POVERTY REDUCTION VS. POVERTY ALLEVIATON

Poverty reduction is the process of physically removing or liberating people from the poverty line, while poverty alleviation is the function of making life more bearable for those who are living below the poverty line. While these two concepts are clearly distinct from each other, the government has apparently not officially recognized the differences between them, and this is probably the reason why measurable targets for these two objectives are not properly set and met as well.

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For the record, the leftist movement in the Philippines has formally debunked the thinking or proposition of the government that the delivery of public services is part and parcel of poverty alleviation, arguing that this is a usual and normal function or duty of the government, and should not be considered as a specific or dedicated poverty alleviation measure. In a similar vein, the government also argues that the construction of farm to market roads is part of building safety nets as a “defense” for the damaging effects of globalization, but clearly, this too is a normal function of the government that is not really dedicated for this purpose.

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I am not sure if I am the only one advocating the idea of localizing the function of “poverty management”, but as far as I know, no one else seems to be espousing it publicly. As a matter of fact, the government is not even officially using “poverty management” as an applied terminology; much less recognize it as a specific and dedicated function. Up to now, the government is still measuring poverty in a centralized manner, and there seems to be no awareness or appreciation yet about the idea of localizing the measurement.

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For quite some time now, there has been a raging debate between the proponents of the “top to bottom” approach on one hand, and the “bottom to top” approach on the other hand, in relation to development management in general. As far as I am concerned however, I am taking the side of the latter, especially in the case of poverty measurement. Admittedly, the measurement of poverty particularly with the use of the “imaginary food basket” approach is really just for planning purposes, as an aid in policy making, as many bureaucrats would often like to say. Notwithstanding this reality however, I still think that the data gathered should be as close to the “truth” as much as possible, and I think the best way to make that happen is to localize it.

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In simple layman terms, the only purpose of the “poverty line” is to find out how many people are “technically poor”, and how many are not. In this connection, it is also important to consider how many people see their own status as “perceptually poor”, especially so that according to the recent survey, about 75% of the people “see themselves” as poor. In my opinion, the government owes it to the people to rationalize the discrepancy between these two measures, more so because the discrepancy is two wide between them, i.e. 75% “perceptual poverty” versus 30% “technical poverty” as the government would like to project.

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Using only our common sense, it would be fair to say that the local government officials would actually be in a better position to determine how many people are “technically poor” in their own jurisdictions and how many are not, using a standard national method. From a practical standpoint, it would be good for these officials to get to know these data sets first hand, so that they could right away use the data in their own local decision making.

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Using my radio program as a platform for development, I am now in a position to assist private donors in implementing both “poverty reduction” projects and “poverty alleviation” projects in the localities of their choice. For a start, a local marketer of unlimited international phone cards has agreed to donate 1 dollar for every 100 dollar worth of cards that they will sell. Special thanks to OnePhilippines for this offer. Their phone card allows users to call from anywhere in the Philippines to anywhere in the world, and vice-versa, from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the Philippines, using any landline or mobile phone as much as they want, without worrying about any extra charges.

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Just for clarification, our “poverty reduction” projects will actually “liberate” people from the poverty line, by giving jobs or small businesses to them On the other hand, our “poverty alleviation” projects will aim to make the condition of poverty more bearable, by giving poor people access to basic services such as clean potable water and affordable medicines.

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Hopefully, the local governments could contribute to the delivery of these projects, probably using their Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs), since the law requires them to allocate 20% of these funds for local development purposes. Although their help would be welcome, we are still determined to push through with these projects using only private funds.