The Key to Eradicating Poverty in Developing States

Extreme poverty continues to blight vulnerable countries in the global South, as an estimated 500 million people suffer from extreme hunger. Nearly 15 million children die of hunger each year, as states struggle to provide the adequate resources for their citizens. However, by devoting a greater percentage of GDP towards the provision of social services, development specialists maintain that extreme hunger can be lessened significantly.

Botswana serves as a vanguard in this approach. Although 30% Botswanans lives on less than $1 a day, and nearly 25% of the population is afflicted with HIV, Botswana became the first African country in which the state provided anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). This national treatment plan began in 2002 by providing ARVs to just a few patients. In 2005, this program now successfully provides medication for nearly 85% of those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Sri Lanka has also increased its spending on public health measures. While Sri Lanka’s GDP ranks 98^th in the global economy, it has still devoted significant public resources to financing a functioning health care system, accessible by all citizens. Sri Lanka now has only 60 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, placing it in the upper third of all nations.

However, the majority of developing nations have not focused their resources on strengthening the public sector and social services for their citizens. Faced with escalating conflicts and power-hungry faction leaders, a projected $22 billion will be spent on the acquisition of arms throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed a surge of 47% in arms purchases in the late 1990s alone.

Many development advocates and specialists also look to the International Monetary Fund as the prime cause behind the inability of vulnerable states to extend the provision of social services. A critical component of receiving IMF loans is the willingness to implement extensive economic liberalization, or “structural adjustment programs” (SAPs), freeing enterprise and economic activity from government control. States receiving financial assistance are mandated to scale back their social expenditures, and sectors such as health care and education deteriorate.

One country which has keenly perceived the destabilizing effects of these reforms is Zambia. “It is this paralysis in being fixed within one paradigm, which is responsible for the implementation of pernicious economic policies that not only hurt the poorest of our people, but challenge the social contract between the state and the citizens, that is, to provide them with security and social welfare,” said Dr. Neo Simutanyi of the University of Zambia. He decries the IMF as unable to perceive any other functional economic system by which to achieve development goals, and blames the rapid privatization of public services for the rapid decline in the Zambian standard of living.

The factors that have led states to diminish their social provisions has led to a greater degree of food insecurity as well. According to Oxfam, “The UN estimates that 16 million people are at immediate risk in ten neglected and under-funded emergencies in Africa.” Nearly 33% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population suffers from malnourishment. Subsistence farming and the failure of states to implement nation-wide irrigation schemes has contributed to this crisis. As independent farmers in more remote areas are eclipsed by growing agribusinesses in more commercial regions, food availability becomes a major concern for village inhabitants.

Also contributing to food insecurity is the rampant spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic which continues to rage throughout the African continent. As young workers fall prey to this ferocious ailment, fewer workers are available to complete the necessary farm work, thus significantly decreasing the amount of food grown and collected in a given region. Botswana’s ARV program, in addition to providing the much-needed treatment for those afflicted with AIDS, also ensures the availability of more workers as the quality of AIDS patients lives improve. Botswana demonstrates how greater investment in social services is essential to preventing famine in developing nations.