PANeL

1
PANeL

• Addressing Social Change in a positive way some
  issues to discuss
• Accra, Ghana June 2007.

2
An introduction lets start by looking BOTH at
the national level and beyond the potential for
Social Change probably the most important
challenge facing your generation

• Lack of knowledge and awareness
• Inter-regional awareness
• Cross-continent awareness
• Awareness beyond the continent
• Lets use PANeL and IT to exchange good practice
• We HAVE to decide on an agenda and keep to it

3
An introduction some internal factors

• Building Capacity and releasing potential
• Interaction section of www.johnbirchall-economist.
  com this might serve as a core from which we
  can build our own resource base. Here you will
  find resource documents on such topics
• Working Papers
• -Building Self Confidence-Conflict
  Resolution-Developing Personal
  skills-Developing Value Systems-Leadership
  Training-

4
Working Papers - 2

• -Poverty Reduction Schemes-Strategic
  Thinking-Global Economic Trends-Critical
  Thinking-Identity-Multiculturalism-Democracy-R
  ights-Politics and Pluralism-What Progress is
  being made towards the millennium goals?
  --Diaspora
• Lets think about HOW the talents and resources
  of the continent can be released and the
  challenges you will face as you address these
• What are the major factor that contribute to
  problems so many African face and how might we
  address these? For when we speak of social change
  we are really addressing the problems associated
  with poverty.
• So, what are the main contributors to the
  problems and challenges we face?

5
Towards a wider understanding

• The Road to Gleneagles G8 Summit-Issues to be
  Considered at the G8 Summit-Arms Spending In
  Africa-Useful Data Concerning Africa-Fair
  Trade-Why Some Countries Have Lost Out.-Some
  Trends in Foreign Direct Investment into
  Africa-Aid Flows Debt Relief-Make Poverty
  History-Can Globalisation Continue?-Africa, The
  Early Days-Can Africa Deliver Good
  Governance?-Where is the Challenge?-What is the
  G8?-Live 8-Monitor the G8 Summit-World Trading
  Blocks-Poor Countries and Trade
• These papers were produced to allow IA members
  across Africa to increase their knowledge of the
  issues to be discussed at Gleneagles. Alas, all
  remain relevant today

6
How might we develop similar materials for PANeL?

• As you can see modern information technology can
  easily be used to build resources that can be
  used by ALL
• However, WE all need to be prepared to contribute
  and up date all the files we build
• It could be an excellent resource base and one to
  which fellow Africans turn when they want to
  discover more about the challenges facing their
  continent.
• Now, lets get back to Poverty Reduction and see
  how we can develop ideas and resources that will
  be of use to PANeL members and others working in
  similar fields to members.

7
Understanding Extreme Poverty

• Why do we refer to a poverty trap? We need to
  consider HOW these problems can be addressed
• Family child labour
• Illiteracy
• Lack of working capital
• Uninsurable risks
• Debt bondage
• Lack of information
• Undernutrition and illness
• Low skills
• High fertility
• Lack of science
• Farm erosion

8
Understanding Extreme Poverty - 2

• 12. Lack of collective action
• 13. Criminality
• 14. Mental health
• 15. Powerlessness
• 16. ALL make life very difficult
• 17. What else should be on this list? Please
  share your thoughts and experiences. Personal
  experiences, first hand descriptions these are
  the materials that inspire others to attempt to
  create the climate for change. Please think of
  what YOU can contribute thanks.

9
End result

• People are trapped in a vicious cycle
• They have few, if any assets
• poverty is like heat you cannot see it you can
  only feel it and to understand it you have to
  experience it Ghana 2003.
• They have little, if any access to capabilities
• Alas, they have some common characteristics
  wherever they may be.
• We need to think WHAT these are HOW they might be
  addressed.
• PANeL has to both give inspiration and develop
  aspiration within everyone that comes into
  contact with one of your projects

10
Does it really matter?

• Poverty adds to a sense of hopelessness
• Poor often cant seek meaningful employment, or
  acquire the minimum needs as perceived by their
  society/community.
• How do they acquire capital without collateral?
  What of health, life span, ability to use
  talents, communal quality of life?
• Much of this is what economists call spillovers
  and these are negative and cost society in may
  ways. However, positive externalities also exist
  and need to be explored when and wherever
  possible
• To do this we now have to add that in the opinion
  of many failure to address these inequalities
  leads to a breeding ground for terrorists and
  the asymmetric enemy
• So, none of us can afford to ignore the wide
  disparities that exist within our societies

11
The keys to capability

• Health and Nutrition so allowing adults to work
  and children to grow
• UN 2004 842 million are chronically hungry
  across planet. Takes relatively small sums to
  bring many out of this, a well fed person is
  creative and need not be apart of the formal
  economy BUT they are contributing to growing
  prosperity.

12
Health and Nutrition - 2

• We need to increase the PURCHASING POWER of poor
  and so increase their CALORIE intake. Also, CLEAN
  WATER, as to boil all supplies takes up precious
  resources BUT not to do so increases poor health.
• PHC in teacher training peer group education.
• Lets use radio, newspapers, teachers, youth
  workers etc.
• What of plays, role models and other ways of
  informing the young

13
Basic Education

• Large numbers speak indigenous and tribal
  languages only and this reduces their chances of
  learning how to read and write in a language that
  has little, if any similarity to their own. What
  of reading to gain information, filling in forms,
  demanding food services and any welfare benefits
  owing? 113 million not attending school UNDP
  2002. This is especially common amongst girls
  Millennium Goals

14
Credit

• Micro credit is a powerful tool for reducing
  poverty. Lets aim to open VILLAGE BANKS. But too
  many schemes focus on the richer rural
  population. The VULNERABILITY ratio is higher as
  you move down the income levels of the poor. By
  having access to credit they can build income and
  send children to school e.g. women and chickens
  in Ghana. By spreading risk they can gain from
  diversification but with a core of requirements
  they can gain economies of scale
• What of women only banks, or schools that open in
  the evening?

15
Credit - 2

• Need to move from subsistence to cash crops and
  generate surplus of income. That can allow them
  access to
• Better seeds
• Different strains
• Price and weather insurance
• Better means of distribution
• Collateral
• Feeder Roads

16
Access to Functioning Markets

• everyone has the right to own property alone as
  well as in association with others article 17
  of the Declaration of Human Rights, UN General
  Assembly, December 1948.
• The right to start a business, gain economic
  power and not have these in the hands of the
  elite. De-regulate markets, encourage enterprise
• What of land reform? Across developing world half
  a billion have not land security over what they
  farm.

17
Functioning Markets - 2

• When secure land rights exist farmers treat land
  as long term and NOT short term resource
• Land prices too high? In hands of few and they
  have political power. Where it has worked e.g.
  Taiwan and South Korea it has aided the boost in
  manufacturing productivity a growing primary
  sector boosts secondary sector.
• What of feeder road construction and highway
  building that allows access during all seasons
• The price mechanism working smoothly was central
  to western economic growth
• Though its excesses lead to social reforms in the
  nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

18
Access to the benefits of technology

• This is NOT just for business! What of
  contraception, medicines, high yielding crops,
  electrification, cell phones (Africa!!), job
  skills training and computer assisted learning.
• The poor need access to ways of learning new
  skills and seeing that they are capable of
  lifting themselves out of poverty. Self belief is
  an amasing human quality but its fragile and
  easily destroyed.

19
Sustainable Environment and Development

• We have met the enemy and he is us. Walt Kelly
• Rapid population growth
• Rising sea levels
• High rates of fertility
• Depletion of resources
• Urbanisation
• Empowerment is essential if living standards are
  to improve without huge negative externalities
• Social cohesion and political stability

20
Personal Empowerment

• Poverty doesnt produce unhappiness it produces
  degradation George Bernard Shaw
• Its pernicious poor have no say and feel
  inferior
• Poverty and powerlessness are two sides of same
  coin
• Too often local elites work to reinforce this
  vicious cycle.

21
Personal Empowerment - 2

• When elites benefit from the poverty of others or
  their powerlessness then they tend to perpetuate
  both.
• Coercive exploitation, sometimes enforced with
  terror
• Mental health problems, stress and a lack of self
  esteem are known effects of poverty and not the
  sole property of affluent societies
• The Aids pandemic is adding to the plight of the
  poor
• The forces causing poverty are often too large
  for individual empowerment to be sustainable. So,
  individual empowerment must take place in a
  context of a much broader empowerment of
  COMMUNITIES and this is the final part of our
  analysis.
• Look at the work of such groups as 50/50 in
  Sierra Leone

22
Community Empowerment - 1

• powerlessness corrupts. Absolute powerlessness
  corrupts absolute apologies to Lord Acton.
• Those who feel powerful are more likely to
  empower others organisational power grows when
  it is shared
• Are poor as listless as the rich often say, or is
  it that they too would like to be self critical,
  take control of their lives, take advantages of
  situations and to move out of poverty?
• So, what is power? Access to resources and
  information, the support needed to get things
  done and most importantly to get the co-operation
  of others to achieve what is the will of the
  majority.

23
Community Empowerment - 2

• Poor communities need a legitimate voice that is
  listened to by those in power, the ability to
  defend their rights and the ability to assist
  those they want to help love is not reserved
  for those with power!
• Accountability, transparency and the involvement
  of all in the democratic process

24
Community Empowerment - 3

• Arbitrary application of laws and regulation
  continue to be a factor driving poverty.
• What of a relatively simple document such as a
  birth certificate?
• How does one move forwards, claim entitlements
  without such a document? Even if they try might
  the encounter bribes, rudeness etc?
• The poor need democracy, human rights just as
  much as the rich. Amartya Sen argues that famines
  do not occur in functioning democracies because
  of the power of a free press BUT the democratic
  process and the freedom of the press to inform
  gives those in power the responsibility to do
  something.
• They are your elected representatives and do not
  hold power by a divine right

25
Community Empowerment - 4

• Empowerment supports the other keys to
  capability. These are
• Access to markets and land
• Access to education and health care
• Access to those with the funds to change things
  e.g. road building
• ALL the others we have touched on today
• Practical and effective poverty programmes dont
  just deliver a range of services they build
  capabilities and sustainable assets

26
The future

• We have briefly looked at many of the essentials
• So, what shall we do to begin the process of
  addressing these?
• Lets discuss our objectives.
• John, Accra, June 2007.