Recently the North Eastern Council (NEC) has drawn up an ambitious plan to “banish poverty” from the region by the year 2020. According to a sector report on poverty eradication contained in Action Plan Reports, NER Vision 2020, the strategies for poverty eradication include among others creating conditions for emergence of responsive and effective delivery system. Emphasis will also be on the empowerment of farmers; switch over from subsistence mindset to commercialization; organic agriculture to tap the opportunities in external market and revitalizing the allied activities of agriculture to make them more economically lucrative. One of the noteworthy features of this latest strategy which needs to be acknowledged is that at least it has been able to classify poverty in the northeast into four categories – economic, nutritional, human and basic amenities poverty. This allows the problem to be seen and addressed through a multi-dimensional approach.
The ‘growth theory’ and conventional wisdom of trickle down effect has failed to address the problem of poverty. Economic reforms and increasing growth rate has not had the desired impact on alleviating poverty. So the argument for a top down approach stands discredited given the failure of recent policy. Another core challenge is obviously the need to constantly work towards effective delivery system. This is the need of the hour. What will explain the fact that huge amount of money has been made available under the plethora of poverty alleviation schemes and yet the desired result has not been reached? Better management of funds and their proper utilization is required. And for this the need to improve governance and instill the time honored values of transparency and accountability so that the development process itself remains result oriented and real. The other concern requiring urgent attention is infrastructure development such as road connectivity, uninterrupted electricity besides the necessary socio-economic infrastructure for providing backward and forward linkages for production, value addition/ processing and marketing of rural products.
Given the failure of conventional policy initiatives, there is a new thinking that poverty will not be solved by grand schemes or government programs. For those who run the government or its machineries, creative ways, such as the communitisation model, has to be found so that the vicious circle of our past systemic failures can be corrected and new methods worked out to solve the problems of our time—one of which is poverty. One can take note of the worldwide micro-credit movement, which has demonstrated that poverty can be solved one person at a time. According to studies, this approach has incredibly now reached more than 100 million individuals, which was the goal the movement established a decade ago. Micro-credit involves giving small loans, sometimes no more than a dollar or two, to hard-working but extremely impoverished people, and setting up a system that gives them support and tracks their progress. These new entrepreneurs use the money to establish their own businesses, and when they pay off the first loan, they get a loan that is a little larger, and so on. Eventually, they become self-sufficient and successful, able to afford food, shelter and educational opportunities for their children. Hopefully our policy makers will take a cue and learn. This will require an out of the box thinking.
The ‘growth theory’ and conventional wisdom of trickle down effect has failed to address the problem of poverty. Economic reforms and increasing growth rate has not had the desired impact on alleviating poverty. So the argument for a top down approach stands discredited given the failure of recent policy. Another core challenge is obviously the need to constantly work towards effective delivery system. This is the need of the hour. What will explain the fact that huge amount of money has been made available under the plethora of poverty alleviation schemes and yet the desired result has not been reached? Better management of funds and their proper utilization is required. And for this the need to improve governance and instill the time honored values of transparency and accountability so that the development process itself remains result oriented and real. The other concern requiring urgent attention is infrastructure development such as road connectivity, uninterrupted electricity besides the necessary socio-economic infrastructure for providing backward and forward linkages for production, value addition/ processing and marketing of rural products.
Given the failure of conventional policy initiatives, there is a new thinking that poverty will not be solved by grand schemes or government programs. For those who run the government or its machineries, creative ways, such as the communitisation model, has to be found so that the vicious circle of our past systemic failures can be corrected and new methods worked out to solve the problems of our time—one of which is poverty. One can take note of the worldwide micro-credit movement, which has demonstrated that poverty can be solved one person at a time. According to studies, this approach has incredibly now reached more than 100 million individuals, which was the goal the movement established a decade ago. Micro-credit involves giving small loans, sometimes no more than a dollar or two, to hard-working but extremely impoverished people, and setting up a system that gives them support and tracks their progress. These new entrepreneurs use the money to establish their own businesses, and when they pay off the first loan, they get a loan that is a little larger, and so on. Eventually, they become self-sufficient and successful, able to afford food, shelter and educational opportunities for their children. Hopefully our policy makers will take a cue and learn. This will require an out of the box thinking.
