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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 July 2000 Issue No. 489
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Focus International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The measure of poverty
By Mariz TadrosThe first Social Summit in Copenhagen in 1995 delineated the three main pillars of social development as: alleviating poverty, boosting social integration and attaining full employment. At last week's Copenhagen+5 meeting in Geneva delegates could point to this or that "success story" in the battle against poverty in their respective countries. They could not, however, deny that the worldwide commitment to reduce poverty has failed miserably. Globally, 200 million more people around the world are now living in absolute poverty (on less than $1 a day) than in 1995. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that globalisation is failing in its promise to benefit millions of people, and that the adverse effects of free trade have caused many more people to suffer.
As has been the case with similar UN-sponsored conferences, official delegations sought to defend their respective countries' records, even as, more often than not, the delegates of non-governmental organisations taking part in the parallel NGO forum meeting sought to shoot-down much of their governments' claims. The commonplace divergence was dramatically underlined in Egypt's case when the opposition daily newspaper, Al-Wafd, scathingly attacked the Egyptian Minister of Social Affairs, Amina El-Guindy for inaccurately claiming, before the Geneva conference, that Egypt ranked 67 on the HDI (Human Development Index). The annual Human Development Report, released last Thursday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), ranked Egypt as 119.
The HDI, which measures a country's achievements in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income, ranks 174 countries. Surinam ranks 67; Egypt at 119, in the medium human development group, is preceded by Vanuatu, Mongolia and Nicaragua.
Said Abdel-Khaleq, co-editor-in-chief of Al-Wafd, wrote a caustic editorial attacking the minister for "making deceptive statements that showed no respect for the Egyptian intellect." Since the minister's presentation of Egypt's rank was inaccurate, he argued, and since she had used this presentation to prove the government's success in social development, "does this not mean that the government failed to achieve the social development the minister is talking about?" he demanded. The following day's Al-Wafd featured a full page on "the manipulative minister... who is to hold her accountable?" accusing El-Guindi of distorting figures to make the government look good.
photo: Khaled El-Fiqi
Then Al-Wafd published a letter from the minister defending her statements, and indicating that she had been referring to the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), which assesses how far women have progressed. (According to the 2000 Human Development Report, however, Egypt ranks 68 on the GEM.)
Some argue, however, that at the end of the day, the issue is not of numbers, whether Egypt ranks 67th or 119th, but whether Egypt has witnessed an increase in poverty in the past five years as a consequence of globalisation and free market policies, as has been noted in other countries of the world.
According to Osman Mohamed Osman, head of the Institute of National Planning, Egypt's experience is exceptional in that its economic reform programme was successfully completed, while the negative ramifications on the poor were not as bad as was expected. This he attributes to several factors, including the decrease in the rate of inflation. Inflation decreased after 1993, which is to the benefit of those who have stable incomes, he said. Osman argued that while public expenditure as a percentage of GDP did go down -- as is customary in the implementation of economic reform and structural adjustment packages -- between 1990 and 1998, the share of social spending (in education, for instance) increased.
The rate of unemployment was also expected to increase, pointed Osman, but did not. "With privatisation of enterprises, it was expected that large numbers of workers would be laid off, but they have been dealt with very generously. Cutbacks have been low, and an early retirement scheme was introduced to compensate workers. It has been a successful venture, and one highly esteemed in the world," he said. Nonetheless, he fears that the situation may deteriorate with the slowdown in the rate of economic growth. "If the government chooses to concentrate on stabilising economic growth, that may mean that social development will take second priority, which is not good."
On the whole, Osman feels that "the prevalence of poverty did not increase, and structural adjustment was to the benefit of the rural poor, who have experienced an improvement in their quality of life."
Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, professor of economics at Cairo University, on the other hand, is highly sceptical of existing social safety nets and their efficacy in fighting poverty. The existing system, he insisted, provides no more than a band-aid solution, and does not address the structural causes behind poverty and unemployment. A case in point is the Social Fund for Development, he pointed out, which is limited by what it can do in welfare provision, poverty alleviation or even in providing secure jobs.
Abdel-Fadil contests the opinion that unemployment has gone down, "especially if we are to talk about permanent secure jobs, with dignity, rather than temporary jobs which have no insurance rights." There is a clear absence of a comprehensive social policy, emphasised Abdel-Fadil, which is the outcome of the imbalance between economic reform and social protection. He predicts that since some of the effects of structural adjustment do not appear immediately, the full impact will only be seen in future years. Redundant workers, he explained, are a case in point: "Some may be living off their savings now, but in a few years, the impact of their unemployment will be seen."
Nationwide data on the level of poverty in Egypt since the Copenhagen Conference in 1995 are unavailable, the latest being those inscribed in the 1996 Egypt Human Development Report. The 1996 Report had indicated that 23 per cent of Egyptians live below the poverty line, with seven per cent being ultra-poor. Another 20 per cent of the population are living in mild poverty. It was noted that poverty increased in urban Egypt, while it declined in the rural areas.
The percentage of poor is much higher if measurements are done according to capability poverty, rather than income poverty. Capabilities measured include the proportion of children under five who are underweight, the proportion of births unattended by doctor and/or nurse/midwife, and the proportion of females in the household population aged six and over who have no education. 34 per cent of the Egyptian population fall in the category of poor in capabilities. 36 per cent of poor households interviewed had said they experienced a deterioration in their living conditions since the start of the stabilisation and structural adjustment programme in 1991.
According to the UNDP Human Development Report of this year, the poorest 20 per cent of Egyptians share 9.8 per cent of the income, while the richest 20 per cent share 39 per cent of the income.
Many NGOs working on a grassroots level have reported that the poor they are assisting are getting poorer, and the numbers are increasing as well. Nabil Samuel, head of CEOSS (the Coptic Evangelical Organisation for Social Services) points out that there has been an observable increase in poverty in squatter settlements. It has hit particularly hard those who lack an education, have no skills and few opportunities of entering the job market. "Poverty is increasing at a pace that is faster than what we can manage," said Habib.
To address growing needs, he explained that CEOSS has had to diversify its activities, and go beyond service delivery. "We have had to reform our training programme, for example, to help the growing number of youth coming to ask for help in finding a job. We made it less centralised and we introduced an apprenticeship programme by contracting with factories and workshops. This decentralised programme, said Habib, has helped at least 60 per cent of graduates find a job within the first year. CEOSS also started a programme to help graduates start up their own businesses. But despite all the efforts being made by one of Egypt's largest and most established development organisations, it cannot generate employment for all the youth knocking on its doors.
The government has called upon NGOs to act as partners in assisting the poor, but how much even the largest can do is questionable. "Providing jobs is a collective effort for both the public, private and NGO sectors. NGOs have a role to play, but cannot meet all the demand when unemployment among youth is increasing," said Habib.
Adel Abu Zahra, professor of behavioural science and board member of Friends of the Environment, an NGO based in Alexandria, insisted that it is impossible to examine the situation in Egypt without looking into how the process of globalisation has affected the rest of the world. "If globalisation of poverty has affected the poor in developed countries, you can guess what it has done to the developing countries," he said. Globalisation and market forces, he explained, have made social cohesion very fragile, with dangerous manifestations: "It is not that in the '50s and '60s there was no poverty, only there were networks of social support, there were collective dreams and aspirations -- but this is no longer so. Today, there are individual dreams of rising, which are often frustrated, expressing themselves in violence. Crimes associated with poverty have increased."
The proliferation of squatter settlements is the greatest evidence that poverty has increased in Egypt, indicated Abu Zahra, pointing to the case of Alexandria, where almost one and a half million people are living in 75 shanty areas. In other words, 36 per cent of the population of Alexandria live well below the poverty line. Haphazard housing, he reflected, no longer forms a belt around big cities, but has now seeped into the most affluent suburbs. "The rooftops of many large and old buildings have become home to many poor people who simply have nowhere to go." For Abu Zahra, it is this state of hopelessness, incapacity, and having no options and no choices that characterises the new face of poverty.
