THE TIDE AND THE BOAT: CONTEXT DEFINITION, GLOBAL POVERTY DYNAMICS AND WORLD VISION MINISTRY.

                                                                                                  by Eduardo Nunes (1)

Where the poor lives is a central question to Development and the key global operational context defining element. It is highly crucial understanding the changes on poverty demographics to foreseen trends and maximizing operations impact.

World Vision knows that and had long time used context analyses to guide its ministry investments. More recently, organizational strategic development built a consensus, perfected technical parameters and brought context definition to the heart of ministerial decisions.

POVERTY AND CONTEXT DEFINITIONS

Among almost uncountable technical possibilities, WV had reached a very simple, used-focused and technically strong two axis context definition: Child Need X Stability . “Contexts are drawn following the definitions of Low, Med, and High physical need and social stability indices ” (2). Over need-stability grade, WV had added overlays, defined by relevant characteristics in restrictive religion (for e.g., Muslims contexts), demographic (urban) and peace disruptions (conflictive environments).

As in WV, other organizations had developed poverty contexts definitions and had applied them to guide polices, investments and eligibility criteria. However, most of them lacks historical comparable series and/or are not available to all countries. Even WV context definition had been measured for few years and yet did not allow historical trend analysis. Among the most historically and geographically comprehensible are two context definition indexes: a) UNDP HDI (low, medium and high human development based on income per capita, education and health criteria in the Human Development Index ) and; b) the World Bank WDI (based on low/middle income classifications -LIC/MIC- combined with fragile and conflict-affected states, FCAS).

Despite “narrower”, the WDI had been longer measured (with the same criteria) and reaches more countries than HDI. Then, WDI is the current most used classification criteria to analyse worldwide long-term parameters changes. It is the reason WDI was chosen here to look over the past two decades poverty dynamics.

World Bank Classifications thresholds (GNI US$ per capita, Atlas methodology)

  

POVERTY DYNAMICS

Mostly of Europe, US, Canada, Japan and, later, South Korea had experienced an almost correlated economic growth with poverty reduction process, in the second half of 20th century. Those countries and their populations, despite inequalities, streamed toward quite to the same direction. The tide of economic growth lifted the poor’s boat.

On the other hand, mostly of the wealth creation experienced in the last two decades (BRIC group, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and Latin America high dynamic economies), although had decreased the northern-south inequality, had not been strong domestically distributive.

As consequence of “nouveau riche” countries development did not follow the past developed countries parameters observed. This new growing configuration, allied with some inequality increased even in the developed countries, had changed the poverty portrait.

The new development paradigm had already been noted but is clearly demonstrated in a recently published study by International Development Studies on the last 20 years world poverty context dynamics based on the WDI criteria (above).

The study data, combined with age distribution extrapolation , demonstrated that the different parameters in recently development had transformed the global poverty scenario. Most of the world’s poor no longer live in poorest countries. In the past, poverty has been viewed as an LIC+FCAS countries issue predominantly. Nowadays such, a significant number of countries have graduated into the Middle Income (MIC) category, but their population still are poor. As my intention in this paper is not going detailed over the figures, the new portrait of the poverty can be summed up in three points as follows.

1. In 1990, 93% of the world’s poor people lived in LICs. In contrast, in 2008, three-quarters of the world’s poor (approximately 1.3bn) now live in middle-income countries (MICs).

2. About 28% of the world’s poor – about 370mn people live in the remaining 39 low-income countries, which are largely in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1990, they were 93% of the total.

3. About 2/3 of the world’s poor live in stable MICs. This isn’t just about India and China. The percentage of global poverty accounted for by the MICs minus China and India has risen considerably from 7 per cent to 22 per cent. The findings are consistent across monetary, nutritional and multi-dimensional poverty measures.

4. By 2020, based on BRIC’s countries and the 10 most dynamic new regional economies evolution almost 85% of world’s poor will live in MICs.

5. Children poverty had increased, in proportional terms. Despite birth rates decreasing and consequently, in the children coefficient in global population, proportionally children are more affected by poverty than 20 years ago. In 1994, 54 in each 100 poor are bellow 18. In 2009, 57 are children in every 100 poor.

Poverty had changed neighbourhood and is getting a younger face. In other words, countries are escaping from poverty, not mostly of their populations neither their children.

Mostly of the poorest children do not live in poorest countries anymore. This is a massive scenario change with deep implications to World Vision ministry.

Estimates of the change in global distribution of world’s poor (<$1.25/day/day),  1988 versus 2007–8

HETEROGENEITY AND MINISTRY

At a glance, the data presented on the table above could lead to question the definitions of country categories themselves. If the most used poverty measure is not pointing where the poor are, probably we need better indicators. However, the methodological discussion as indexes and indicators are not my focus here.

WV context definition is built over a wider approach than World Bank’s and was not design to be an academic descriptive tool. For WV, beyond categorization criteria, context definition is a key ministry shaping input. WV operation is context shaped. Then, still poverty profile changes do not invalidate context definition; they bring new perspectives on them and raise all sorts of queries about the poverty reduction strategies. Poverty evolution dynamic brings real challenges to the ministry models defined as the most appropriated ones to each context.

The new demographics of wealth confirm that poverty had already become a mostly heterogeneous context problem. The heterogeneity is defined for contexts where the differences among individuals in the same territory become more prominent than the discrepancies observed amongst distinct territories. The heterogeneity does not mean that injustice among rich and poor countries had disappeared, however implies that overcoming poverty face profound in-boundaries constrains.

Contributing to sustainable changes in the well being of the most vulnerable child is now a challenge to be faced, for mostly world’s most children, in a growing heterogeneous contexts scenario.

In this new configuration on poverty distribution, any effective engagement in sustainable solutions to promote child well being could not be seen more as exclusively inter-countries strategy. Global poverty already can be considered as a major complex in-country distributional problem. It is not a matter of global or local. Both, global and local issues, combine in a scaling up complex poverty perpetuation process. Consequently, global issues (Financial Inequalities, Trade inefficiencies and Climate Changes, major provoked by industrialized countries unsustainable way of life) need to be addressed as they impact and are “translated” into the domestic constrains to children life in its fulfilment.

The traditional agenda for fighting poverty, based in traditional north-south resources transfer, was designed for times when poverty was coincidental with the country average income. The traditional agenda was built on social services (mostly education and health) provision and technology/financial resources transfers. It was based in the credo that if healthy, basic educated and well informed people would advance. However, it not happened.

The heterogeneity questions that agenda. It brings all sorts of issues regarding the reasons why people, and mostly their children, are not moving up alongside their countries. For sure, the answers are not the same to all countries, but the most recurrent factors identified are common. Social investments insufficiency aggravated by the actual investments ineffectiveness or misdirection. Broken governance (and government accountability) mechanisms allied with educational and economic opportunities inequalities. Lack of adequate pro-child focused polices. Behavioural-values practices or omissions based hindrances those perpetuated injustices, prejudices and violence. Those elements, past peripheral issues, must be brought to the core of child well being agenda.

It can be affirmed that World Vision is ahead on this debate. Almost 10 years ago, WV had formally recognized a long time practice and declared as essential in poverty fighting mostly of those elements in its Development Framework . Consistently, all around the globe, programmes had struggled to address those gaps.

However, the heterogeneity calls for reinforcement in the organizational capacity to deepen inequality and structural societal transformation programmatic solutions already addressed. Also, it urges increase design and implement new innovative on ground based built solutions. As the lasting child well being impact relies on structural transformation, contribution definition, results measurements and effectiveness dimensions shall reflect that outcome.

Effectiveness well-being promotion in heterogeneous context means contributing to reduce the inequalities those prevent the most vulnerable children to be benefitted of their country economic growth.

Other elements and indicators need to be considered in Ministry strategy guidance. However, there is enough evidence to affirm the growing importance of assessing the Ministry offer and emphasis vis-à-vis the heterogeneity demands. It is necessary keep one eye on the tide, another on the boat, they are not moving together anymore.

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REFERENCES:

1. Operations & integrated Ministry Director, Latin American & Caribbean Regional Office. The current paper expresses author’s opinions only and is target to WV internal audience. March, 8. 2010.
2. The initial methodology uses only the cut-off points for Low, Med, and High HDI as a basis for the cut-off points for High, Med, and Low physical need. This was conducted because of absence of similar cut-off points for the %U5UW Children in the official statistics. Since Physical Need index is the combination of the two indices with equal weights, its context lines should come from both indices. Hence in this revised methodology we attempted to include the %U5UW Children in the identification of context lines for physical need. In the initial context lines for FSI, we found that the context line that separates the low and medium social stability was not based on the Foreign Policy Magazine’s definition. An FSI level of 85 was used instead of 90, the FPM’s cut-off point for Alert. Hence we corrected this discrepancy. Though it was noted in the previous methodology that identification of contexts is based on the Low, Med, and High Physical Need and Social Stability classification, the actual delimitation of the contexts didn’t strictly follow this classification at all times. In this revised methodology, contexts are drawn following the definitions of Low, Med, and High physical need and social stability indices. Justifications are provided when there are exceptions (Office of Strategy Management – Global Center. Page 1 of 8, Version 07. 15 February 2008)
3. Office of Strategy Management – Global Center. Page 1 of 8, Version 07. 15 February 2008.
4. In contrast, the new UNDP Human Development Report 2010 Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) of Alkire and Santos (2010) argues that, if you take a multi- dimensional approach (an index of ten indicators of social development) and consider 104 countries that have data (or 78% of the world’s population).
5. Classification supports Bank’s operational lending categories (civil works preferences, IDA eligibility, etc.) and thus seeks to give better conditions to poorer countries based on economic capacity measured by GNI per capita.
6. Brazil, India, Russia and India
7. Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: What if Three-Quarters of the World’s Poor Live in Middle-Income Countries? By Andy Sumner, I.D.S., September 2010.
8. Personal calculations based on UNDATA, Global Population Charts, 2010.
9. It is noted there just four countries (India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria) account for almost 60% of the total number of poor that have ‘moved’ to MIC countries. However, cluster analysis reveals no different patterns in poverty moving to MICs.
10. World State of Children Reports, UNICEF, 2001, 2010.
11. Andy Sumner, I.D.S., September 2010.
12. World Vision Transformational Development Policy, April, 2002.

 

 Source: World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/a-short-history