Growth with hunger: What Egypt reminds me of

Saturday, 05 February 2011 11:31

Written by Louie C. Montemar

I am looking inward as I watch a restless world go by.

The so-called global economic crisis led IMF’s Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to warn governments in December 2008 of the prospect of “violent unrest on the streets.” The IMF head warned that, “violent protests could break out in countries worldwide if the financial system was not restructured to benefit everyone rather than a small elite.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/16/imf-financial-crisis)

I do not really know the “ideology” of that IMF head, but I am sure his statements raised some eyebrows and to some might suggest a certain ideological predisposition.

Zooming in on our country, Dr. Mahar Mangahas, SWS President, was quoted last year as having said "I don’t know his ideology but I hope he stops paying attention to Gross National Product or Gross Domestic Product and look directly at what’s happening to the poor and be guided." The SWS President was referring to our President, PNoy.

Dr. Mangahas’ statement came in view of the approval then of the 2011 national budget proposed by PNoy. A news report then aired SWS most recent survey results on Philippine poverty. To my mind, that report only suggested the bitter irony that the budget for the National Food Authority (NFA), the agency responsible for the purchase and sale of rice at subsidized prices, is part of wider cutbacks to social spending under the current government. Of course the government ostensibly has other mechanisms in place which may even be more effective in the short (the Conditional Cash Transfers program, for instance) at addressing the hunger and poverty in our midst.

Still, the figures suggest a very clear image of tragedy: “Only four out of ten people in the Philippines receive adequate nutrition, according to the latest statistics released by the National Nutrition Council. A national survey conducted by Social Weather Stations reported in June 2010 that 21 percent of the population consistently experience involuntary hunger. Of Filipino children below the age of five, 27 percent are reported as being underweight and underheight, a figure comparable to sub-Saharan Africa.” (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/phil-o20.shtml)

The SWS survey, conducted from June 25-28 of 2010, showed that “21.1% of the country, or an estimated 4 million Filipino families, went hungry at least once from April to June. Of that number, at least 780,000 families said they went hungry ‘often’ or ‘always’ compared to only 530,000 families in the first quarter.” (http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/21/10/philippines-slipping-hunger-trap-%E2%80%93-sws)
Zooming in further: “About 15 million indigenous people (10% of the population) suffer from poverty and human rights violations and their life expectancy is 20 years shorter than that of civilized peoples. This is according to a recent report by the UN Development Program in the Philippines.” (http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Over-15-million-indigenous-Filipinos-suffer-from-hunger-and-government-indifference-17644.html)

The more cheerful among my friends have been harping on the reported growth that the country is now experiencing. Our economy is supposed to have grown “at its fastest pace last year since the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, expanding 7.3 percent due to strong domestic demand fueled by the billions of dollars overseas Filipino workers sent home.” Government data showed gross domestic product (GDP) rising “a seasonally adjusted 3.0 percent in the final quarter of 2010, more than double market expectations and a turnaround of a third-quarter contraction.” The National Statistical Coordination Board said the strong performance of the Philippine economy—coming off growth of just 0.9 percent in 2009—was achieved on the back of the world recovery from the global financial crisis. (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110201-317722/PH-economy-grows-at-fastest-pace-in-24-yrs)
World recovery from the global financial crisis? So what’s happening in Egypt? The mere tail end of an economic drought? And what’s happening to us? Growth with poverty? There lies the need to go beyond numbers and the usual narratives.

The group Official Development Watch or ODA Watch helps us in this regard with its study “Beyond Narratives and Numbers: A Closer Look into Kapit Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan - Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI CIDSS) Program (January 03, 2011)”
ODA Watch, described in its own website as “a group of development oriented Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who advocates that ODA should serve genuine development” graciously allowed me to go over a draft of its study on the KALAHI CIDSS project of the Philippine government. This flagship poverty reduction effort was launched in 2003 to “go beyond the minimum basic needs (MBN) approach” of earlier interventions. The ODA study noted that “after more than seven years of implementation, the DSWD reported last March 2010 that the program has supported 5,326 community sub-projects, with a total estimated cost of PhP 5.34 billion. About 1,197,720 households in 5,543 barangays are believed to have benefited from the subprojects.” The study also noted the best features of KALAHI CIDSS (KC).

However, taking a closer look, the study also pointed out various challenges which the project faced. For instance, the project efforts in Mindanao (from 2003 to 2010) has only covered about 21% of the poor municipalities in the area and this “partly explains why the program has not made a significant dent in poverty reduction efforts of the government.”

Why such limited reach? Allow me to quote further: “The convenient excuse for limited coverage is the lack of funds that support the program implementation - KC’s US$ 100milion fund from the World Bank merely represents 1.04% of the entire ODA portfolio in 2009. The government should seriously study its financial resources/options that could support an anti-poverty program that has broader coverage and goes beyond ‘micro-ized’ and ‘project-ized’ interventions.”

As a student of political science and governance, I am most struck by this line from the latter part of the report: “While some barangays have the capability to follow the KC requirements, others are having difficulty in terms of accomplishing the required documents... These capabilities of LGUs to accomplish requirements (documents, financial counterpart) affect the process and results of KC implementation. As repeatedly pointed out by some KC staff, LGUs that were not able to produce local counterpart did not get KC financial assistance.”

In the final analysis, as the SWS shows, and the ODA Watch study affirms, KC only brought some of us some hope. Hunger remains and the hungry in this country can only care so much about what is happening in Egypt, or that the “small elite” of Makati and Malacanang are unduly gleeful about our GDP’s recent rise.

Some of us may be bothered by the developments in Egypt. Some can’t help but be nostalgic and recall that Edsa of ’86. Some are hopeful still, like me.

But I always keep one eye directed inward as I watch our restless world go by. Growth with hunger, is what Egypt reminds me of.

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