A world-renowned scholar of public policy, Yehezkel Dror, recently reemphasised the point that policy and politics “closely interact, often overlap, and in part cannot be separated even analytically”. This seemingly obvious point, with far-reaching implications, has also been made by various eminent scholars. On poverty, Martin Ravallion — a leading scholar on issues of poverty — made, a while back, a similar point: that (poverty) measurement and (public) policy issues are often inseparable. Without doubt, poverty and inequality remain the most pressing challenges confronting Africa specifically. This is not to say that other continents and/or regions do not have a poverty and inequality challenge.
The fundamental issue is that Africa (south of Sahara specifically) is the only region in the world where poverty is not declining. The inequalities, be it in opportunities, outcomes or incomes, remain glaring in most parts of the African continent. For instance, the population-weighted poverty gap is estimated to be above 40% in sub-Saharan Africa relative to the $2 per day per capita international poverty line — this is just an indication of the wide chasm between the minimum level of income or consumption necessary for a sufficient living standard and what it would take, in monetary terms, to bring the most poor to the poverty line.
The other fundamental point about poverty (and inequality in Africa) is that unlike the Latin American region in particular, dealing with poverty in Africa is not just a matter of re-distribution — our per capita incomes, with exceptions of course, are too low. In addition, and worth highlighting is that gross domestic product per capita incomes in sub-Saharan Africa have been negative over a longer period. (In simple terms, gross domestic product can be defined as the value of a country’s total output of goods and services. Per capita income refers to the amount each person receives from a country’s overall income generated annually). It could therefore be argued that poverty in Africa is largely a matter of equitable growth and to some extent re-distributive policies could take Africa somewhere. It is also in this context that politics and policy cannot be separated. The policy-making processes, needless to say, require that the politics of Africa or rather the political history of the African continent be borne in mind. Africa is largely what it is today or what it has become because of despicable political history and continued external influence. Distinguished African scholar Thandika Mkandawire has provided detailed analyses of how external influence or interference by outsiders has negatively impacted Africa’s development.
As such, it is encouraging that more scholars from other disciplines, rather than just economists, are increasingly getting their hands dirty in an effort to come up with correct solutions to poverty eradication — even economists have been hard at work to better understand poverty dynamics. Recent studies, such as those led by Ravi Kanbur, who is one of the leading scholars on poverty dynamics, examine the role of and dynamics in communities that impact on poverty levels and also the measurement of poverty in the context of the resources each nation has — a sort of gauge of poverty reduction failures. Linked to that are developments around the measurement/s of poverty. It has been argued that critical to conceptualisation and definitions of poverty are values, principles and aspirations that inform the developmental goals of the kind of society that is envisioned.
However, in most (African) countries, the definitions of poverty are traditionally based on money-metric measures as reflected in adopted poverty lines. Many have been critical of this approach, arguing that poverty is a complex and a multidimensional socio-economic phenomenon (though how one accurately measures the multidimensional nature of poverty remains unresolved). Nanak Kakwani, among other leading scholars on these issues, has been doing important work in this area. Increasingly, Amartya Sen’s conceptualisation of poverty guides analyses and policy-making pertaining poverty. However, the human-capabilities approach that Sen provides us a framework for remains contested — what exactly are those critical capabilities and who determines them?
In addition, it could be argued that poverty (at least in most African countries) is a “social construct” and therefore will take sustained human ingenuity to foster an environment where the so-called poor are able to create wealth and feel a part of the respective nations. It is here that I think history might judge most of us harshly: we continue talking on behalf of the poor while our appreciation of the broader structural geopolitical forces that shape the experiences of the poor and the (socially) excluded worldwide is wanting. That is why I find the argument that poverty is a “social construct”, in as much as it is an artefact of human creation in a world devoid of morals and compassion, persuasive. It seems that each country determines what kind of poverty it can tolerate, how long it wants to tolerate it and how vigorous it will deal with it when it decides to deal with it. This idea is not difficult to comprehend because we constantly fail to explain why about a billion people go to bed hungry while millions more are suffering from lifestyle diseases such as obesity, hypertension and so on.
In trying to understand why the poor are poor, three main strands of theoretical explanations hold. First, some theories place the poor themselves as the architects of their own precarious circumstances. Second, some theories blame the nation state for being impotent in the face of emerging tragedies for which immediate solutions abound. And third, some people may choose to place the global geopolitical structure at the centre of the genesis and persistence of poverty. The third hypothesis, if it has any merit, warrants that policy makers in particular recognise Dror’s point that policy and politics “closely interact, often overlap, and in part cannot be separated even analytically”. The second hypothesis would imply that better African leadership is one of the critical solutions to the challenges of poverty and inequality in Africa (and elsewhere). The African leadership that would be better placed to sustainably improve the circumstances of Africa would most likely be the one that is sufficiently independent of external influence.
In conclusion, through “reasonable” and sustainable economic growth, radical redistribution regimes and strategies that enrich the assets of the poor, as Hernando de Soto argued, will gain some mileage. Africa is again called upon to answer the question of whether the generations tasked with the mission to emancipate Africa from deprivation are indeed fulfilling or betraying their respective missions, as Frantz Fanon would enquire. Reversing the scourge of dehumanising poverty (and inequality) in Africa requires home-grown solutions, mindful of the argument that policy and politics closely interact, often overlap, and in part cannot be separated even analytically.
Vusi, this is a topic that demands careful thinking and even more cautious research before one makes damning generalisations about Africa and its seemingly hopeless poverty and inequality conditions. There is hope still. I notice that you have read a number of the authorities on the subject. Good
Its a great subject & you make some petinent points about the need to fully understand the circumastances of poverty. I dont see evidence of who is doing what to perpertuate this… except the poor themselves I guess!
The part in your piece that immediately draws my attention is the one that says: “The African leadership that would be better placed to sustainably improve the circumstances of Africa would most likely be the one that is sufficiently independent of external influence”.
Yes yes yes I agree. Where are these African leaders going to come from? Granted, African leaders need to find their own feet, their own voice (and no, I did not say most political leaders around the world need to grow a brain…) and have balls of steel to take on the global economic establishment, or develop mechanisms to grow alternative capital flows across the southern hermisphere… Huh! Dreams!
I still believe that we can change the skewed flow of global trade to benefit Africa, change the extraction of natural resources to benefit locals, shift goods pricing issues on the G8, G20, and G-whatever-else.
African leaders’ independent thinking is a good start. Which schools are training these leaders right now????
I’m cuban and whenever I see that “redistribution of wealth” rethoric, full of good intentions; I see it become a disaster. It should be renamed as redistribution of misery. I.e Cuba, or maybe you got it closer in Zim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59EFcd7XOVA
With Fanon, deSoto et al, all from the Marxist school, as your own conceptual gurus, your “African solutions for African problem” mantra will prove to be just as useful as it was to that sad failure, Thabo Mbeki. Good luck with forever re-inventing that old Ixion’s wheel.
Vusi says: “Africa is again called upon to answer the question of whether the generations tasked with the mission to emancipate Africa from deprivation are indeed fulfilling or betraying their respective missions”
Could not agree more with you, but we are the generation, yes you and me. Just to borrow from the Holy Pontiff:
”
The true wealth of the world is not in things, but in the mind of man that knows and in the enterprise of man that goes to the effort to make something happen and to the polities of man that provide a context of law and exchange wherein these things can happen. If there is any priority to the poor, it is that priority that enables them not to be poor. If we do not know what this latter means, we will not help the poor in spite of our good will or political ideologies. It is in the “civil society,” not the state apparatus, where most of the really innovative and human exchanges take place, which the background of the state makes possible. “What the fight against poverty really needs are men and women who live in a profoundly fraternal way and are able to accompany individuals, families and communities on journeys of authentic human development.”
– Pope Benedict.
I one of my Blog entries, I wrote:
“In his address to the African Institute in 24 August 2001 titled African Intellectuals and the African Crisis: In Honour of Professor Ben Makhosezwe Magubane, Herbert W. Vilakazi said “we African intellectuals are wrong in blaming individual African leaders of State for failing to move Africa forward, when we ourselves have not done our pre-requisite duty, namely, to formulate, debate, and publicise, a compelling, African-centred, development paradigm, which these leaders can use to move the continent forward.”
I it debates such as these that we need, further, I wrote:
African Agricultural Revolution, said Vilakazi, and accompanying rural development, should be the priority number one for all Africans and African governments. The other crucial policy imperative for African economic and social development, directly linked to the Agricultural Revolution, is that development planning in Africa should be from the countryside to the cities.
This, continued Vilakazi, is not to say urban areas should be neglected, but at least fifty percent of the investment funds should be earmarked for rural development. “The major source of crisis in African cities is the failure of development in the countryside”.
“This is the fundamental cause of the failure of development in Africa, therefore of the crisis in Africa, continued Vilakazi, and that the need for moving this economy [African economy in crisis] forward is not foreign investment”.
@ Jon
Firstly de Soto is hardly marxist, in fact he is sometimes criticised as a populist neo liberal. and what the hell do you know about fanon! ! fanon was the greatest writer on the effects of colonialism and imperialism on colonised peoples.
The white face of opression is just unqualified to talk about the ongoing effects of your domination over other peoples ways of life. African aspirations, like latin american or indian aspirations were sustainable, communal, and held leaders to account by their people, without having to resort to force and law. It is the greed and consumerism of the white man that polluted the earth first, so yes, we will have to seek african solutions, not just for african problems but for problems that ‘you’ helped create.
@ vusi – great blog
What do I know of Fanon? The Martiniquan doctor’s work, such as “Wretched of the Earth” and “Black Skin, White Masks” predated Biko and try to analyse the effects of colonisation on the black psyche from a Marxist perspective. It’s turgid and fairly superficial really; analytical cops-and-robbers written in jargon. Not as turgid as Gramsci or Althusser, though. And if you cannot readily discern the Marxism of deSoto, you’ve missed out on something in reading-comprehension. But the point you miss is that real “solutions” just won’t come from Marxism or neo-Marxism. It is a failed, discredited credo.
“The illusion that a policy of mere redistribution of existing wealth can definitively resolve the problem (of poverty) must be set aside.” – Benedict
A rather fine line exists between being “concerned” with the poor and yet knowing little or nothing about how to make them not to be poor. Many efforts designed to assist the poor only make them poorer, or, more often, dependent on a force that is all too dubious in intent. The history of political welfare movements makes a sober read in this regard.
“The poverty problem, as we know it, is not really economic, but political. There are those in power in poor countries who will not do what it necessary and known to help. This is why knowing human nature is a prerequisite to knowing whether our knowledge of how to solve poverty issues will actually be allowed and will be used. — In the Epilogue of A Guide for the Perplexed, E. F. Schumacher
Dr Gumede, thank you for a very thought provoking article. When it comes to politics and economics I’m a bit sceptical of calls for “home-grown” solutions. We don’t, for instance, here too many calls for home-grown medicine, home-grown science or home-grown engineering. Of course we want our doctors, scientists and engineers to develop local innovations, but we’re quite happy to learn and borrow effective ideas from elsewhere. Shouldn’t we apply the same standards to economics and politics and use whatever ideas have demonstrated their practical value in raising standards?
Which ideas in other countries have eliminated or reduced poverty and which have created or increased it? Not to put too fine a point on it but the evidence is clearly in favour of capitalism and against statism.
What South Africa needs is a national commitment to entrepreneurship. We need a society which frees up the productive capacities of all citizens – business owners and labourers. Freed from all forms of red tape we can pursue our visions for job and wealth creation. The sum of these entrepreneurial activities would be rising living standards which could eliminate poverty within a generation or two.
But so long as we continue to hold entrepreneurs back with political red tape, burdensome labour laws and taxes, their potential and the potential of this great continent will never be realised, and writers ages from now will still be analysing the poverty of Africa and, perhaps, calling for home-grown solutions.
Vusi,
As I wrote in in Dale Willaim’s blog >
…If you really want to know the answers to some of the really tough challenges facing the world, I recommend you read: Common Wealth. Economics for a crowded planet. By Jeffrey Sachs. R146 at Exclusive Books.
Infinitely more useful than my previous favourite books, by Easterly and Joseph Stiglitz.
In this book, I have seen for the first time, why one should not compare South Korea and Ghana, which many people do. South Korea in 1960 had an extensive railway network, as did India in 1947.
Sachs devotes much space in this book to Africa, and how its economic problems should be tackled.
See link below:
http://www.sake24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Channel=Opinion_Home&ArticleId=6-103_2550242&IsColumnistStory=True
SA already redistributes as much as many wealthy EU states and far more than many other developing countries. This despite being a middle income country with a small tax base.
Even welfare states in the EU got rich first (very pro-market) and are now rolling back on 1970-1980′s welfare programs (even before economic crisis) that slowed economic growth. Many Nordic countries these days have a mixture of very liberal/pro-market policies in crucial areas mixed with a welfare system.
See http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8765 and http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10462)
The development model in SA should focus less on redistribution (which as you correctly point out there simply isn’t enough of to redistribute) and more on creating opportunities and wealth for ordinary folk.
As Moeletsi Mbeki argues in his new book we seem to be following the same logic that led to de-industrialisation and worse Human Development numbers elsewhere on the continent – that is focussing on empowering the black elite through accommodation and redistribution without changing the fundamental structural problems within the South African economy.
A good way to start is to make it easier for everyone to make money by encouraging pro market policies, private ownership (empowering african landowners), more competition (breaking SA’s monopolies), less government, fixing our infrastructure and education.
Doctor Gumede draws the conclusion that “radical redistribution regimes and strategies that enrich the assets of the poor, … will gain some mileage.” In order to come to this conclusion, Gumede had to prove with verifiable data that (1) the overall benefits of “redistribution” far outweigh those of other poverty reduction policies and (2) that these benefits reach an apex where redistribution is most extreme and intrusive on the interests of all parties involved. In fact, Gumede does neither. He merely states that “.. to some extent re-distributive policies could take Africa somewhere”.
What is it that attracts some politicians/party deployees to redistribution policies? Obviously, the power that such policies bestow on them is a factor. Also, in the process of redistribution, and its inherent flow of assets/capital from “the rich”, these politicians and members of the Nomenklatura find themselves midstream with the benefit of “legal” self-enrichment. Thus, the more radical the process, the more power and self-enrichment can be harvested.
It is quite clear why Doctor Gumede would want a solution to SA’s poverty problem that is “sufficiently independent of external influence”, ie any factor that might limit these power and self-enrichment aspirations.
Jean Triegaardt notes that research has demonstrated that extreme inequality can be detrimental to economic growth, social stability and development. This is a global phenomenon as you have correctly captured it, but I will confine my views to RSA. Of greatest concern, Jean notes, is the fact that more than a decade after the demise of apartheid, distribution of income in RSA is more unequal than it has been, despite substantial budgetary redistribution in the form of social assistance. However, research now suggests a paradigm shift from inter-racial to intra-racial inequality – with the emergence of the “black elite”. This emerging pattern is now reminiscent of the scenario in many other African countries where those who have gained access to State power & resources become the “richest class” in society.
I think part of RSA’s problem is this “too liberal Constitution” which is at times abused to sabotage the State’s ability to address these pressing socio-economic challenges. I fully agree, we need home brewed solutions. I think we need to be more radical (“less democratic”) in addressing land reform, compliance with employment equity & affirmative action in both the public & private sector and the funding the education & skills development for the poor until a University Bachelor’s degree or/ and N6 FET college training programmes. Health Insurance scheme will also assist the poor to access better health care. Let’s UNBLOCK ACCESS for the poor. These are just a few of the measures that could be considered.
Absolutley interesting write-up that needs home-grown analysis. Africa, in its poverty, lies her wealth. Africa is the richest continent in the world. In terms of resources, we have the most valuable that are sine qua non for man’s existence.But I think socio-politico we are thousands far away. I will consent and agree to the theoretical explanation of the three main poverty strands you gave.
I will analyse the dangers of rational poverty. however, I think Africa is poor by pure chance. It means no justification at all but we are poor because poverty pays. Our leaders are impotent because poverty pays them. Africa’s issue can only be resolved by laying good foundation and upholding good and potent leaders. If some part of the system is decayed, the structure can not function productively.
Thanks doc for this great work.
Thanks Dr Gumede for this polemic and thanks to all the commentators for confirming that I still don’t understand … even with my best efforts … what exactly it is that causes the constant (human) failure ‘… to explain why about a billion people go to bed hungry while millions more are suffering from lifestyle diseases such as obesity, hypertension and so on’.
Oldfox, I will read that Sachs book you recommend and Landos, thanks for this instructive quote by Schumacher “The poverty problem, as we know it, is not really economic, but political. There are those in power in poor countries who will not do what is necessary and known to help. This is why knowing human nature is a prerequisite to knowing whether our knowledge of how to solve poverty issues will actually be allowed and will be used” . So I wonder, given Dr Gumede’s quote above, is it failure; an inability to comprehend or an inability to care?
Maybe we should heed the Pontiff’s plea – “What the fight against poverty really needs are men and women who live in a profoundly fraternal way and are able to accompany individuals, families and communities on journeys of authentic human development.”
I must say, this is a subject that really boggles my mind and reminds me of ‘…how small I am and how little I know. Cold comfort!
Dr. Gumede said…..It seems that each country determines what kind of poverty it can tolerate, how long it wants to tolerate it and how vigorous it will deal with it when it decides to deal with it. This idea is not difficult to comprehend because we constantly fail to explain why about a billion people go to bed hungry while millions more are suffering from lifestyle diseases such as obesity, hypertension and so on.
From my own two cents worth of experience i have seen the governement deciding what kind of poverty it can tolerate. By placing someone to do a job they are not qualified to do, you have already decided that it is not important to deal with the problem rather the aftereffects.
Lack of good governance is at the core but African leaders it seems are control by international institutions thus making the policy – politics scenario very complex…
A great article indeed…gave me something to think about for the whole month.
Yes, I do agree fully that in order for things to truly change we need leaders that are free from external influences, but as I look around me there are no such leaders in my own country. More than anything it seems like we live in a world governed by selfishness. Why must millions if not billions die of starvation before aid is sent, while our leaders are still deciding on the best policy to draft for the manufacturing and deploying of nuclear arms? This is done when the very people the leaders claim to representing are foresaken…