Nothing is Impossible : Together we can end Hunger and Poverty

More than 850 million people in the world are hungry. Worldwide, some estimate that 40 million people die each year because of hunger and diseases related to malnutrition -- and many of them are children!

"Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor", I do not know who said that, but it is definitely a true and interesting quote.

Looking at the scenario in India, poverty is reducing but it is still a major issue. Rural Indians depend on unpredictable agriculture incomes, while urban Indians rely on jobs that are, at best, scarce.

Since its independence, the issue of poverty within India has remained a prevalent concern. According to the common definition of poverty, when a person finds it difficult to meet the minimum requirement of acceptable living standards, he or she is considered poor. About two thirds of India’s more than 1 billion people live in rural areas, and almost 170 million of them are poor. Although many rural people are migrating to cities, three out of four of India’s poor people live in the vast rural parts of the country. For more than 21 per cent of them, poverty is a chronic condition.

The Indian government has implemented a number of programs designed to eradicate poverty, and has had some success with these programs. The government has sought to increase the GDP through different processes, including changes in industrial policies. There is also a Public Distribution System, which has been somewhat effective so far. Other programs include the Integrated Rural Development Program, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, the Training Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM) and to the credit of the government, other on-going initiatives.

Millions of people in India are unable to meet these basic standards, and according to government estimates, in 2007 there were nearly 220.1 million people living below the poverty line.Nearly 21.1% of the entire rural population and 15% of the urban population of India exists in this difficult physical and financial predicament.

While there have been advances in poverty eradication, progress is hampered by population growth, insufficient investments to address the problem and the biggest culprit: a lack of political will.

The United Progressive Alliance, the ruling coalition of the Government of India has announced the annual budget.

The budget, which outlines government spending priorities from 2008 to 2009, has sparked a heated debate in India. Analysts have raised concerns over the increase in the overall government spending, particularly for high provisions of social expenditure and the debt relief program for small farmers, which accounts for US$ 15 billion, or 1.3 percent of GDP.

Meanwhile, others claim that the increased spending in the social sector is simply a populist strategy to attract voters in the next national elections in May 2009. Furthermore, the government's cornerstone policy of containing the fiscal deficit is contingent on expanded revenues resulting from a projected growth of 8.8 percent for the fiscal year. However, unstable financial markets and high commodity prices could possibly undermine these projections and pose challenges to the government's fiscal position.

The division of resources, as well as wealth, is very uneven in India – this disparity creates different poverty ratios for different states. For instance, states such as Delhi and Punjab have very low poverty ratios. On the other hand, 40-50% of the populations in Bihar and Orissa live below the poverty line.

The poverty ratios illustrated here are divided in two types: urban and rural. Specific reasons for poverty vary in the urban and rural settings.

A number of factors are responsible for poverty in the rural areas of India. Rural populations primarily depend on agriculture, which is highly dependant on rain patterns and the monsoon season. Inadequate rain and improper irrigation facilities can obviously cause low, or in some cases, no production of crops.

Additionally, the Indian family unit is often very large, which can amplify the effects of poverty. Also, the caste system still prevails in India, and this is also a major reason for rural poverty – people from the lower casts are often deprived of a number of facilities and opportunities. The government has planned and implemented poverty eradication programs, but the benefits of all these programs have yet to reach the core of the country.

The phenomenal increase in the city populations is the main reason for poverty in the urban areas of India. A major portion of this additional population is due to the migration of the rural families from villages to cities. This migration is mainly caused by poor employment opportunities in villages. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that there are few job opportunities in the urban areas of India.

Where are India's rural poor people and who are they?

Poverty is deepest among scheduled castes and tribes in the country’s rural areas. India’s poorest people include 50 per cent of members of scheduled tribes and 40 per cent of people in scheduled castes.

On the map of poverty in India, the poorest areas lie in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal.

Large numbers of India's poorest people live in the country’s semi-arid tropical region. In these areas shortages of water and recurrent droughts impede the transformation of agriculture that the Green Revolution has achieved elsewhere. There is also a high incidence of poverty in flood-prone areas such as those extending from eastern Uttar Pradesh to the Assam plains, and especially in northern Bihar.

Poverty affects tribal people in forest areas, where loss of entitlement to resources has made them even poorer. In coastal fishing communities people’s living conditions are deteriorating because of environmental degradation, stock depletion and vulnerability to natural disasters.

Why are rural people poor?

A major cause of poverty among rural people in India is lack of access for both individuals and communities to productive assets and financial resources. High levels of illiteracy, inadequate health care and extremely limited access to social services are common among poor rural people. Micro enterprise development, which could generate income and enable them to improve their living conditions, has only recently become a focus of the government.

Women in general are the most disadvantaged people in Indian society, though their status varies significantly according to their social and ethnic backgrounds. Women are particularly vulnerable to the spread of HIV/AIDS from urban to rural areas. In 2005 an estimated 5.7 million men, women and children in India were living with HIV/AIDS. Most of them are in the 15-49 age group and almost 40 per cent of them are women.

There is more than enough food in the world so that no one need ever go hungry. Those who wish for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world are helping to make ending world hunger a major priority. In fact, all of the world's leaders agreed to cut the number of starving people in half by the year 2015 as the first priority of the Millennium Development Goals.

Let us work together to improve the opportunities of all human beings to build better lives.One of the greatest feelings in the world is knowing that we as individuals can make a difference.

Together, We can end Hunger and Poverty.

Source : IFAD, UN.