The proportion of Rwanda's population living in poverty dropped from 57 percent in 2006 to 45 percent in 2011, according to data released Tuesday. "We are happy with the valuable progress we have seen in these numbers," President Paul Kagame told the an attendance of around 500 diplomats, aid workers and officials gathered in Kigali to review the data.

"But we are also aware there is more work to be done, not less."The effect of genocide-scarred Rwanda's rapid climb off the bottom of world poverty rankings is being felt in a wide range of sectors from education to public health, the statistics showed.

The data also showed that contraceptive use jumped to 45 percent in 2011 from 25 just three years earlier. Infant mortality, meanwhile, dropped to 50 per 1,000 live births in 2011. Primary school completion rates for 2011 reaching 79 percent for boys and 82 percent for girls, far surpassing Rwanda's targets, while secondary school enrollment doubled between 2006 and 2011.

"While it has been the shared dream of all Rwandans, few could have foreseen the speed with which our country is moving from widespread poverty to development and prosperity," Rwandan Finance Minister John Rwangombwa said in a statement.

"We are determined to redouble our efforts so that this great progress continues unabated.""These results are a major milestone in the long-term vision of the country," Clay Parker, Managing Director of Bridge2Rwanda, an NGO focused on sustainable economic development and leadership, told AFP.

"Rwanda has shown strong commitment to setting a standard, starting with the well-being of its people. I believe these strategies can and will be replicated by many of the world's poorest countries."

According to International Monetary Fund figures, real GDP growth in Rwanda is expected to reach 8.8 percent for 2011, higher than previously expected, and up from 7.5 percent the previous year.

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Alberta could save billions of dollars per year if it took steps to reduce poverty, according to a report released Monday by a Calgary not-for-profit group. With as many as 400,000 people in Alberta living below the poverty line — 150,000 in Calgary — taxpayers are on the hook for over $9 billion per year in related social costs, says Vibrant Communities Calgary.

The agency’s report, titled “Poverty Costs: an economic case for a preventative poverty reduction strategy in Alberta”, concludes that, on a cost-benefit basis, “investing in poverty prevention would be much less costly in the long run than spending to alleviate poverty in perpetuity.”Vibrant Communities Calgary director Dan Meades said it makes economic sense for governments to focus more on reducing poverty.

Alberta is one of only three provinces that has not created a poverty reduction strategy, according to the organization. “If I were to be speaking with the premier I'd certainly ask her if ... the social policy framework that she is developing, I'd ask if that has a specific poverty reduction strategy in it,” he said.

Rising child poverty in Alberta is particularly disturbing, the report says. It is nearing the highest rate in five years, with 73,000 children living in poverty — 34,000 under the age of six. The report also challenges government leaders to reject what it calls a myth: “that poverty is mostly about individual choices rather than the systems we create in our societies.”

“If we are ever to truly understand poverty, we must acknowledge it as an issue that exists within the systems that we have collectively created; when poverty persists, it is an indictment of those systems,” the report says.

“Poverty and income inequality hurt the bottom line for all of us — economically and socially. Recent research in Canada suggests that we are taking the more expensive route by focusing disproportionately on poverty alleviation at the expense of poverty prevention, whereas both are critical to reducing the number of people in poverty in the long-run,” the report says.

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Ontario’s 2008 pledge to fight child poverty can’t be sacrificed in the name of provincial austerity, says a new report being released Monday. On the eve of economist Don Drummond’s expected call for dramatic public spending cuts, anti-poverty activists are urging Queen’s Park to help low-income families by increasing the minimum wage and making new investments in child care, affordable housing and welfare reform.

“If the Ontario government wants to stay on track and reduce child poverty, it has to see poverty reduction as a priority, a key consideration in public sector decision making,” says Ontario Campaign 2000, in its annual report.

The province’s child poverty rate dropped to 14.6 per cent in 2009, down from 15.2 per cent a year earlier, according to the latest available data from Statistics Canada. But about 393,000 Ontario children — or one in seven — were still living in poverty, the report notes.

The report lauds the province for introducing programs such as the $92-a-month Ontario Child Benefit and raising the minimum wage to $10.25 an hour. As a result, some 19,000 children have escaped from poverty. But those gains threaten to be lost if Queen’s Park shifts its focus now, the report warns.

“Far too many children live in poverty and with the forthcoming cuts in the public sector, many more may end up being worse off,” said Alizeh Hussain, campaign co-ordinator. “Unless positive changes are made to current public programs — changes that look to help people rather than cut costs — the rate of child poverty will rise, making life worse for those who are most vulnerable,” she added.

At least 71,000 more children must be lifted out of poverty to meet the province’s goal of cutting child poverty by 25 per cent by 2013, the report says. Bridget Perrier, an Ojibwa from Thunder Bay who moved to Toronto 12 years ago, knows what it is like to raise her children in poverty.

She and her family live on about $1,700 a month in child benefits and the Ontario Disability Support Plan. But she refuses to use food banks or line up for charity Christmas hampers. “There is the shame. It is embarrassing,” says the 35-year-old mother of three who struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder from a terrible childhood and adolescence.

“I go without so that my children don’t have to.”Perrier often misses meals, she doesn’t own a winter coat and forgoes make-up so her 18-year-old daughter in high school can afford it.

But Perrier cherishes child care and affordable housing. Child care “saved my life,” she said, describing how it helped when she first arrived in the city with her daughter, Rose Briar, now 12. Her tidy two-bedroom apartment in a First Nations housing development is her “pride and joy.”

“I am moving out of poverty thanks to thee kinds of supports,” she says. “But I already see how things have gotten worse since I first came here. I worry for others.”

Path to poverty reduction

 • Make poverty reduction a priority in provincial budget.

 • Hike hourly minimum wage to $11 in 2012 and index it to inflation.

 • Make recommended improvements to welfare rules immediately while awaiting Social Assistance Review Commission's final report this summer.

 • Allocate $287 million in emergency funding to stop hundreds of daycares from closing due to chronic underfunding and all-day kindergarten.

 • Improve long-term affordable housing strategy with targets and timetables.

Source: Ontario Campaign 2000

The face of child poverty in Ontario

 • One in seven children live in poverty. (14.6 per cent LIM after tax)

 • About 148,000 children live in families that rely on food banks.

 • One in three low-income children lives in a family where at least one parent works full-time.

 • A lone parent family on welfare lives about $9,000 below the poverty line.

 • Just one in five children has access to licensed child care.

 • About 150,000 households are waiting for affordable housing.

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Mitt Romney says he’s not concerned about the very poor in America because they have a safety net, and that he is focusing his energies on the plight of the middle class. It would be understandable if some New Yorkers took offense at this latest gaffe in the Romney campaign.

For New York City has 1.6 million people living below the poverty line, as defined by the federal government. Presumably the views of a presidential contender can be important to them. Joel Berg of the Coalition Against Hunger told me: “We are not a partisan organization but, speaking for myself, I’d say that I wish poor people could have the luxury of speaking out as frankly about Romney as he does about them.”

There’s been a large increase in poverty in America since 2008. One in seven Americans, about 1.8 million New Yorkers, is now on food stamps. Many people have been turned away from food pantries and soup kitchens, Berg says, because they simply have run out of food.
 
I asked Mary Brosnahan of the Coalition for the Homeless what she sees. “We have a record number of homeless people in the shelters," she says. "It shows how completely out of touch Romney is. A sizeable group is struggling just to survive. He says we have a safety net to protect the poor. That net will be shattered if we don’t pay attention to the needs of the poor.”Romney’s remarks touched off an uproar among Democrats and advocates for the poor and hungry.

But there’s another side to this story. The plight of the poor worsened on President Barack Obama’s watch. It would appear that, for letting down the poor, politicians of both parties deserve blame. They could do themselves proud if they both fix the safety net and help the middle class. The two are not mutually exclusive.

In this political season, when candidates and surrogates assert their devotion to religion, the words of Scripture come to mind: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

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Poverty and unemployment in resource-rich Sindh are, among others, key causes of rising crimes and bad law and order situation. Energy crisis like in other parts of the country has battered severely economic development in the province and put the wheel of economic activity in reverse gear.
 
There is, however, pressing need to launch programmes that will generate new employments, particularly in rural Sindh, where socio-economic indicators paint a gloomy picture.
 
Development experts say that while state of poverty and unemployment continue to aggravate alarmingly in Sindh, livelihood uplift programmes at all levels can help alleviate poverty as well as generate new employments to improve people’s socio-economic lives. Such livelihood programmes will have, surely, feel-good effects on socio-economic indicators and help improve law and order as well as crime situation in the province.
 
They also point out that rising food prices, poor health facilities, rise in water-borne diseases caused by contaminated drinking water and bad sanitation, slowed economic activities, bad lad and order situation, among other factors, have aggravated the state of poverty in the resource-rich Sindh.
 
Inadequate access to health and education facilities, safe drinking water and sanitation and consequent rise in water-borne diseases have contributed to deepen poverty and living standards of the people in different parts of the province, the speakers highlighted.
 
Such views were expressed at “Enhance Livelihood, Reduce Poverty” programme launched in third week of January 2012  in the poverty-hit Thatta district’s Mehar union council of the Ghorabari taluka by the Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment (SCOPE).
 
Riaz Hussain Sherazi, noted political leader and son of Sindh Assembly member Ijaz hussain Sherazi, said that such livelihood development programmes in Sindh’s poverty-hit districts are need of the hour to fight poverty, unemployment and crime.
 
“Livelihood enhancing initiatives at all levels are much needed to help poor people of the province improve their socio-economic conditions.  Poverty is major cause of bad health and education facilities in most of the province and; thus, improvement in livelihood will be of great help for the poor people means improvement in health and education profile of the people,” he said.
 
Riaz Hussain Sherazi remarked that provincial government welcomes such initiatives of local NGOS as being taken by the SCOPE for fighting poverty and livelihood enhancement.

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Punjab Chief Minister, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has said that due to polio of corruption, poverty and unemployment has increased. He said that wrong policies of corrupt rulers have caused serious crises of electricity and gas which have badly affected industries and other sectors of the country.

He said had a planning been made for generating energy from coal and bagasse instead of running after the projects of rental power for the last four years, the country would not have been plunged into darkness. He said that country is rich in resources but the policies of rulers based on greed, selfishness and dishonesty have brought the country at the verge of disaster. He said that Punjab government is making efforts for achieving the target of hundred percent elimination of polio from the province and expressed the hope that we will definitely succeed to achieve this goal.

He was talking to media-men on the occasion of inauguration of a 3-day polio campaign in the province here today. Member National Assembly Hanif Abbasi, representative of World Health Organization Dr. Debra Betal, representatives of UNICEF, Secretary Health, Director General Health Services and officials of Health Department were also present on this occasion.

Talking to media-men, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said that polio has been eliminated in most countries of the world but the disease of polio is still existed in some countries, and, unfortunately, Pakistan is also included in these countries. He said that Punjab government is making strenuous efforts for completely eliminating polio from the province for the last three and a half years and the campaign of eradication of polio has yielded positive results.

He disclosed that Punjab province is taking lead in controlling polio and target of hundred percent elimination of polio from the province will definitely be achieved. He asked all stakeholders and civil society to extend helping hand to the government for achieving the target of elimination of polio.
The Chief Minister said that besides disease of polio, elimination of polio of corruption is utmost essential which has caused crises of gas and electricity and due to energy crises, industries are closing and lakhs of labourers are becoming jobless. He said had the sincere effort made for overcoming the energy crises, there would not have been a difference of 5000 mega watt in supply and demand.
He said that vast reserves of coal are available in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa and Balochistan. He said that had a policy evolved in consultation with industrialists, investors and experts for generating energy from coal, there would have been generating 3500 mega watt electricity through coal.

He said that there are 72 sugar mills in Pakistan and had a policy of generating electricity through bagasse made in consultation with owners of sugar mills then about 2500 mega watt electricity would have been generated through it and we would not have been spent foreign exchange of billion dollars on the import of oil.

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Child abuse and neglect in Berrien County jumped 19 percent over the decade while more than half of Berrien K-12 children now qualify for free and reduced price lunches, the latest Kids Count in Michigan Data Book concludes.

Michigan’s long economic struggle is reflected in the new Kids Count findings. Children qualify for school-based meals if their family income is 185 percent of poverty or less. Studies confirm that families need income of about 200 percent of poverty – at least $44,226 for a family of four – to cover basic needs without assistance. Poverty also drives up neglect cases.

“The findings show that kids in Berrien County and across Michigan are still suffering the fallout from our long recession,” said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, the Kids Count in Michigan director at the Michigan League for Human Services. “Poverty in Michigan is as big a threat to our children today as polio was to a previous generation. Fortunately, we can do something about this. We know that public policy can improve children’s social and economic environment.”

This year’s report,  Health Matters, focuses on child health and the role the social and economic factors in children’s lives play in good health.

The annual Data Book is released by the Kids Count in Michigan project. It is a collaboration between the Michigan League for Human Services, which researches and writes the report, and Michigan’s Children, which works with advocates statewide to disseminate the findings. Both are nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organizations concerned about the well-being of children and their families. The report ranks counties on 16 indicators of child well-being (with No. 1 being the best), though data is not available to rank smaller counties on all 16.

County figures
Berrien County’s best ranking was 11th out of 39 counties for teen deaths with a rate of 47 deaths per 100,000 teens compared with a statewide rate of about 56. The county’s worst ranking was No. 70 for births to teens, ages 15 to 19, with a rate of about 48 births per 1,000 teens compared with a statewide rate of 33.

State figures
Statewide, the biggest improvements were in the area of education with fewer students considered not proficient in math and among adolescents with fewer births to teens, fewer teen deaths and fewer high school dropouts.

Michigan saw a small improvement in infant mortality from 2000 to 2009, although African American infants have triple the risk of mortality than that of white infants. There was also a 25 percent improvement in the rate of child deaths over the decade with 318 children (ages 1 to 14) dying in 2009, down from 471 in 2000.

Worsening trends included the rate of children confirmed as victims of abuse and neglect, which rose 34 percent statewide over the decade. In 2010, 32,500 Michigan children were confirmed victims with four out of every five suffering from neglect.

In 2010, almost half of K-12 public school students (46.5 percent) qualified for free or reduced price lunch, jumping from 36.2 percent in 2006. The percent of children living in poverty jumped from 14 percent to 23 percent between 2000 and 2009.

Even more startling is the rate of children living in extreme poverty – roughly less than $11,000 a year for a family of four – jumped from 5 percent of children to 11 percent. That means that more than one in every 10 kids in Michigan is living in extremely desperate circumstances, living at half the poverty level.

Consequences
Children growing up in poverty face lifelong consequences. They are less likely to graduate and more likely to suffer from heart disease, obesity and high blood pressure as adults.

“The impact of high unemployment and declining wages is leaving its mark on a generation of children,” said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, the Kids Count in Michigan director at the Michigan League for Human Services. “Unfortunately, policymakers have cut family supports aimed at blunting the impact of the economic downturn on kids.”

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THE Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) says the cost of living in Zambia is still high, despite the inflation rate being stable in 2011. JCTR information officer Twaambo Kanene-Mwale says the Basic Needs Basket (BNB) analysis for 2011 shows that the cost of living remained consistently over K2.9 million for an average family of six.

Mrs Kanene-Mwale said this in a statement issued in Lusaka at the weekend. “When the inflation rate is stable, it is expected that the purchasing power will also remain stable. However, while 2011 was a good year at a macro-economic level, at a micro level the cost of living remained high and this may be exacerbated by the debt crisis with the Kwacha weakening and a decline in purchasing,” Mrs Kanene-Mwale said.

She said Zambia has experienced profound improvements in macro-economic performance in the last decade, having recently attained middle-income status. Mrs Kanene-Mwale said there has been consistent improvement in gross domestic product at six percent in 2011 and a drastic stability in the inflation rate from around 30 percent in 2000, to an average of 7.2 percent in 2011.

The minimum cost for an average family of six to meet basic needs was K2.9 million for the month of December and the JCTR December release projects the cost of food items at K818, 750 and the cost of essential non-food items at about K2 million for Lusaka residents. She said Zambians should begin to realise the benefits of macroeconomic improvements, especially in relation to inflation, with a commensurate reduction in the price of commodities. Mrs Kanene-Mwale said a stable inflation rate reduces the severity of the impact of economic recession, allowing the labour market to adjust to changes.

He said the Patriotic Front (PF) government should sustain the economic gains of the last decade and remain fully cognisant of the practical anxieties of global developments on the average Zambian. Mrs Kanene-Mwale said the cost of living in Zambia continues to be high with an estimated poverty rate of 60 percent and in December, the price of mealie meal and bread reduced nominally.

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A young girl named Heman, daughter of the late Ratan Kumar, has been training to become a beautician for the last one month, and now feels that she has learnt enough to start practicing. All the members of the family — her six sisters, two brothers and mother — work in different professions to provide the family with financial stability.

“I started training a month ago along with 30 other girls. In the beginning, we used to practice with a learning group on how to set hair styles and apply mehndi and make-up. But now we’ve convinced some of our female relatives to participate. Some are reluctant, and fear we may upset their natural hairstyle and face, while there are others who are keen to cooperate,” she explains.

Sharing her previous working experience, she says “before I started learning here, I used to stitch old clothes”. Young girls belonging to the congested and socially neglected area of Ghera Basti, which is located in Hyderabad city and is comprises some 450 households, probably never imagined that one day they would have access to a beauty and sewing coaching centre where they could learn skills to find alternative sources of income. After living in a deplorable atmosphere for generations, the youth – both male and female — have joined hands to try and create some kind of economic stability and prosperity in the area.

The men sell odd items in the streets of Karachi and Hyderabad, such as glass jars, plastic buckets and tubs, in exchange for old clothes and shoes. The women alter and redesign old clothes and shoes, and make them ready for resale.

The Sindh Agriculture Forest Workers Coordinating Organisation (SAWFCO), in collaboration with UN-Women, is responsible for setting up this vocational training centre. Their goal is to help strengthen the economic status of home-based boutiques and garment alteration workers in a non-formal arrangement.

Not only do these women go to the centre to procure different skills, they also attend training workshops for “home-based workforces” to build their confidence and awareness.

Before Heman reaches the centre every day, she helps family members alter and press old clothes that are then sold in the market. In reply to a query, she said quite confidently: “I would prefer to hunt for a suitable job in the local market so I can continue marketing my skills.”

She believes that all women, especially young girls, love being beautified; hence, she thinks there is substantial demand for such work in the city neighbourhoods.

Roshni, who is deaf and dumb, is lauded by many as being the most competent worker at the centre. Roshni’s teacher, Azeema, gave her high praise, saying that her interest in learning is evident in the amount of concentration she puts in her work.

Roshni has also learned a number of additional skills, such as embroidery and ornament-making, which uses to make products that she then sells in the local market. Her husband brings her lots of old clothes from Karachi, which she alters and then sells on the local market.

Beautician trainer Hassan Zareen told us that all the women at the centre are learning various skills such as bleaching, facials, threading, hair styling, make-up, mehndi design and facial cleansing.

Shabana Imtiaz, the leader of the SAWFCO team, says that there are 85 girls enrolled in the home-based working programme, 25 girls training to become beauticians, and another 60 who are learning stitching and embroidery. They have formed five groups comprising 17 girls each.

Imtiaz believes that they all the students have potential, but since they have been living in an uncertain atmosphere for such a long time, they are reluctant to share their issues with others. It is only after multiple training sessions that some of them begin opening up to outsiders.

The organisation had initially donated sewing machines and material, but a number of women are already involved in similar work in their homes and already have such machines for alteration of old clothes. But, they say, preparing new dresses needs more care and skill as compared to just making alterations.

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Now that snow and cold weather have finally arrived, we will again have public conversations about shelters, food banks, and general poverty. It seems that those conversations have been heard as a matter of course in B.C. during the past few years.

Here's what we still know about the province: the child poverty rate in B.C. has reached 12% again and is the highest in Canada for the eighth consecutive year; the overall poverty rate in B.C. is the highest in Canada with more than half a million people living in poverty in 2009; and single mothers, aboriginal people and people with disabilities have historically been some of the most susceptible to poverty, but are now accompanied by more and more other groups.

Here's what we know about Nanaimo: more than 5,000 residents used food banks in Nanaimo this Christmas; there were 695 shelter "stays" in Nanaimo just between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31; there are seven (of 16) census areas in Nanaimo where more than 10% of families have members living in poverty (two areas have more than 20%); and the majority of other residents struggling under the weight of poverty tend to fly under the public radar, but are suffering nonetheless and falling farther and farther behind.

Here's what we also know: Despite these staggering numbers over many years, B.C. is one of only three provinces in Canada that still does not have a comprehensive poverty reduction plan. You would think that there would be a province-wide political will to provide the poor with real opportunities to better their own lives with a charitable act of a civilized, caring society.

Failing that, however, you would hope that there would be a desire to help because of a realization that helping the poor actually helps the entire community. A recent, comprehensive study on poverty even speaks the language of our government and points out that helping the poor also makes good economic sense.

The study I'm referring to, The Cost of Poverty in B.C., was completed and presented to the CCPA in July by Iglika Ivanova, an economist and researcher. In short, Ivanova points out that the costs of ignoring rampant poverty are far greater than the costs of preventing it.

Just one part of the lengthy study reveals, for example, that poverty is largely accompanied by poor nutrition, poor or non-existent housing, little opportunity for dental care, vision care, prescription drugs, and so on.

The result? A disproportionately high use of other health services, such as acute care, costing about $1.2 billion annually. Another part of the study points out that "the biggest cost of poverty comes in the form of lost productivity and foregone earnings."

It points out that finding a way to increase household incomes to only $33,500 would inject $6.2 billion into the GDP in B.C., reducing the drain on employment insurance and other social support programs and help to boost local economies.

In other words, after revealing a wide variety of the costs that poverty inflicts either directly on provincial confers or indirectly through a variety of social consequences, the study shows that it makes good economic sense to finally build a plan to reduce poverty in our neighbourhoods.

It crunches the numbers and predicts an $8-$9 billion benefit to the provincial treasury and society in general, a twofold return on the cost of actually investing in a good plan.

The fact that the province did little to help the disadvantaged even during strong economic times is both telling and troubling. It suggests a blind adherence to an ideology that has little to do with fact-based policymaking, which is in the best interest of communities.

Hopefully this study is causing them to think in a different way. - Kim Slater is a retired Nanaimo educator and seniors' advocate. His next column will appear on Feb. 3.

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