"India, Market Economics and Poverty" -- by Dr. John Hammock

I just returned from India. The magnitude of India is staggering. Over one billion people. India’s economy is booming. Economists gloat over the fact that India’s growth rate over the last few years has been dramatic—and they say it shows that the liberalization of market forces in India has worked.

It is true that the national Indian economy is growing. Things look rosy if we just look at that overall economic indicator of success. If you look under the surface of this one dimension, however, we see that India is still a country of staggering poverty. Over one third of the world’s poor live in India. It also has a higher proportion of its population living on less than $2 per day than even sub-Saharan Africa. That is the sobering news coming out of the World Bank's latest estimates on global poverty. The fine print of the estimates also shows that the rate of decline of poverty in India was faster between 1981 and 1990 than between 1990 and 2005. In other words, the pro-market reforms, which started in 1991, have failed to reduce poverty at a faster rate.

While the rich have been getting richer in India and while the middle class has expanded, the poor in India have not seen the benefits of market-led economic growth. The disparity between rich and poor is growing.

I was in India to attend the Annual Conference of the Human Development and Capability Association, HDCA. This is an Association of academics and practitioners who believe that economics should be about more that increasing Gross Domestic Product, more than just focused on growth. The goal of economics should not just be growth. The goal must be the flourishing or wellbeing of all members of the society. Growth is one tool, but it must be combined with a concern for other aspects of wellbeing—such as education, health, security, even dignity and empowerment. While we do not hear in the United States from economists who believe that economic systems can be based on the notion of building from what people value and have reason to value (that is, on the ideas of personal wellbeing and freedom), these ideas are much more common in other countries.

We can see from our own economic woes, the losses on Wall Street, the collapse of large finance and banking ventures that our economy based on a purely free market system has not worked. Our government has come to the rescue of large businesses. But this is not the solution. The solution rests with the folks that attended the conference in India—a whole new way of looking at economics that puts people first, that allows government to play a crucial role in meeting the common good while preserving the market system. Now is the time not just to focus on the Millennium Development Goals. Of course these Goals are important. But we stand poised to reconsider our whole economic framework. We can hang on to a system that clearly does not work for the poor; it is now not even working well for the richer. Or we can look for an alternative. The Human Development and Capability economists provide us with an alternative—one that puts people first.

If you want to learn more about this approach to economics and in particular its approach to poverty, go to www.ophi.org.uk I work with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, run by another EGR Board Member, Sabina Alkire (author of What Can One Person Do?: Faith to Heal a Broken World). OPHI is a research and policy effort that is challenging traditional economics and traditional conceptions of poverty. I urge you to join our cause.

I want to end with another note on India. India has recently passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This is a unique scheme that guarantees rural workers a minimum of 100 days a year of employment at the minimum wage. Of course the details are much more complex than this simple one liner. This is not charity; it is payment for an honest day of work. Sixty per cent of India's workforce is self-employed, many of whom remain very poor. More than 90 per cent of the labor force is employed in the "unorganized sector", i.e. sectors which don't provide the social security and other benefits of employment in the "organized sector." It is in this environment that one sees the radical nature of this rural employment guarantee act—a bold initiative to help people survive with dignity, not handouts. If you want to learn more about this, go to www.righttofoodindia.org.

Dr. John Hammock is an associate professor of Public Policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy & The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He is also currently working with Sabina Alkire as a senior research associate at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, John was Executive Director at Oxfam America from 1984-1995 and Executive Director at ACCION International from 1973-1980. John is the president of the EGR board.

"An Even Poorer World" -- New York Times editorial

This editorial appeared in yesterday's New York Times. You also should read this article: "World Bank finds more people live in steep poverty." This editorial is based on that article.

And ... the NY Times is an excellent general source of news and editorial content. You can subscribe to get free online alerts about Times stories related to world poverty here.

There is a lot more poverty in the world than previously thought. The World Bank reported in August that in 2005, there were 1.4 billion people living below the poverty line — that is, living on less than $1.25 a day.

That is more than a quarter of the developing world’s population and 430 million more people living in extreme poverty than previously estimated. The World Bank warned that the number is unlikely to drop below one billion before 2015.

The poverty estimate soared after a careful study of the prices people in developing countries pay for goods and services revealed that the World Bank had been grossly underestimating the cost of living in the poorest nations for decades. As a result, it was grossly overestimating the ability of people to buy things. And the new research doesn’t account for the soaring prices of energy and food in the past two years.

The poverty expressed in the World Bank’s measure is so abject that it is hard for citizens of the industrial world to comprehend. The new count underscores how much more the developed world needs to do to help the world’s most vulnerable people.

It should also serve as a jarring reminder to the leaders of the world’s much-touted new economic powers — India and China — about the inequities growing amid their growing wealth. Forty-two percent of India’s people live below the World Bank’s poverty line, as do 16 percent of China’s.

The new data confirm the primary role that economic growth must play in lifting millions out of poverty. Fast growth slashed the number of Chinese living in extreme poverty by three-fourths in less than 25 years. Achieving broad-based growth will not be easy.

India, which has more people in extreme poverty than it did 25 years ago, must reform its farm sector to increase dismal productivity and broaden its narrow economic expansion. Sub-Saharan Africa — where 50 percent of the people live below the poverty line — requires stability, above all, to encourage investment. All developing countries must invest more in education.

There’s still a big supporting role for rich countries. Last year, development aid from the Group of 8 industrialized nations amounted to $62 billion — far below the $92 billion that was promised to be delivered by 2010. We hope the World Bank’s new poverty count finally shames the Group of 8 into keeping that promise.

"Us vs. Them" -- by Dr. Christiana Russ

I recently went to the presiding bishop’s summit on domestic poverty in Arizona. It was a wonderful think-tank comprised of people who do all varieties of work combating poverty in the United States. At the start of the meeting the point was made that while the Millennium Development Goals are important there is a need to focus on the poverty and deprivation that continues to persist within our own borders, despite our substantial GDP. This is absolutely true. It also made me sit back and think hard about our very human experience with limited resources and time, and thus our need to carve up how we spend those resources and time.

I am the chair of the executive council committee on HIV/AIDS and in our committee we have this conversation quite often. How much effort should we continue to put into pointing to the ever present but changing face of the AIDS pandemic in the United States? Does focusing on the international pandemic pull attention from the domestic problem and allow people to rest in false comfort of AIDS being ‘over there’? Or is there a way to see the commonality of the problems facing people both infected and affected by HIV in Africa, Asia, South America, our very own Province IX and in the borders of the United States?

In all of these places people face stigma, people face their fears of illness and dying, people struggle for access to healthcare, and family members care for orphaned children and ill loved ones. The magnitude of those particular problems might vary among individuals especially depending on their economic resources, but they are still very present and I believe the church is called to respond to every one of them.

We encounter a similar dilemma with poverty. I have heard people who work on domestic poverty dismiss international aid work as ‘sexy’ and lament the lack of people rolling up sleeves and going into their own backyards. Those comments fail to recognize that many of the problems of poverty are pretty similar in the U.S. and in Africa. I have met some of the loneliest and most deprived people imaginable while working with the homeless on the streets of Boston. And I have seen children alone and starving in Africa. Authentic relationship with each of those people forces us to face their needs which are enormous both materially and spiritually.

Good thing our God is so big and that His economics are all about abundance and love.

We also talked at the summit about having enough faith to dream big and step forward to do the work we are called to do… each according to his or her own gifts. The need of the world can be entirely overwhelming and yet at the root, many of the sorrows that people share across the world are the same. When we find those areas of similarity and focus on the synergy that can come from solving the same problem in different settings – amazing things can happen. When we trust in a God of abundance instead of viewing ourselves as competing for scarce resources or attention, again amazing things can happen. I pray that our church will have a big enough heart to care for people over there and over here.

Dr. Christiana Russ is a pediatrician doing her residency at Boston Children's Hospital, currently working at an Anglican mission hospital in Kenya through a joint arrangement with Children's and the Diocese of Massachusetts. She is also chair of the Executive Council Standing Commission on HIV/AIDS.

"My War" -- by Craig Cole

Memorial Day is approaching and I am starting to feel guilty. Well, my emotions are more complex than just mere guilt. I feel the sadness and loss of a missed opportunity to serve my country in the military. During the first Gulf War, many of my high school friends were part of Desert Storm. As an editorial assistant for a Chicago area newspaper at the time, I collected and published stories and photographs from families of those serving “over there”. One of them was killed. I sat behind a desk.

I am now over 40 and I am too old to join this fight, but I still feel a pull to go because despite the cliché, there is no shame in the sacrifice of serving our country. I should be there in Afghanistan or Iraq.

There is a desperate desire for shared sacrifice at the very soul of our country. Yet as individuals we have not been given a concrete opportunity to do so by our government and thus we are disengaged from a struggle that has historic implications for the future of our country and for the world.

To quell my guilt and disengagement, I sometimes refer to the work of poverty alleviation as “My War.” I have seen children die of malaria, mothers who die at childbirth and the awful stench of life in a slum. Poverty ravages and kills innocent children each day and creates such despair that those who survive choose terrorism and suicide bombings as their one path to riches.

What’s more patriotic, and in the best interests of the United States, than stabilizing societies and countries through economic development? A secure household with parents who have jobs even in a slum like Kibera in Kenya or in Lahore, Pakistan can translate into security here at home.

My heroes are not only those who serve in the armed forces, but those in the relief and development agencies and churches at the frontlines who help rebuild and love their neighbor in the pits of hell. My friend Brian is finishing a tour with USAID in Iraq while his wife and three children wait for his return. And, I think of Anna, who about a month ago died in Afghanistan while working with a non-governmental organization. Although her death was an accident and not related to the conflict, she still leaves six siblings and two parents grieving the loss of a young, vibrant life. This too is her Memorial Day.

There are many opportunities at home and abroad to transform lives and assist those who live on the very margins of society. We must act now not just militarily, not just diplomatically but at the very grassroots achieving what is unthinkable but is more urgent than ever – creating employment, stabilizing communities and ending radical poverty before the next car bomb goes off somewhere _ maybe even here in the United States.

As Christians, it is imperative that we engage in this world, not just by voting on the best American Idol, but through service and sacrifice. There is a war out there on poverty and misery that we can all agree needs to be fought. Let’s not miss this opportunity. We may regret it later in life.

Craig Cole is the executive director of Five Talents International, an Anglican microfinance nonprofit. He is also a member of the Diocese of Virginia's Mission Commission and an EGR board member.

"Jeffery Sachs visits The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"

A little video to pick you up on "low Sunday." Economist Jeffrey Sachs, author of The End of Poverty and one of the world's most influential proponents of the Millennium Development Goals, dropped by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week to talk about his latest book, Common Wealth, and what we -- and our governments -- need to do to make poverty history. It's a little under 6 minutes, entertaining and informative. Enjoy!