Plenty about Poverty

"Poverty is not knowing where the next meal will come from, always wondering when the authorities will come to collect your furniture, and always being afraid that your husband might lose his job. This is what poverty is to me."

RØNNAUG TVEIT

Title: POVERTY. A Global Review Handbook on International

Poverty Research Editors: Else Øyen, S.M. Miller and Syed Abdus Samad

Publisher: Scandinavian University Press 

This is how Mrs. Witbooi of Philipstown defines poverty in the South Africa chapter of POVERTY. A Global Review which was published this spring. We are never told whether Mrs. Witbooi belongs to the black or white community, but it is a fact that when the former apartheid state commissioned a comprehensive poverty study, the many millions of blacks were "forgotten people".

Distinguished foreword

Professor Else Øyen points out this example in order to illustrate how biased and insufficient the research on poverty has been - and still is. But the main editor of POVERTY. A Global Review feels that an important milestone has been reached by the publishing of this book, subtitled Handbook on International Poverty Research. Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland has written the foreword, and the contributors are prominent poverty researchers from all over the world. Most prominent of all is the head of the CROP secretariat (Comparative Research Programme on Poverty), which is based at Bergen University.

– For a long time there's been a need for a basic text book on the current status of poverty research world-wide. This book is intended as a reference book for researchers, politicians and others who are concerned with the poverty problem. It represents completely new ways of thinking, says an enthusiastic Ms. Else Øyen between two cups of coffee during a recent international symposium in Bergen organised by CROP. The following day she was due to hold a lecture in the UN, New York.

– Researchers presume that we are dealing with two types of poverty: one general and one culture specific. General poverty relates to the way society is organised; its structure works to group people, and some are being ostracised. We find this phenomenon all over the world, Ms. Øyen explains.

– Culture specific poverty relates to local circumstances such as the caste system in India, ethnic wars in Africa, natural disasters in Bangladesh and the attitude towards women and children in Islamic countries.

Backyard economy

– The book focuses on these two types of poverty in particular, as well as on the interaction between the poor and the un-poor. For a long time the western definition of poverty has been accepted as universal, but it turns out that this does not correspond with the actual situation in developing countries. The method used for measuring poverty in the West, fails to include the poorest. Neither the informal economy nor the so-called "backyard economy" are reflected in the aims relating to poverty in developing countries as stated by e.g. the World Bank and various NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations), although this is where we find the majority of poor people.

– There are large groups of poor people who live on the outskirts of society and who have created their own methods of survival. They make a living by small-scale trade and craft, they cultivate small patches of land for their own use, or they swap goods and services with each others. Women in particular have found many imaginative and creative ways of providing for themselves and their families, says Ms. Else Øyen.

Embraced by Unesco

The Poverty Handbook is divided into six parts, each of them focusing on poverty in a specific region, from Asia and Africa to the West, where conditions in the former eastern block are given special attention. The Nordic countries have been allocated a chapter as well, entitled Poverty in a Welfare State.

The Bergen Professor is happy that the book has received recognition within the UN. UNESCO has made POVERTY. A Global Review their official way of marking UN's poverty year. The book was launched to the world press with much clamour in Paris earlier this year, and UNESCO Director Frederico Mayor immediately ordered 1000 copies for distribution among the national UNESCO committees.