Cutting poverty and reducing the burden of disease are major global development goals. Can strategies tackle these tasks in parallel, by focusing on very poor people? The health sector can borrow strategies from welfare services to reduce the risk of health-related shocks, ease their impact and break the vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health. Poor people often have higher risks of adverse events and fewer means to cope with them than wealthier groups. A paper produced for a UK Department for International Development workshop analyses health-related shocks.
Poverty and health
Breaking the link between poverty and illness
The social and economic impact of South Africa’s social security system
Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), South Africa , 2004
Social grants play a critical role in reducing poverty and promoting development in South Africa. This study evaluates the socio-economic impact of various social grants including child support grants, disability grants and state pensions. The paper further examines their effects on the household, the labour market and the economy. The paper begins by assessing the impact of social assistance on poverty reduction. To evaluate the level of poverty, the authors use different methodological approaches including absolute and relative measures. The second section investigates the effects of social grants on households’ access to health care, schooling, housing, water and electricity. The third section examines the impact of social security on employment and productivity. Finally the paper analyses the impact of this public expenditure on macro-economic indicators including national savings and consumption.
What is the impact of IMF, WB and WTO liberalization and privatization of the water service sector on the poor?
Is the water privatization heavily promoted by the International Financial Institutions, a good thing for the poorest in the developing countries? A new report by Nancy Alexander of the Citizen's network on essential services takes a skeptical view. A UN report, "Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Liberalization of Trade in Services and Human Rights" claimed that increased foreign private investment in public services can upgrade national infrastructure, introduce new technology and provide employment. However, the report also argues that it can lead to negative impacts to the poorest.
Meeting the health-related needs of the very poor
Eldis Dossier
There is a growing concern within the international development community that policies aimed at reducing the number of people living below the poverty line could leave the most disadvantaged groups behind. In line with these concerns, this Eldis dossier looks at different strategies for reaching the very poor within the health sector, and at the institutional challenges associated with scaling up health-related interventions to cover broader segments of the population.
Is the water and sanitation MDG achievable?
The seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) commits the international community to halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. The baseline set for most of the MDG targets, including that on water and sanitation, is 1990. As 2002 is the last year for which comprehensive data is available it can be considered the halfway mark towards achieving the 2015 MDG deadline. Based on 2002 data, is the world on course for achieving this goal? A report prepared by the World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) presents a report on progress made towards fulfilling the MDG commitment. Encouragingly, with 83 percent coverage, the world is set to meet the drinking water MDG. This progress is tempered, however, by slow progress in sub-Saharan Africa.
Relating mortality rates to the poverty trap
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 2005
The authors of this paper present the argument that development occurs only if people make provision for the future. If they see no future, there is no growth. Using development indicators as their data for their research, they examine a basic determinant affecting decision horizons: the risk of premature death. The paper suggests that the causal relationship between mortality and poverty is bi-directional:
- on the one hand, in a poor country, unable to afford sanitation and medical care, people die young;
- on the other hand, where people have a short time horizon because they expect to die young, they have less reason to save and the economy fails to grow.
Study attributes AIDS to food insecurity in Mozambique
Mozambique's Food and Nutritional Security Technical Secretariat (SETSAN) says the country could face severe food insecurity as a result of HIV/AIDS. In a report released on Monday in the capital Maputo, at a symposium on the relation between hunger and absolute poverty, SETSAN warned that the agricultural sector might lose 20 percent of its workforce to AIDS-related illnesses by 2010.
How much would poor people gain from faster progress towards the Millennium Development Goals for health?
This article, published in The Lancet, explores what further progress towards the health objectives set out in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will mean for the poor. The author notes that, unlike the MDGs overall, these health objectives do not focus specifically on poor people. “Rather, they call for improvements in national averages that can be achieved through gains in both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. As a result, any reduction in society-wide average rates of death or illness can provide a wide range of outcomes for poor people.”
The politics of staying poor: exploring the political space for poverty reduction in Uganda
World Development, Volume 33, Issue 6
Despite claims that Uganda’s recent success in poverty reduction has been significantly related to “getting the politics right,” there are concerns that the poorest may not have benefited from this form of poverty reduction or the types of politics that have helped shape it. Employing the analytical framework of political space reveals that although some of the poorest groups are represented within the political system, political discourse reveals a strong bias toward the “economically active,” leaving the poorest excluded from poverty programs. Significantly, there is an increasing divergence between the regime’s political project of “modernization” and the international poverty agenda, with important implications for the poorest.
Understanding the linkages between HIV/AIDS and agriculture
The agricultural sector has been seriously affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. In parts of eastern and southern Africa, HIV prevalence rates exceed 15 percent. The disease has contributed to a loss of assets, loss of land, and, in some cases, labour shortages. As a result, crop production has declined for many farm households and rural inequality appears to have increased. Agricultural policies need to take account of these changes. Agricultural growth built on policies sensitive to the impacts of HIV/AIDS is essential if poverty caused by the disease is to be reduced.