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© The Agricultural Ecomomics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists 2005
point de vuebyNigel Poole
Poverty, Inequality And Ethnicity: A Note to Policy Makers on Latin America
Pauvreté, inégalité et appartenance ethnique: note pour les décideurs sur l’Amérique latine
Armut, Ungleichheit und ethnische Merkmale: eine Anmerkung zu Lateinamerika für Politikakteure
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© The Agricultural Ecomomics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists 2005
This article refl ects on the impact of
the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) in tackling global poverty,
and then discusses inequality, thereby
drawing attention to poverty in
regions of the world that on average
are ‘less poor’ according to the ‘one-
dollar-a-day’ poverty threshold. The
focus moves to Latin America, where
poverty and inequality are closely
related to ethnicity and, in the face of
declining assistance, argues for more,
not less, commitment from policy
makers to tackling poverty and the
‘ethnic gap’.
‘One dollar a day’: the MDGs
The problem of poverty moved
towards the centre of the
international policy arena during
2005: the UK Presidency of the
EU established as a priority the
development of a long-term strategy
for Africa, and this coincided with
the UK Presidency of the G8 and
the Gleneagles Summit in July,
with African development as a key
objective. The United Nations
Millennium Summit in September
2005 reiterated the international
commitment to the Millennium
Declaration which was adopted by
the UN General Assembly fi ve years
previously, and focused, with limited
success, on global poverty reduction.
In the popular arena, ‘Making
Poverty History’ has become a global
movement.
In particular, the UN Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)1 have
catalysed the interest in poverty
reduction of the general public and
the media, as well as researchers
and policy makers, in the global
commitment to, inter alia, ‘eradicate
Que ce soit par
les donateurs interna-tionaux, les autorités européennes ou non, ou encore des agences plus modestes, l’impératif de réduction de la pauvreté doit être repensé et élargi aux considé-rations d’équité….. l’ inégalité n’est pas indifférente.
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© The Agricultural Ecomomics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists 2005
extreme poverty and hunger’ (Goal
1) by the Millennium Declaration
target year 2015. This interest is
partly attributable to the simplicity
of the ‘one-dollar-a-day’ poverty
threshold, which has the considerable
attractions of ease of communication
and comprehension. Few people can
be unaware of the simple truths that,
by these agreed standards, much of
world is poor, and that global poverty
is concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia.
Other dimensions of poverty
Simplicity is sometimes problematic,
however. Firstly, poverty eradication
is only one of the eight MDG targets,
which also cover health, education,
gender, environmental and other
objectives. Secondly, to halve ‘the
proportion of the population living
on less than $1 per day’ by 2015 is
only one of the indicators of the
MDG poverty target. The others
are Indicator 2 – ‘the poverty gap
ratio’, which takes into account the
incidence and depth of poverty - and
Indicator 3 – ‘the share of national
consumption of the poorest 20 per
cent (quintile)’. These indicators
are more nuanced approaches to
assessing poverty because they
embrace elements of inequality.
Inequality matters, as well as the
absolute numbers that fall below a
particular poverty threshold, and
justifi es attention to Indicators 2
and 3 as well as the current popular
MDG indicator2. Both politically
and morally it is a short step from
inequality – unevenness in the
distribution of wealth - through
inequity – unfairness among different
sections of the population - to iniquity
– the political and moral dimension.
Inequality and poverty in Latin American
Therefore, the use of these more
nuanced approaches to poverty
assessment draws attention also
to regions of the world, which, by
the ‘one-dollar-a-day’ average, are
less poor, but where there are deep
pockets of poverty. As Besley and
Burgess note (2003), of the major
regions of the world, inequality in
income distribution is greatest in
Latin America (LA). World Bank data
accessed from the United Nations
MDG website can be used to calculate
the share of the poorest 20 per cent
in national consumption (Indicator
3). Table 1 shows for a range of 96
countries grouped into geographical
regions the percentage of national
income (or consumption) that
corresponds to the poorest quintile
(20 per cent) of the population.
The small share of the poorest 20
per cent in the 17 LA countries is
striking compared with other regional
groups. Two regions comprising 15
Sub-Saharan African countries and
two Caribbean countries are the
others to fall below the mean of the
total sample. In contrast, inequality
in the groups of European countries
is much less extreme: the poorest 20
per cent of the European groups of
countries enjoy more than twice the
share of national income of the Latin
Americans.
Poverty and inequality in Latin
America are closely linked to
another phenomenon, ethnicity: it is
among the indigenous populations
of LA countries where poverty is
concentrated. This is having political
and social consequences (Inter-
Politikakteure
aus der EU und aus anderen Ländern, die internationalen Geldgeber und kleinere Agenturen müssen aus Gründen der Fairness einen umfassenden Blick auf die Agenda zur Armutsbekämpfung wiedererlangen und beibehalten ... Ungleichheit muss ernst genommen werden.
Table 1. Mean share of poorest 20 per cent of the population in national
income/consumption (real $)
Country groupings %
17 Latin American countries (LA) 3.25
15 Sub-Saharan African countries (SSA) 5.29
2 Caribbean (CB) 5.90
Mean of the total sample of 96 countries 6.27
10 South-East/East Asian countries (SEA) 6.39
10 Middle East/North African countries (MENA) 6.74
5 Other advanced economy countries (Other advanced) 6.86
7 Central Asian countries (CA) 7.39
10 European Union countries (EU) 7.67
13 Central European countries (CE) 7.75
3 Balkan countries (BA) 8.73
4 South Asian countries (SA) 8.75
Source: Own calculations based on the most complete (1997) data from World Bank World Development Indicators: Poorest quintile's share in national income or consumption, per cent (WB) [code 29950].http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_series_results.asp?rowId=585
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© The Agricultural Ecomomics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists 2005
American Development Bank, 2004)
and therefore understanding inequity
and the ‘ethnic gap’ is timely. The
Zapatista uprising in southern Mexico
during the latter part of the 1990s
highlighted dramatically the need
for empowerment, inclusion and
equitable socio-economic policies,
and the effects continue. Indigenous
political activism is becoming
widespread, particularly in Andean
countries (Economist, 2005), and
the current (mid-2005) unrest in
Bolivia and Ecuador has an important
indigenous facet.
Declining assistance?
Despite these facts, international
interest in Latin America has declined
in recent years. For example,
according to its Latin America
Regional Assistance Plan 2004-2007,
the UK Department for International
Development is focusing its ‘main
fi nancial contribution’ of about £300
million for 2004/5-2006/7 through
multilateral agencies. Bilateral
funding for Latin America in 2005/6,
including on-going country specifi c
activities, is estimated at £11 million3.
These sums approximate to £1.30
(multilateral aid) and £0.09 (bilateral
aid) per head per annum for the
population of 132 million living on
less than $2 per day. Taking the
latest UN data of 222 million poor
would reduce these per capita aid
expenditures even further (ECLAC,
2005). Moreover, the UK Foreign
and Commonwealth Offi ce has
undertaken a global reorganisation
refl ecting ‘changing demands
and challenges, and the need to
better align our resources with our
For reasons of
equity, policy makers in the EU and elsewhere, international donors and the smaller agencies need to regain and retain a broad view of the poverty reduction agenda…inequality matters.
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Further Reading ■ Besley, T. and Burgess R. (2003). Halving Global Poverty. Journal of
Economic Perspectives 17(3): 3-22.
■ ECLAC (2005). Objetivos de desarrollo del Milenio: una mirada desde
América Latina y el Caribe. Santiago, Chile. United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL): 335.
■ Economist (2005). New Thinking About An Old Problem: Poverty In Latin
America. September 17. pp. 57-60.
■ Economist (2005). A Thin Red Line. May 21. p 59.
■ Inter-American Development Bank (2004). Strategic Framework for
Indigenous Development. Available from http://www.iadb.org/sds/IND/site_401_e.htm. Washington, DC.
■ Poole, N. D. (2004). Perennialism And Poverty Reduction: Knowledge Strategies For Tree And Forest Products. Development Policy Review 22(1): 49-74.
■ Poole, N. D. (2005). Making Markets Work For The Rural Poor (Hacer
funcionar los mercados a benefi cio de los pobres rurales). Invited paper, international conference, Reducción de la Pobreza en Centroamérica: Fortalecimiento de Servicios Técnicos, Empresariales y Financieros, 11-13 April. Turrialba, Costa Rica, CATIE (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza).
Nigel Poole
Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London - Wye Campus,
UK
Email: [email protected]
priorities…’, and so the Embassy in
Paraguay closed to the public on 30
April 2005 and UK staff left by the end
of June. Other European countries
appear to be considering similar
withdrawals.
At a time when the focus of attention
is elsewhere, it is important that Latin
America should not fall off the poverty
map: levels of poverty in LA countries,
for example, Nicaragua, are not far
removed from the levels observed in
some of the poorest SSA countries.
Such poverty is of extra signifi cance
because of the inequality with which it
is associated, and particularly because
of the disproportionately high ethnic
representation among the poorest.
Innovative forms of targeting
cash transfers to the poorest are
apparently proving to be an effective
means of poverty alleviation in
the richer LA countries with more
robust governance, such as Brazil
and Mexico (Economist, 2005). In
weaker countries such solutions
are less feasible. For many reasons
– geographic, cultural, social,
demographic - such poverty is highly
intractable, and extreme caution is
needed about espousing economic
growth and market solutions for
poverty reduction among the remote
and marginalized peoples. Social
disintegration is a consequence as
likely as economic integration into the
global markets (Poole, 2004; 2005).
Retaining a broad and radical view of the poverty agenda
For the reduction of long-term
poverty, radical solutions for the
building of social capital – health,
education, gender equality – will
probably have to be accompanied
by more radical redistribution of
productive assets, such as land, and
targeted investments in physical
infrastructure. What is most likely is
that the current international efforts
to halve between 1990 and 2015 the
proportion of people whose income
falls below the one-dollar-a-day
threshold are unlikely to touch many
of the very poor of Latin America,
especially in the poorest countries
of the region: Bolivia, Guatemala,
Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Paraguay and Suriname (ECLAC,
2005). As the more favoured areas
develop and the easier targets are
met, then the poor marginalized
peoples in Latin America – and other
regions where development is found
to increase inequality – will become
more obvious. For reasons of equity,
therefore, policy makers in the EU
and elsewhere, international donors
and the smaller agencies that follow
the trends need to regain and retain
a broad view of the poverty reduction
agenda, and stretch higher to reach
the more diffi cult targets. However
poverty reduction proceeds in other
regions of the world, more targets will
be needed in LA after 2015.
Notes
1 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
2 This will be refl ected in the subject
matter of the World Development
Report 2006. See http://www.worldbank.
org/wdr2006.
3 http://www.dfi d.gov.uk/pubs/fi les/
raplatinamerica.pdf
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summary
point de vue
point de vue
★© The Agricultural Ecomomics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists 2005
During 2005 the international policy agenda, including that of the EU,
has come to include the fi ght against global poverty. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have catalysed the interest of policy makers, public and media in poverty reduction, partly because of the simplicity and ease of communication of the ‘one-dollar-a-day’ income target for poverty reduction. However, there is more to poverty reduction than reaching the one-dollar-a-day threshold: other MDG indicators which matter are the poverty gap ratio and the share of the poorest 20 per cent in national consumption - because they are indicators not just of poverty but of inequality. Of the major regions of the world, inequality is greatest in Latin America. At a time when the focus of attention is on poverty reduction in Africa and Asia, it is important that Latin America should not fall off the poverty map. The high levels of inequality associated with Latin American poverty are politically and socially divisive, particularly because of the disproportionately high ethnic representation among the poorest. Because of the geographic, cultural, social, demographic context, such poverty is highly intractable. For reasons of equity, therefore, EU researchers and policymakers need to retain a broad view of the poverty-reduction agenda.
Armut, Ungleichheit und ethnische Merkmale: eine Anmerkung zu Lateinamerika für Politikakteure
Poverty, Inequality And Ethnicity: A Note to Policy Makers on Latin America
Au cours de l’année 2005, en Union européenne comme ailleurs,
la lutte contre la pauvreté s’est trouvée inscrite à l’ordre du jour de la politique internationale. Les objectifs du « millénaire pour le développement » (OMD) ont catalysé l’intérêt des décideurs, des média et du public pour la réduction de la pauvreté, en partie grâce à la simplicité du slogan qui fi xe à « un dollar par jour » l’objectif de revenu minimum à atteindre. Pourtant, la réduction de la pauvreté ne peut se limiter à passer ce seuil de un dollar par jour . D’autres indicateurs de l’OMD tout aussi importants à considérer sont l’écart moyen au seuil de pauvreté, et la part des 20 per cent les plus pauvres dans la dépense nationale, parce qu’il ne s’agit pas là seulement d’indicateurs de pauvreté, mais aussi d’inégalité. L’Amérique latine, de toutes les régions du globe, est celle où l’inégalité est la plus grande. A l’heure où la réduction de la pauvreté se focalise sur l’Afrique et l’Asie, il ne faudrait donc pas que l’Amérique latine sorte de l’épure. Les divisions politiques et sociales qui résultent des énormes inégalités associées à la pauvreté en Amérique latine tiennent en particulier aux déséquilibres ethniques que l’on observe dans les catégories les plus pauvres. Dans un tel contexte géographique, culturel, social et démographique, la pauvreté est complètement insoluble. C’est donc sur la base de l’équité que les chercheurs et les décideurs européens doivent défi nir une vision élargie de l’impératif de réduction de la pauvreté.
Im Jahre 2005 ist der Kampf gegen die weltweite Armut in die
internationale Politikagenda ⎯ auch in die der EU ⎯ aufgenommen worden. Die Millenniumsentwicklungsziele (Millennium Development Goals, MDG) haben das Interesse der Politikakteure, der Öffentlichkeit und der Medien auf die Armutsbekämpfung gerichtet; dies liegt zum Teil an der unkomplizierten Kommunikation des Einkommensziels von einem US-Dollar am Tag zur Armutsbekämpfung. Zur Bekämpfung der Armut ist jedoch weit mehr erforderlich als das Überschreiten des Schwellenwertes von einem US-Dollar am Tag: Weitere bedeutende MDG-Indikatoren sind die Armutslücke (Häufi gkeit und Tiefe der Armut) und der Anteil der ärmsten 20 Prozent der Bevölkerung am nationalen Verbrauch, da es sich bei diesen nicht nur um Indikatoren für Armut, sondern ebenfalls um Indikatoren für Ungleichheit handelt. Ungleichheit ist vor allen anderen Regionen der Welt in Lateinamerika am weitesten verbreitet. In einer Zeit, wo die Armutsbekämpfung in Afrika und Asien im Mittelpunkt steht, darf Lateinamerika nicht in Vergessenheit geraten. Das hohe Maß an Ungleichheit, welches mit der Armut in Lateinamerika einher geht, schafft politische und soziale Uneinigkeit, insbesondere weil die Ureinwohner unverhältnismäßig stark unter den Ärmsten vertreten sind. Eine solche Armut ist auf Grund des geografi schen, kulturellen, sozialen und demografi schen Zusammenhangs sehr hartnäckig. Daher müssen Forscher und Politikakteure aus der EU aus Gründen der Fairness einen umfassenden Blick auf die Agenda zur Armutsbekämpfung beibehalten.
Pauvreté, inégalité et appartenance ethnique: note pour les décideurs sur l’Amérique latine
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