Analysis

The redistribution of poverty

Governments and social movements the world over often call for the redistribution of wealth; that the people with money and assets should give some of these to the poor.  They believe that it is merely the absence of cash that makes poor people poor.  They are wrong.

Just as a runny nose, sore muscles and a cough are indications of a viral infection, so poverty is an indication of an economy that is ill.

Your flu could be caused by a variety of reasons:  you may have caught it from a sick friend, you may have been coughed on in a public place by a total stranger, you may have a lifestyle that leads you into regular illness.  The former issues are unfortunate but you will recover.  It is the latter that is cause for ongoing concern.  For there is no medicine you can take that will prevent re-infection.  

There are many knowns which can cause ill-health:  smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet, lack of sleep.  Any of these contribute to reducing the effectiveness of your immune system.  You can spend a great deal of money on remedies and medication to combat the results of these habits but the problem won’t go away until the underlying causes are addressed.

The same is true of poverty.  People, by and large if left to their own devices, are quite capable of figuring out how to do something to earn a living.  The only time that people stay poor is when the environment they’re in offers them no incentive to do anything.  For instance, if a government declares – in an effort to cut the cost of basic foods to urban poor – that food prices are fixed at below their production cost, then farmers will stop farming to take advantage of the cheap food as well.  The government will then have to spend money importing food they used to produce themselves.  That money will come from higher taxes which further degrades the productive capacity of their economy.

This is usually a political attempt at wealth redistribution; diverting cash from one group of people to another.  In reality the impact is closer to poverty redistribution; moving poverty from one group of people and sharing it with everyone.

While there is only a finite amount of cash in any economy, there is an infinite amount of poverty to go round.  Instead of seeing wealth as a problem to be shared, governments should see poverty as a symptom to be addressed.

Taking a pill may give a fat person the illusion that they are doing something about their weight, but everyone knows what they need to do:  eat less, exercise more.  The period of change from an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthier one is certainly painful and unpleasant; but it is worth it.

Ending poverty in society is not a simple matter of taking wealth from one group of people and giving it to another.  It is a slow and painful process of correcting past mistakes and educating those that have been disadvantaged by the previous system on how to help themselves.

It is not the end of the world if some people become ostentatiously wealthy; it is a problem if a society dooms the poor to be forever indigent and dependent on the limited benevolence available from others.

A story of an African Orphan

It is now an open secret that the AIDS (Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome) crisis has been wreaking havoc in many of the Sub-Saharan African economies over the last 20 years. By and large, the response to the epidemic resembles a mop-up operation after a tsunami. Sadly, this tsunami has far deeper consequences, and it is relentless.

The sheer impact of the epidemic has left millions of destroyed families and orphans in its path. This has prompted a flurry of activity in civil society in an attempt to shelter vulnerable and orphaned children. Questions always arise about the best way to look after the little helpless victims of this deadly serial killer.

South Africa is not only the economic powerhouse of Africa it also has one of the highest incidences of HIV (Human Immune-deficiency Virus) in the world. This former pariah state provides fertile ground for activists to try out the best "HIV/AIDS orphanage" model. At this stage it is unnecessary to critique the intentions of these activists because there are just too many children who have been affected by AIDS.

AIDS has come to South Africa on the back of high unemployment and poverty levels. The double effect on children is devastating. Generally, the consensus is that no child should be institutionalised. Thus, community-based places are preferred; although they also have their problems.

The classic form of orphanage is where children are housed in a dormitory-type facility. Meals, accommodation, and sometimes medical care are provided on-site. Usually there will be a house manager or a child care worker who will perform general duties and provide basic care to the children. This is the most common model of care for vulnerable and orphaned children.

In this set-up it is usually common for the organisation to raise funds from individual donor agencies, rather than government-linked programmes. This is mainly because most state organs view these institutions as being removed from the community, and they are not keen to finance what they feel should be a measure of last resort.

There is still a stigma for children who are 'institutionalised', and this is compounded by the stigma attached to 'AIDS babies'. The ultimate goal of even these institutional orphanages is to place as many children in foster care 'in the community'.

Then there is the community-based orphanage, the most desirable form of child care. Normally this would involve placing the children with a foster parent in their community home. This might be a relative who has a family of their own and who is willing to look after the vulnerable child. Some of these are coordinated by social workers and community childcare committees. The committees have fieldworkers who are trained to find vulnerable children in their community and find surrogate families for them. The social-worker oversees this process and handles the legal requirements for the foster family.

The one major advantage of this system is that the community itself is involved in looking after their children, rather than rely on external resources. This community committee-based childcare model can be successful as long as the committees become self-sustainable. It is rather difficult to coordinate finances and to make sure that the children benefit from these.

Lastly, there is what has been dubbed the 'foster cluster homestead', a new idea pioneered by Heather Reynolds from South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. This is the province with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the country and most of the vulnerable children are found there.

The cluster fostering model is a compromise between the institutional and community-based form. Funds are raised to build inter-linked cottages to accommodate a foster parent along with four or five children. Usually, the foster parents are destitute grandmothers who will then take on additional children at the cluster home. This essentially combines the institutional model, where the children are housed in a single facility, but includes a community aspect to it because they are each a family with their own house.

This form of childcare faces the same difficulties in raising funds because the children are 'removed from the community'. At the same time this might be a more effective way because it also benefits the foster mothers as well.

Nonetheless there may be some resentment in the community that the children housed in such institutions are better off, since they do not have to face the crime and squalor beyond the orphanage fences.

This feeling was very strongly expressed recently when pop star Madonna adopted a Malawian orphan. "How did she expect to solve Africa's problem by just adopting one child? Did she do it just for image? Why was she removing the child from his community?" was the exclamation.

This just goes to show that the problem of vulnerable and orphaned children is very extensive indeed. Whether enough is being done to address it and prevent it from escalating is the one issue that is still being debated.

Cry, The Beloved Country

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa. About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya, one of the birds of the veld. Below you is the valley of the Umzimkulu, on its journey from the Drakensberg to the sea; and beyond and behind the river, great hill after great hill; and beyond and behind them, the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand.

The grass is rich and matted, you cannot see the soil. It holds the rain and the mist, and they seep into the ground, feeding the streams in every kloof. It is well-tended, and not too many cattle feed upon it; not too many fires burn it, laying bare the soil. Stand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.

These lyrical words open the haunting, tragic "Cry, the Beloved Country", by Alan Paton.   The book, written in 1948, traces the journey of a father in search of his son across the backdrop of the Apartheid state.  The story, though, is also of how a divided nation murders even those who dedicate their lives to straddling the divide.  For Father Stephen Kumalo’s son, Absalom, has murdered Arthur Jarvis, a campaigning human rights lawyer.  The murder destroys not only the lives of those involved, but is also used by the Apartheid government as an excuse for further discrimination and abuse.

And societies in stress continue to murder those who stand forward to heal the wounds and bridge the rifts in those societies.

In Kenya, Professor Job Bwayo, crusader for HIV research in Nairobi, was killed during a car hijacking.  In South Africa, David Rattray, one of the foremost researchers and story-tellers of the Anglo-Zulu wars and the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, gunned down during a robbery.

All across Africa come stories of murders such as these; not of politicians or statesman but of passionate, dedicated people who - through their commitment to pursuing their craft at the highest level - bring credit to their nations.  They allow outsiders - who so often see nothing but despair and outrage in these troubled lands - to see their homes as a place where hope is possible, and professionalism and pride are normal.  

When they are killed the act does more than just cause sorrow  and loss amongst those close to them.  It also destroys all the faith that was placed in that land.  Murdering idealists tells others that ideals, in this land, in this place, in this time, have no value.  Those who seek dreams should pursue them elsewhere.

And then it is left to politicians, pale parodies of real idealists, to attempt to calm the waters and lead on.

There are no quick answers to these losses other than to say, keep dreaming.  For the light of an ideal shall, eventually, burn out those who would seek its destruction.

"On your left is an Orc fighting a Troll" - travels in hyper-reality offer lessons for the poor

Synthravels offers travellers unique experiences by guiding them to destinations that many would never ordinarily visit.  As a business they don’t sound particularly remarkable.  What makes them rather out of the ordinary is that none of the places that Synthravels takes you to exist.

Synthravels specialises in leading new entrants through the vast online gaming worlds of Second Life and World of Warcraft.  This travel company proves that the number of ideas available to entrepreneurs is infinite.  We will never run out of things to do or new things to invent and, when we get there, someone will always be available to sell us something.

The speed with which ideas and businesses can propagate over the Internet is so rapid that those left off it are getting further and further behind.  Yet, far from leaving them with fewer opportunities, it leaves them with more and more.

Consider:  If the most exciting coffee available for purchase anywhere in the world is filter coffee, then any place that doesn’t sell filter coffee only has an opportunity to start that business.  Now, say someone invents espresso coffee.  Firstly, there is the opportunity for selling the machines that make it.  Every single existing coffee shop now has the opportunity to upgrade and improve.

When Starbucks developed Seattle coffee culture it spread throughout the world creating millions of jobs both directly and peripherally in the supply chain.  In cities where no such services existed they became an exciting new addition to the entertainment scene.

The invention of a new process allows that process to become an opportunity for everyone.

Websites like Springwise.com list thousands of business ideas, from the quirky to the mundane.  There is no lack of ideas around to stimulate even the most barren of minds.  If those businesses seem too expensive to set up then Wikineur.org has dozens of ideas that cost less than $ 100 each to set up.  If even that little finance is a problem then Kiva.org, an innovative service in which people lend money from around the world via the web to small businesses in poor nations, is a good place to start.

Poor countries, bereft of infrastructure and even the most basic services, are rich in opportunities.  Everything that developed nations take for granted is still required.  From the simplest laundry to the most sophisticated medical services; all of these have yet to be formulated and the market is wide open to any of these businesses.

Yet few businesses, except the most basic of retailers, are present.  Could it be that the people of desperately poor places do not want these things?  If that were true then they cannot be poor, for poverty is defined as being unwillingly without.  If they do want it and it is not there then why not?

There are plenty of ideas and support for people looking for opportunities.  If countries remain impoverished then it must be that the circumstances there favour poverty.  Either through government policies that prevent investment, or corruption and legal practice that terrorises business owners, or even that people choose it.

It is a statement that could earn heaps of abuse for this writer but, ultimately, perhaps it is that the poor of the world are destitute because they choose it for themselves.

Populist governments in poor countries have so degraded their economies - through neglect, incompetence, or outright corruption - that homegrown entrepreneurs and innovators have left.  Then, like a one-way gate, they deny entrance to foreigners wanting to bring in new ideas for fear that they will take away opportunities for themselves.  

The corruption and incompetence of these incumbent governments is usually supported in one way or another by the majority.  It is in their hands to change the way they are governed – outsiders (as the US discovered in Iraq) cannot bring about dramatic change.

There is no shortage of opportunities or ideas.  Developing countries start from the advantaged position of being able to copy the most successful ideas that have gone before.

If they’re not doing so it must be that they don’t want to.