating trucks and good markets so that
nothing is wasted. Also, with the right tools he could export only finished
produce that would ascertain further creation of jobs and stamp out child labor
that is endemic. How could these be done? He is unable to get a loan from
bigger banks, so he may need sympathetic credit unions and or team up with others to obtain a loan to purchase equipment
provided there is cooperation. Although he may have access to loans, it is no guarantee
that he would succeed. Why? He had not got managerial skills adumbrated above.
Inequality in the provision of amenities
Often one saw discrepancies in road infrastructure. One region would have well surfaced roads and
others would have none or where they are, they are only usable during the dry
season. Those that are surfaced with tar are often neglected. There is a
ridiculous case in one state in West Africa where it used to take two hours to
ply from town A to B presently takes 8 hours. This is
being acerbated by rumors of Boko Haram and other factions in that state that
do not cooperate with the present regime with appalling governance. In other cases, a journey of ten kilometers by battered bush taxis takes forty
minutes because passengers are constantly removed from automobiles by the hawkish
state armed forces to verify if they were terrorists or enemies of the state. In
consequent, certain produce would not be produced for the farmers would not
guarantee their transshipment to the consumers.
The government of the day ensures that it provides amenities
to only those people or part of the country that supported it during a
presidential election. This applies to the provision of vital amenities,
infrastructures that grease the economy. That is totally wrong. There got to be
balanced portfolio of investment and job creations to benefit all and sundry. This
leads us to good governance we
referred to above that must be bipartisan.
Governance
All being equal, without good governance nothing would work
in the country. Some appalling conditions underscored which allusion has been
made are idiosyncratic of dictatorial regimes that would work only to keep themselves in power and the interests of its people are tertiary. This foments political
upheavals, putsches as most citizens never saw the government as belonging to
them. Often one sees government officials looting government property and when questioned, they reply that it was because the commodities belonged to the government. This type of corruption is also prevalent in SE Asia, some former members of the USSR, the Middle East presently the sick man of the world and most of Africa. The citizens have not been inculcated with patriotism and often see the government as diametrically separated from the rank and file. Others believe that if they are to
support the government, it had to be demonstrated to them clearly benefits to be derived
from their backings. In consequence, when there are elections, cases of beer and watts of embezzled government money are dished out to partisans to woo would-be voters to ascertain that they voted for
the incumbent government. Is this democracy? The government of the day becomes
autocratic and after such governments as we have seen in many cases, the
countries fall into civil wars as witnessed by the examples in Sierra Leone,
Ivory Coast, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Somalia and you can
fill in the gaps.
Other sends raw cash to be dispensed to would-be voters. No
matter the good intentions of poor opposition leaders, they are not voted on
election days as voters feel they had to be paid foremost before voting if they are unable to bribe the would-be voters. Many endeavor
to join the civil service with the prime
objective of embezzling tax payers’ money. Again it is glaring that the
government does not belong to them. Who then is the government and what are
their roles in the country?
Various ministries are filled with sinecures, salaried ghost
workers and tribal or men of the same kinds who are square pegs in round holes. How do we expect such a government with
poisoned hearts to work for the ordinary citizens and to stamp out abject poverty?
You will see why religious teaching, morality is perchance
the only panacea and grease of the state where rules or laws have woefully
failed. Corruption, anarchy engenders political air tinted with fright and the
only way out are coup d’états. The states revert to begging banana republics and are laughing stocks as Somalia and Burkina Faso.
Then soldiers are not trained bureaucrats and the meat is taken from the fry
pan to the fire. It by virtue of this that Burkina Faso citizens are not satisfied that a military dictator, who had sat on the country as a vise for 27 President Blaise Compare is being replaced by another military man Major. Gen. Honore Navare Traore (30 Oct., 2014). The people are not naive. They want a democratic government. Dictatorship as socialism or communism does not work, has never
worked and will never. It is out of the equation.
You will see that some economies in Africa, South America
and South East Asia can do better if certain economic measures are adopted, structural adjustment. This leads to scrutinize raw materials. They
have them in abundance. Capital could be demanded for certain projects from the
World Bank, African Development Bank, African Development Fund (ADF), and
Central African States Development Bank (BDEAC) and others. Then a crippling
point is that they cannot manage resources
and other factors of production efficiently. The author overheard
Zimbabwean-Europeans saying that they were not against giving land or selling
lands to Africans-Zimbabweans. Their cardinal concern underscored was if they
were competent to manage lands and make them productive. A nation state like Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) has all minerals in the world. They have man power but
there is one thing they are lacking, the skilled manpower apart from perpetual
quixotic warring that disrupts them. Loans from sympathetic banks for
investment had to be sustainable. Disrupted
education and perpetual migration in conflict zones disrupt all endeavors.
This leads us to education.
Education for all
Education should
be handled by dedicated people who have the progress and love of their people
at heart; people who would not poison the minds of students entrusted in their
care. It should be deigned that without solid education, without excluding
women and girls, as is sadly the case in some Islamic states or areas, all their endeavors are thwarted. Western sort of
education should be thorough and not discriminatory as to keep at bay women
and others for spurious reasons. It should not be only geared towards the
training of boys or selected few. It will be reiterated that to educate the women is to educate the
world. If women are equally trained the multiplier effect would be
phenomenal. You will see that Russia have got more women doctors and engineers
than men. That is one thing that socialism did that could be emulated if 2030
or this millennium would see positive eradication of extreme poverty.
There is no point giving people adequate capital for
agriculture when they cannot keep basic
hygiene and life expectancy is abysmally low.
The author overheard a story
by an African that AID/HIV was
caught by very stupid people in the society. What good does it brings a society
when one section refuses to be vaccinated or when one section is got rid of
preventable endemic diseases and another is harboring them because they were
not educated? You will see that Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is literally exterminating the less educated peoples of the
three countries affected in West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. This
is likened to cholera that was first heard of in India in the 1800s. Ebola
Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa first surfaced in Guinea Conakry in March
2014 and affected the poor concentrated in popular urban wards were hygienic
conditions are appalling. Many still get their water from wells, or communal
pumps, yet it is not enough. If an infected person visited that common pump to fetch
water it is easily contaminated. You will see that some persons put their
mouths on the faucets when drinking communal pipe borne water. We will leave you to conjecture the outcome.
Mapping as a Public
Health tool
It takes us to the case of Dr. John Snow in 1866 London, England. Dr. Snow demonstrated that cholera
was from polluted water and not from bad air as some persons had erroneously
thought. Ebola is this being misinterpreted as being airborne thereby causing
unheard of agitation in the USA and Europe. Piped water was got from the River
Thames the main river that traverse the capital city of Great Britain where raw
sewage was dumped and people were thus drinking their sewage. The moment Dr.
Snow discovered from a sketch map he produced of patients who succumbed to cholera
as being concentrated around a pump in Broad Street at Soho peopled by
commoners, he ordered it be closed and no one died thereafter from cholera.
Similarly, those who are rich and have private pipe-borne pumps in their homes
in Monrovia are rarely touched. The affected countries may have to take
immediate action on the cleanliness of communal pipes. Also, the rich are the
ones who have adequate gas or wood to properly prepared their foods or go to
the hospitals when feeling ill. The opposite is true of illiterates who cannot
follow basic hygiene as promoted by various health authorities.
Still on debilitation
and discriminatory education, the government of the day should ensure no dunderheads
are selected to be educated abroad leaving out competent ones because they had
no avuncular connections or couldn't bribe authorities to obtain scholarships.
Also it should be known that education at university level is not for all. People
should be tested and counselled to take courses that would make them complete
at recorded time and got right jobs to make their positive economic
contributions. A person who loves his passing-home
on earth should leave his positive economic marks on earth before he or she
leaves. Where people go into what they naturally like there are compelling
evidences that they excel. There should be no scenario created by any religious
fundamentalism as the infamous Boko Haram, ISIS and their Islamic associates whereby
some people are denied basic education because they dread Westernization, other
beliefs or considered them inferior.
Peoples should not be
denied possibilities of being educated and advancing in their careers
because of their beliefs, religions, political inclinations, color of their
skin, health, caste, physical disabilities, sex, race, tribe, our apathy and
other homophobias but all should be given equal opportunities. It should be
known that it is the inalienable right of everyone to learn and be employed
given opportunities. Even the crippled, the blind do contribute enormously in
the industrialization and economic progress of the world. There should be no
question of professional beggars as found in some communities but preponderance
of professional workers. The
currency of opulence should be taken all along.
Conclusions
Finally, people should be taught that they rather be
educated, channel their resources or incomes into beneficial investments and amalgamate for economies of scale. The upshots would be job creation instead of
indulging in debauchery, gargantuan gormandizing and Epicureanism,
short-sighted greed. The impression in some African economies is that being
civilized meant indulging in vices of no commercial remunerations. The outcomes
are obesity, hypertension and other preventable diseases where cash is buried
and cannot be exhumed with interest. Dignity
of work is tossed out in some communities the moment target demands are met
and the normal demand curve is skewed. Where others cannot find work in their
locales they are reluctant to move to fertile grounds. Incentives for relocation or forced emigration or use of moral
persuasion as last resorts might be considered.
It should be known that if family homes are solidly built,
it would mean that those coming after need not construct new ones. All being
equal, excess incomes generated would go into creation of further jobs. Finally,
myopic primitive socialism or communism
should be discouraged. Men sire several children to help them in their
needy chores in lieu of acceptable natural family planning. .Mentality of
negative-handouts or parasitism on the brow of others who work to exhaustion
should be done away with. As such, lotus eaters, epicureans, people who do not
appreciate dignity of labor but perambulate and luxuriate would be checked. If
measures outlined are adhered to, some poverty could be eradicated by 2030. But,
are these formidable proposals surmountable? Remember that if the French
engineers had feared digging the Suez Canal we should have still been
circumnavigating the entire length of Africa to reach India for our spices in
2014. Let us compute how that would have cost us since 1869.
Viban Viban Ngo, PhD.
Addendum: Share this as usual and please drop me a note to correct where I went wrong. Do not sit back and say that it is not your work. When an African child eats bush meat for lack of cow meat and gets Ebola Virus Disease and dies, it is no longer the concern of his parents, it is now ours living thousands of miles away. We could help through education and promoting transparency. Isolating ourselves or ignoring it is no solution but banking it for the future. VVN.
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