Poverty II – Lets (re)think about it.

What is “poverty”? During my stay in Bangladesh the definition of poverty was a question I had constantly in my mind.

Why is the definition of Poverty is important? Well I believe that, at least, a good understanding of it is important for the definition of who we call “poor people” and how we can contribute to alleviate “poverty”.

I believe that the concept of poverty arisen with the creation of the modern society. Where it arises the responsibility of the government/State towards the citizens, concerning several aspects like health, education and even society integration.
This concept has been globalized specially, after the Second World War, with the decolonization process and with the creation of the global organizations (EX: UN, World Bank, WTO). Creating the sense that poverty is a “world” responsibility. These organizations are the regulators and the higher entities of a world order. Concerning the poverty, all of them have a huge impact but only some take a full responsibility like the UN.

I believe, that nowadays, the definition of poverty is a global definition in a world leaded by economy, markets and interests. Today, when we think about poverty we think… People that live with less then 1 or 2 dollars per day. And we think “Incredible!!!”
But what does this mean? Are they really poor? Maybe not, maybe yes, but that doesn’t really matter. Because the concept, in a global perspective, is an external concept! This means, it categorizes people that match certain economic indicators as being… Poor.

- Ohhhh… so this means that globalization creates the concept of poverty… So we should just avoid or fight against globalization.
- The reality is that you just can’t avoid it. And because globalization creates the concept of poverty it does not mean that “problems” weren’t there before. Because poverty is a consequence of the creation of wealth. For example when you draw a circle you have a space in the circle, outside the circle and over the border you have drawn. But mainly in and out like rich and poor… and the border is the globalization! Is it confusing?

Poverty and Globalization

The creation of the concept of poverty is deeply related to the creation of a globalization that, since the early 90s, takes only the form of markets. This means that the capitalism revolutionizes the world, changing secular social structures, aiming the creation of markets. There is no space for self-sustainable communities, or “closed” countries. This is not bad or good is just a fact that creates “poverty”.

In this new order of the world the creation of the concept of poverty ignores all the different “poverties” that exist. For example: a homeless/beggar, in Dhaka is more or less poor than a man that lives in the countryside that has never seen money in his life? The answer is a cultural answer, in Bangladesh it depends on their social network. So it is not an economic answer that sees them as the same, “poor man”.
So, the consequences are that when the UN or other development organizations fund NGOs in a country like Bangladesh, they are creating changes in the structures with:
a. NGOs that create the concept of poverty – as populations realize they are poor.
b. NGOs are being agents of the creation of markets introducing money as an intermediate (Ex: Micro credit)
c. The local communities social structures change.
d. Creates a middle class in the communities – People that own and work at the NGOs
e. The NGOs usually reproduce a perspective of development of the “center” and ignore the local community specificities.
On the other hand, NGOs substitute the local government as representants of the local populations. They also develop programs in several areas like education, sanitation, women empowerment or health considering the Millennium Development Goals. These programs usually show a light but also a unidirectional way towards a standardized world designed in the offices in Geneva or New York.

What to do and conclusion!

I don’t want to generalize but I believe there is a need to reeunderstand the NGOs role in development and that can only be done with a closest link to academic Universities around the world and NGOs that can help rethinking the concept of development and poverty.

So, global poverty is a big word to represent a multiplicity of real situations of exclusion, lack of social integration, dependency, hunger etc. The economic indicators can be misguiding or erroneous conducting to a standardized approach of the world poverty, but they are enforcers of the creation of global markets and the continuation of dependencies towards global centers. On the other hand their non existence create countries or regions “excluded” from the Globalized world, that means that there will be no foreign Investment in the future, cycles of economic depression and probably political tensions and great places for weapon sellers to enforce their power. Being the armament industry one of the axes of global economy.

Confused? I am!

Faces From Nepal

Development (em ingles)

O que vou postar e um pequeno texto sobre o que o meu chefe me pediu para escrever assim que cheguei ao escritorio.

Quando cheguei as 9:02 min da manha ele chamou-me e enquanto fumava um cigarro perguntou-me:
I would like you to tell me what is your current perspective about bangladesh development sector?

Tudo isto porque no inicio fui extremamente duro no que lhe disse, especialmente pela minha experiencia na ONG em que estive antes. Sera que mudei a minha piniao?

My perspective about Bangladesh development sector (brief subjective notion)

Bangladesh development sector is a big sector. BRAC is the biggest NGO in the world with operations in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Indonesia and the European Commission gives 25% of its help to Asia to Bangladesh.

Big, medium, small NGOs seem like a must in any Bangladeshi village, that reminds me the post offices in Portugal. It is almost a “development flag” to have an NGO in a village.

My first approach to this was very critical, with a frustrating “billboard NGO” as first experience. All the idealistic perspective that there are people trying to help other people just vanished. Instead, exists a big industry that lives from the billions that “developed” countries inject in the country believing they are doing the “good”. But not being responsible about its impacts.

Than you have a whole middle class (and not so middle) that lives from this industry. This is not necessarily bad but lets look at it deeply.
In a simple way, a company that works in a “normal” industry receives money from their clients according to the product or service they deliver. So, in a competitive market with multiple players they have the incentive to understand and sophisticate their own approach and the client is, in the end, are better off.

With the NGOs the money doesn’t come from the same place where they deliver the product. So, what happens is that most of the NGOs have leaflets in English, with a copy paste from Millennium Development Goals and their “clients” don’t count for the NGO sophistication.

The real problems are just not problems... the millennium development goals create constraints to this country development. Also they create false problems that all the NGOs just multiply workshops about that not so important issue concerning the real problems of that village.

Look at this graphic. In a country like Bangladesh with so many problems, HIV for many different reasons is one of the least problem, and is insignificant compared with people that many times don’t have nothing to eat. Amazingly, in many NGOs I visited they have a program about HIV. And what they do is a workshop with some people about the ways of contamination etc. Strange...

But, isn’t it in the Millenium Development Goals!?!?!

(check it in wkipedia)


If there is a need for “development” than it should be something created in the communities, in the families, in the individuals. They have the power to say what they need.

Don’t create the poverty stigma on people!!!

There is, instead, a need to give the tools to make people dream and help people to achieve those dreams. It seems simple but it is not.
On the other hand it is easy to continue to apply development measures designed in NY or Geneva and legitimate the growth of the millions of NGOs that exist in the world. I think this designers should live in Dhaka or in a developing city.

Monon said, this is like a child: when it falls on the floor, if the mother is around he will cry until his mother comes and picks him up, but if there is no mother around the child just stands up cries a bit and continues.

What I believe is that there is a need to understand how all the NGO industry is working and understand what can be done to create platforms that really help them in their own needs. The "unleash" word.

I don’t want to put all the NGOs in the same basket but this is my general feeling about most of the professional NGOs. Anyways there are good projects, ideas, and even people that continue to give their lives to causes.

Development sector is a complicated thing by definition. And there is a big and intelligent work to do . It needs to be close to the peoples needs but for that it needs to understand who are these people, who are the poor people. Maybe the way is to drop this concept and try to start empowering people that have primary needs that cannot be fulfilled. Assuring that you are not creating a dependency system. This will take time but can be done.

Hope I have heaps of comments!!!

Obrigado andre pelo incentivo ao blog!!!