Some realities of poverty alleviation

The full economic impact the drought has had so far this year on the 28.5% agricultural community is not fully known. In a similar way, we do not know the full extent of damage the drought has caused to the vulnerable communities in the south and north-east. In the north-east vulnerability caused by years of war induced poverty have remained unaddressed and thus natural disasters create further trauma in the lives of these communities – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

By Frances Bulathsinghala

The year 2017 which began nobly with President Maithripala Sirisena dedicating it as the ‘Year of Poverty Alleviation’ was soon enough engulfed with drought, muck-slides, mudslides and floods. As is always the case, it is the low-income-earning strata who are mainly affected. 

The full economic impact the drought has had so far this year on the 28.5% agricultural community is not fully known. In a similar way, we do not know the full extent of damage the drought has caused to the vulnerable communities in the south and north-east. In the north-east vulnerability caused by years of war induced poverty have remained unaddressed and thus natural disasters create further trauma in the lives of these communities. 

When a section of society is thus affected and often out of the eye of the general development discourse (usually happening in the form of conferences and events in five star resorts) it provides a base for a human calamity and unrest that may slowly but surely be simmering but without an immediate indication of how disastrous the result will be. 

Samurdhi program

In this background we have had this year the debate about the future of Samurdhi – the main social welfare program of the country which commenced with effect from 1 February 1996. Samurdhi was the new life given to the Janasaviya program which had been launched in 1989 with the intention of making households sustainable economic units. 

Despite progress in increasing life expectancy and reducing rates of child mortality between the 1980s and 1990s, amidst a gradual increase of the country’s GNP per capita, poverty remained a social problem in Sri Lanka with poverty rates hovering in the mid-nineties at a level of around 25%. Within this context, the revised social welfare scheme under the name of Samurdhi was launched in 1995, aiming to reduce poverty through the participation of the individual and community. 

Following the makeover the Samurdhi program had seen over the years, it’s salient features today consists of two main components – the relief and empowerment – but the idealism is lost in the reality that has seem rampant politicisation of the program. 

Over the years both the beneficiaries and the Samurdhi officers were often seen being used as pawns in the political game of misuse of power at every election campaigning. Thus instead of poverty alleviation and a vibrant capacity building through skills development training, what was frequently witnessed was a merging of politicisation, dependency and what could be described as poverty perpetuation. 

Capacity building

The holistic intention of Samurdhi was to make it a stimulating cure against poverty by focusing on economic assistance alongside capacity building, training and entrepreneurial assistance. However the reality is that there is no conscious effort to raise the bar on providing innovative training and assistance that will make a significant change among Samurdhi recipients and dissuade them from the syndrome of dependency. 

There is ample scope to tie up diverse initiatives carried out by different government ministries and departments with the Samurdhi scheme, according to suitability alongside interventions by the private sector and non-governmental agencies. 

Although the Samurdhi scheme links diverse sectors, ranging from agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, small scale industries and the service sector; with these being promoted as small and medium scale entrepreneurship ventures among beneficiaries, the question that needs to be raised is concerning the capacity building pertaining to the quality, consistency, sustainability and required marketing strategies of these initiatives. 

It is certainly about time that the private sector is made to involve itself in a tangible and innovative manner in supporting and encouraging small and medium scale business ventures within the framework of Samurdhi. If the social welfare scheme is to be moulded on progressive lines, aimed at consciously getting people out of the hurdle of poverty through the provision of income earning opportunity, it is indeed vital that the social responsibility of the private sector is tapped. If implemented supported by viable means to monitor and evaluate the skill based economic development of persons, such steps would create a more inclusive society where the social gap caused by poverty could inch closer. 

Effective strategy lacking

One of the main challenges at present in the Samurdhi scheme is the lack of an effective strategy of monitoring and evaluation. This makes it impossible to assess how the program has actually helped individuals to come out of poverty. 

As many ground level interviews show, a person who has been getting Samurdhi assistance for, say around 10 years or so, may get cut off from the list but he or she may often find fault with officials for doing so, without voluntarily wanting to get out of being dependent on social welfare. This indicates a directionless sense of dependency. 

There is at present no mechanism to show whether the person’s overall economic wellbeing or capacity to undertake an entrepreneurial venture has improved owing to assistance received through Samurdhi. The current monetary assistance provided are in the range of Rs. 3,500 for a family of more than five members, Rs. 2,500 for a family of three to four members and 1,500 for a family of one to two members. 

The overall debate continues whether some of those who get Samurdhi are actually low wage earners, with no clear, realistic and updated indication as to what ‘low income’ benchmark is. With a labourer getting an average of at least between Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 per day it is necessary to update and realistically define the basic wage a low income earner would get per month. 

The Samurdhi survey embarked on in early 2016 (at a cost of over hundred million rupees) to ascertain comprehensive details pertaining to the scheme’s benefits and the impact on beneficiaries, was abandoned this year by the government following protests from beneficiaries. From the point of view of beneficiaries and also some Samurdhi officials, the survey that had been undertaken at such a massive cost, had not taken the needed care to ensure that it is done on a scientific basis. 

Banishing poverty

For poverty to be fully banished, individual responsibility and attitudinal change is needed alongside the government and the private sector involvement to enable opportunity that will close the gap between the haves and the have-nots. 

Although Sri Lanka has among the lowest extreme poverty rates among countries in the region, with 1.8% of the population being estimated to be extremely poor in 2013, the living standards remain low, as nearly 45% of the population lived on less than $5 per day in 2013, according to World Bank statistics. 

According to a World Bank study Samurdhi transfers are too small to make a large impact on poor households’ budgets, as they contributed only 1.7% to household consumption of the poorest 20% of the population in 2012/13. In this context, it is mandatory that banishing poverty becomes a responsibility of all; those who are poor, those who are not poor and the State and other non-State agencies. 

For successful profit making ventures, it should be an everyday task to create a new paradigm of profit sharing for the social wellbeing of those less fortunate by creating neither a base for exploitation or dependency but that which will genuinely raise motivation, human capability and skill while also raising the ‘human quality’ of the business organisation concerned. 

Acutely-vulnerable left out

In the Samurdhi scheme as is implemented today, many groups, such as female-headed households, the disabled, the elderly and destitute, continue to remain outside of it and other State-funded social welfare programs. 

In December last year this newspaper published an article by this writer based on field interviews in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu which showed that many of those who are in acutely-vulnerable situations such as being disabled, widowed, located outside town centres and living with extended families on account of losing their houses and livelihood in the war, have received little or no State assistance and are often not beneficiaries of the Samurdhi scheme.

The article titled ‘Voices from the margins of the North’ also looked at how war-affected people had built up their lives through new businesses when they had received assistance from international agencies but pointed to the fact that most of the people eligible to get this assistance were those already having property and business experience. A large majority of people, including women heading households alone and living in stark poverty were not recipients of any scheme of post war assistance.

Extensive travel in the north, especially to interior areas, showed that there is a chasm between Sri Lanka’s Central Government driven top-down post-war approach which displays a lack of comprehensive understanding on what is needed by families severely affected by 30 years of war coupled with attitudinal lethargy that has prevented a proper systemised interaction with the people to find out what is needed. 

This lack of a systemised interaction with the poor is the poverty of the poverty alleviation programs in this country and needs to be rectified. For this, corruption and politicisation needs to be operated on first to ensure that they do not hinder the economic and social upliftment provided through social welfare programs and thereby ensure that social unrest is prevented.