Poverty impact negative effect on our Society

Number of Crime increases due to Poverty:
Great debate has taken place in the past few years about the decrease in crime statistics. Some say that crime is down because of "three strike" laws and greatly enhanced prison terms. Others say that crime is down because of a simple change in demographics. Whatever the argument, hard evidence suggests our society is solving its "crime problem" by locking up poor people in alarming numbers. CLICK HERE FOR MORE! (Source: http:// pubdef.ocgov.com/poverty.htm)http://www.guideliness.tk

Poverty in Rural Areas’ of Pakistan as per World Bank

Agricultural Growth Necessary but not Sufficient to Alleviate Rural Poverty, says new report:
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Unequal distribution of land and access to water for the rural poor in Pakistan limit the scope for agricultural growth alone to rapidly reduce poverty in rural Pakistan, according to a new World Bank report released today.
Issued ahead of the Pakistan Development Forum on April 25, the report –– says ensuring efficient use of water and building partnerships with the private sector can help fulfill agriculture’s potential for diversification and growth.
An effective poverty reduction strategy, however, must also address the rural non-farm economy and the needs of the rural non-farm poor. Social mobilization, the report says, can empower the poor, enabling them to have a greater role in the development process, not only to improve delivery of public services, but also to increase their market power by building the voice and scale in the farm and non-farm sectors.
The report says agricultural growth, rural incomes, rural poverty and social welfare indicators have all showed marked improvements in recent years. Yet despite impressive achievements, there is little reason for complacency. Around 35 million people in rural areas remain poor, representing about 80 percent of Pakistan’s poor.
“Agriculture growth is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for rapid reduction in rural poverty,” said Yusupha Crookes, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan. “Appropriate investments in irrigation and the livestock sector can directly benefit small farmers, who account for about 40 percent of the rural poor. However, the majority of the rural poor in Pakistan are not farmers, and additional measures need to be taken to revitalize the rural economy so it generates substantial rural employment. Such an expansion of the rural non-agricultural economy and improvement in the welfare of the rural poor cannot take place, though, without major investments in infrastructure and improvements in social services, including safety nets.”
Overall, agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of rural household incomes. The poorest 40 percent of rural households get only 30 percent of their incomes from agriculture. The report says Pakistan’s rural non-farm sector faces numerous constraints, particularly related to access to credit and inadequate infrastructure. According to the 2000 Agricultural Census, only 37 percent of rural households owned land, and 61 percent of these land-owning households owned less than 5 acres. Access to usable water is also unbalanced. Because of this skewed distribution of ownership and access to productive assets, much of the direct gains in income from crop production, particularly irrigated agriculture, accrue to higher income farmers.
As in other South Asian countries, the non-farm sector in rural villages and small towns primarily consists of family-based micro-enterprises, averaging only about two workers per enterprise. According to a 2005 survey, more than 30 percent of these enterprises rated access to finance as the most important overall constraint to the operation and growth of their business. Other constraints include poor road infrastructure and lack of access to reliable electricity.
Agricultural growth remains important to raise incomes of small farmers and to generate growth linkages by increasing demand for rural non-farm goods and services. However, in most of rural Pakistan, the impact of agricultural growth on rural poverty is limited for two reasons. First, much of the gains in rural incomes are spent on urban goods and services. Second, growth-linkage gains to non-agricultural incomes and employment in rural areas are shared among a large number of rural poor.
Two critical elements underpin the necessary transformation of the rural sector, the report says. First is the efficiency of public institutions and the need to make them more accountable and flexible. Second is the capacity to organize the "people sector" so that farmers, communities, and villages can gain voice and reach the scale needed to attract the private sector and financial services and to strengthen the demand side of development by making government more accountable.
In addition to policies addressing growth of the agricultural and rural non-farm sectors, high rates of rural-urban migration and growing integration require investments in human capital. As in most of Asia, Pakistan’s economy is in the midst of a major transformation involving growing urbanization and increased linkages between the rural, urban, and international markets.
Too often a top-down approach is implemented - one that sees the rural poor simply as beneficiaries of public programs supplied by the government. Instead, the report suggests, the development paradigm should be changed to one that puts the household and its community at the origin of development initiatives. Empowering the rural poor to take on this role, however, requires social mobilization.
Social mobilization, along with economic empowerment, should be at the heart of the rural livelihood development strategy. The benefits of broad economic growth trickle down very slowly when the poor have little access to key physical, social, and financial endowments. To overcome highly unequal distribution of these endowments and achieve rapid pro-poor growth, poor people need new opportunities to organize, to generate business, and to link with mainstream development activities

Source:http:// worldbank.org.pk/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/PAKISTANEXTN

Fight against poverty

We have already started to take calls from laid off workers who don'tknow how to apply for EI or welfare. More and more people are calling us because they can't pay their rent and they face eviction. We are going into the worst economic crisis in generations and, while bailouts for the rich are readily available, the poor are going to have to fight for their survival in this crisis.
OCAP plans to go into action in 2009 to build a strong movement that can ensure that welfare offices don't turn away people in need, that a challenge to economic evictions is taken up, that workers, including those without status or on temporary work permits, are not exploited even more, that income support systems are strengthened, that 'economic stimulation' resources are allocated to meet the needs of communities, that poor people come out of this crisis united and stronger than ever.
In order to fight for these things, to build a strong resistance, we need funds. At the best of times, OCAP has very few financial resources to do its work. As this crisis worsens, we will face an overwhelming situation of people turning to us for help in the face of huge injustices and communities reaching out to us for support in their efforts to organize to confront those injustices. We will need to expand the scale and scope of our work dramatically and, while we will do it with few resources, we won't be able to do it with none whatsoever. We need the help of supporters to respond to the challenges ahead as we urgently need to.
Any and all donations to OCAP are appreciated but the most usefulway is to become a sustaining supporter. All you have to do is send us a void cheque with the amount of money you want to donate a month. Include your name and address and, if you are doing this on someone's behalf as a holiday gift, their name and address so we can send a letter of thanks.The next year is going to be very hard on a lot of people but it is also true that chances to fight back like this once in a lifetime. OCAP has a big role to play in that emerging fight. Please help us all you can.

Source://http: ocap.ca

Ratio of Poverty in Pakistan

Islamabad. Pakistan is facing high growth rate of poverty, putting a pressure on the low income group of the country and majority of the masses is living below the poverty line.Poverty line has been stipulated at the international level. Two-dollar income of a person per day is considered the poverty line. All the persons who earn less than two dollars per day live below the poverty line.According to a UNDP report, 65.5 per cent population of Pakistan earns less than two dollars per day. According to the Social Policy Development Centre (SPDC), 88 per cent of Balochistan population, 51 per cent of NWFP, 21 per cent of Sindh and 25 per cent of the Punjab's population is prey to poverty and deprivation.According to the report of SPDC in Sindh, rural poverty is 49 per cent while the urban poverty ratio is 23 per cent, in Punjab, the poverty ratio of rural areas is 30 per cent while the urban areas' poverty ratio is 26 per cent. According to the recent report of Asian Development Bank (ADB), 57 million people in Pakistan are living below the poverty line.According to the ADB report, poverty is spreading in Pakistan due to the rising population, Pakistan's internal situation, agriculture backwardness, unequal income distribution, defence expenditure, increase in utility charges and rise in unproductive activities.Due to rapid growth of population, the number of dependents is increasing; earners have to carry the burden of the increasing number of dependents. This situation is leading to decrease in the per capita income of the people of the country.The law and order situation in Pakistan is not satisfactory and hampering the local and foreign investment; suicide bombing and law and order problems are damaging the Pakistan economy.The poor governance is also increasing poverty in the country. The largest sector of the economy, the agri sector, is heading towards backwardness as 93 per cent of the farmers are concerned with small farms whose per capita land is less then 10 acres.On the other side, the unequal income distribution in the country is increasing day by day. A few number of people have captured business and industry; they are charging abnormally higher prices for their products which are inferior in quality.The rising defence expenditure, resource shortage, debt burden and tax revenue shortfalls are some other reasons for poverty.The prices of utilities like electricity, gas and water etc often go on rising.
Source://http: blogspot.com/2007/11/57m-people-living-below-poverty-line-in.html

Pakistan Poverty Assessment

Pakistan Poverty Assessment

Concluding remarks at the World Bank Seminar on Pakistan: Poverty Assessment
held at Karachi on January 7, 2003.
I would like to divide my remarks this morning in three parts. First, I
would like to present the rich empirical evidence based on a cross section of
developing countries built across time identifying the factors through which
poverty can be reduced. Second, I would dwell on the main pillars of the Poverty
Reduction Strategy which this Government has put together through broad
stakeholder consultations in the provinces, districts, with academia, civil society,
Government representatives, media, businessmen etc. Finally, I would share my
own thoughts, as a development economist, about the elements which need to be
strengthened in Pakistan to bring about significant changes in poverty profile of
this country.
Global Experience
It has now become abundantly clear that accelerated growth per-se is
necessary but not sufficient condition for bringing about sustainable poverty
reduction. There are other complementary factors which have to accompany
higher growth. The most important of these is investment in human development
– education, training, literacy, health, drinking water, nutrition, population
planning. Countries which have neglected human development may achieve
some spurt in growth and poverty reduction for a short period of time but these
gains will not last long. Growth together with investment in human development
offers a much better chance for alleviating poverty. But even then, some
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segments of population living in remote, isolated areas and marginalized lands or
living without any tangible assets other than their labor may require targeted
interventions by the government to create opportunities for them to earn
livelihood. It has also become apparent that in every country there would be
highly vulnerable groups who would need social protection and social safety nets.
Thus if a country is able to put together these four factors – accelerated growth,
investment in human development, targeted poverty interventions and social
protection – the probability of achieving reduction in the incidence of poverty
becomes quite high.
China is one of the success stories which has integrated itself into world
trade, opened up its doors to foreign direct investment and thus attained 8 percent
annual growth and brought poverty down to less than 10 percent of the
population. But China had also reached high levels of literacy and health
outcomes, low fertility rates. At the same time the poorer provinces and regions
had been specially targeted for direct interventions aimed at enhancing agriculture
productivity and rural incomes and providing physical and social infrastructure.
Social safety nets in China, inherited from the communist days, though are
becoming weak but are still much better compared to other developing countries.
Market failures are tackled by a strong government. Thus we can see that this
combination of growth, investment in human development, targeted interventions
and social safety nets along with a strong government can produce the right
results.
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Strategy for Pakistan
The Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (IPRSP) produced in the
year 2000 spells out the four pillared strategy for poverty reduction in Pakistan.
This paper will soon be finalized after endorsement of the newly elected
representatives and will form the basis for policies, institutions and investment for
poverty reduction.
The first pillar of this strategy is macroeconomic stabilization and
resumption of growth. By 1999, the public debt of Pakistan had become
unsustainable, public debt servicing pre-empted more than half of the revenues,
and external and domestic debt exceeded the country’s GDP. The country had
faced a full payments crisis in 1998, investor confidence in the economy was at
lowest ebb, links with international financial community were disrupted, and the
reserves were so low that the country was at the brink of default. This situation
had to be rectified and a credible economic program had to be put in place to get
the economy out of the crisis and back on the track. The results of this effort
three years later are obvious to every one. Inflation is less than 4 percent, fiscal
deficit has been brought down to 5 percent, external debt indicators have
improved, public debt servicing has declined, domestic interest rates have reached
all time low, exchange rate is stable and appreciating, exports are growing at
annual rate of 16 percent, tax revenues have exceeded their targets, and foreign
reserves are touching about $ 10 billion or almost a year’s imports. This all round
and broad based improvement in macroeconomic indicators has led to
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upgradation of country’s credit rating. Macroeconomic stabilization is the
foundation upon which resumption of economic growth can take place.
The second pillar of the strategy is improved governance. The key
ingredient of the governance agenda is the devolution plan whereby
administrative, functional and financial responsibilities for delivery of social
services are delegated to the district governments. Demand-driven development
projects will be planned and executed by the direct beneficiaries rather than thrust
upon them by the government agencies working from the Provincial and Federal
headquarters in splendid isolation. The other practices which have been adopted
are accountability, transparency, predictability and level playing field for all the
players. Discretionary powers have been curtailed and rules and regulations are
enforced. Merit-based appointments have become the norm and even Assistant
Sub Inspectors of Police are selected through Public Service Commission. No
SRO has been issued to favor one single individual or group to the disadvantage
of others. Civil Service, Police and Judicial reforms have been initiated but will
take a long time to come to fruition.
Structural reforms form the third pillar of the strategy. Broad based
reforms in tax administration, trade liberalization, financial sector and
privatization form the core. In tax administration, Central Board of Revenue is
being restructured, tax net and tax base are being widened and the direct contact
between tax collector and tax payer is being eliminated. Trade liberalization has
resulted in tariff rationalization, removal of various restrictions from exports and
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imports and deregulation. Financial sector reforms have already resulted in a
sound and healthy banking system, a buoyant stock market, a growing corporate
debt market, a streamlined non banking financial institution structure and
strengthening of supervision and regulation. Privatization process has been
provided a legal framework under which transactions take place in an open and
transparent manner. Public Corporations and banks were sold during the last
three years and Rs 36 billion realized as the proceeds. Unlike the past, none of
the transaction was challenged in the courts of law and the market confidence in
the process is quite high. Those who argue that we are selling blue chip public
sector companies should realize that these companies have been causing an
annual budgetary loss of Rs 100 billion. Is it justifiable to keep 100,000 persons
employed in these Corporations while the rest of the population suffers from lack
of budgetary resources for basic necessities such as education, health, drinking
water etc.? Can you imagine how much good it will do to our social indicators if
we had allocated even one half of the losses suffered by these corporations
towards human development?
The fourth pillar of the strategy is poverty targeted interventions. The
prominent among them are Education Sector Reforms, Health for all, Population
planning, Zakat, Khushali program for employment generation and works
program, Food Support program and Khushali Bank. While Education, health
and population planning cover the entire population the other interventions are
targeted at the poor. Zakat program has been revamped to provide financial
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grants to the beneficiaries to start small enterprise or other income generating
activities. Food Support program is aimed at subsidized wheat flour to those
below a certain threshold of monthly income. Khushali program is allocated to
the local governments to create and improve physical infrastructure and also
generate employment. Khushali Bank is a micro finance institution which
provides small loans to the poor under supervised group guarantee scheme. All
these initiatives have begun to take shape in the last one or two years and it will
take some time before they start yielding dividends.
Agenda for the future
The formulation of strategy is the easy part but implementation of the
strategy has always been weak in Pakistan. In order to implement this strategy at
least five points need to be considered.
(a) Political ambivalence about poverty whereby the rhetoric is all
thundering but the actions are missing has to give way to a strong
political commitment in words and deeds. The Musharraf Government
has explicitly brought poverty reduction to the forefront and made a
strong commitment. But poverty cannot be reduced in a span of 1 or 2
or 3 years and its correlation with growth is quite high. Pakistan
witnessed significant poverty reduction from almost 40 percent to 18
percent in a period when GDP growth rate was averaging 6 percent.
But in the 1990s when the growth rate slowed down to 3 to 4 percent
there has been a resurgence of poverty to 34-35 percent. Thus a long
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term action plan supported by all successive governments and
implemented in a continuous and consistent manner will result in its
reduction. We cannot expect results overnight and have to work hard
and work sincerely for an extended time to reach this goal.
(b) Decentralization and delegation of powers: It has become abundantly
clear that local communities are willing to share financial burden of
social services if they can see that the benefits will accrue to them
directly. But if they find that the user charges, taxes and fees
disappear in a black box at Karachi or Islamabad they will be most
reluctant to pay. The demand-driven nature of planning and
accountability of results improve the cost effectiveness of
expenditures. Thus the delivery of services can become efficient and
accessible to the poor if they are operated and managed locally.
(c) Limited Institutional capacity: If we assume that there are no leakages
or waste Pakistan still faces a serious constraint in form of limited and
weak capacity of institutions to plan and deliver services. This
capacity should be built at the local level and supplemented by publicprivate
community partnerships. There are excellent examples such
as The Citizens Foundation Schools in the backward areas of Lyari
where the private businesses and individuals donors have contributed
finances to a Non-governmental Organization for educating the kids of
the poor families. In Punjab, Government school buildings have been
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made available to private sector and NGOs for using them for the
second shift schools. Such examples abound throughout the country.
The recent efforts of Human Development Foundation to build
capacity at the district level will go a long way in resolving this
constraint.
(d) Lack of access to justice, police and executive agencies – while robust
informal social networks and non-profit Civil society organizations
can take care of the needs of the poor in the areas of education and
health there is no substitute available for justice, police and executive
agencies of the government. Access to these agencies and their
functionaries is almost non-existent and is a major source of
helplessness, and lack of empowerment among the poor. Unless the
mind-set and attitude of the Government functionaries is changed
radically the poor will remain voiceless, their grievances will remain
unaddressed and their vulnerability will not be tackled in any
meaningful way.
(e) Gender face – Women in Pakistan are worse off among the poor
compared to men. In a country where only 17 percent of female
population participates in labor force, where female enrolment ratios
are dismally low and where health indicators are worse for the female
population poverty and vulnerability will remain a serious issue.
Economic literature has amply documented that there is no other
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investment which fetches higher rate of return than investment in
female education. This return does not take into account all the
externalities associated with female education in form of better health,
nutrition outcomes, lower fertility rate and better citizenship.
Bangladesh exemplifies the enormous benefits of female education
and labor force participation. Government there has not done what it
was supposed to do but it was the non-governmental organizations
such as BRAC who were instrumental in spreading their schools
throughout the rural areas. The results are simply astounding. Until
we pay attention to uplift the status of 50 percent of our population I
am not convinced that we will be able to make a significant break
through in poverty reduction.
Conclusion
To conclude, Pakistan has built its poverty reduction strategy on the basis
of its own historical experience and incorporated the lessons of global experience
also. The strategy has the inputs of all stakeholders but it needs strong political
commitment, real devolution of powers to grass roots level, a vibrant privatepublic-
community partnerships for delivery of services, change in the
bureaucratic values and norms and a focus on gender disparities. If these issues
are resolved sooner than later we can embark on a path of sustainable poverty
reduction.

Source: //http: sbp.org.pk/about/speech/2003

What is Poverty?

What Is Poverty?

"The state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions"

Compassion overload not only affects the public but also the media that keep it informed, writes Mark Scott.
It is the kind of line to prick a newspaper editor's conscience. Early in his new book, The End of Poverty, Professor Jeffrey Sachs comments that every day our newspapers could report "more than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty". But it doesn't work that way. The story is too big for the news.
The death of more than 20,000 people on a single day would be one of the most momentous stories of the year - full of heartbreak and horror, particularly as so many of the victims were children.
The headlines would be massive, the news coverage extensive, the analysis compelling and in the days ahead, the letters page would be full of reader feedback.
But because this event happens every day of the year, for complex reasons that are hard to solve, it makes little news.
The problem with worldwide poverty and the unimaginable death toll, is that it is happening everywhere, all the time.
There is no sudden trigger or cause. It is a disaster without a single cataclysmic event. No single site of the tragedy. A mundane horror.
A serious newspaper like the Herald tries not to shy away from presenting difficult but newsworthy stories that may confront and challenge. And we attempt to reveal the issues behind the horrifying statistics of world poverty and disease. But inevitably, a paper is created to engage its readership. Part of that engagement comes from a news agenda that identifies stories readers will find relevant, different and surprising.
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A crisis repeating itself daily slowly erodes in terms of news value. There is nothing new to report, just the same horror again. We feel like we have seen the photographs of starving children with distended stomachs so often.
As a result, wonderful stories of lives saved and changed - through malaria nets, micro-credit programs and low-cost drugs - often find it hard to register the impact they should make on the news pages.
In human terms, the millions and millions of lives lost in preventable deaths is the biggest story of any year. In media terms, the challenge is to tell that story in a way that arrests the attention of individuals and governments, and in a way that demands response.
Sachs's book contends that the crisis triggered by poverty and disease can be solved by 2025, and that all is not hopeless. And as a savvy political operator, he has enlisted and educated people such as Bono from U2 to help cut through the media indifference.
In a celebrity-driven world, Bono knows he can get headlines and manipulate them. Two years ago he addressed a world gathering of newspaper editors, urging them to pay more attention to the African crisis, stating he was deliberately using his profile to draw attention to the issue. "Celebrity is a kind of currency. I want to spend mine well," he told them.
Now we are seeing what star power can do. This weekend's series of concerts linked to the "Make Poverty History" campaign is expected to draw a TV audience of 1.5 billion.
In the first Live Aid concert 20 years ago, Bob Geldof colourfully urged the worldwide audience to send their money for Africa. This time, he says the concerts are about raising awareness, with a particular focus on putting pressure on the leaders of the world's biggest economies in the lead-up to next week's G8 meeting.
And the initial move of G8 leaders to forgive some of the Third World debt has triggered a storm of debate on whether that is the right policy - and whether the solutions proposed by Sachs will actually work. Debt forgiveness and G8 handouts will simply provide more "Mercs for jerks" - making corrupt African leaders more wealthy as their citizens continue to die - an article in The Spectator reported last week.
But the debate is healthy, as it is all about finally finding solutions that work to problems that should grip the globe and are the most pressing that the world faces.
There can be little doubt that an unlikely coalition of Bono, Geldof and Sachs, working on an agenda supported by G8 host Tony Blair, has pushed poverty back into the headlines. Thanks to them, editors will find it easier to put a big story about world poverty in their papers that people will read.
For a day, at least, the news of the world's greatest tragedy will be on page one

Source:http://smh.com.au/ffximage

Purpose of GuideLines

First of all we want to share with for purpose of our above mentioned title"GuideLines" that is this ,Provide the proper help to relevant people ,So in this Site we will try to Provide to Guidelines step's toward much many filelds like Below for Prevention of Poverty.

1) Poverty

2)Poverty Ration in Diffrent Region of World

3)Important Steps for Allevation of Poverty

4)Promote Technical field

5)Guideline to Diffent Technical Filed and How Get Admission

6)The Steps of Diffrent Govt. for Prevention of Poverty.