PLIGHT OF EMASWATI TRAPPED IN POVERTY WITH NO HOPE OF CHANGE

Nothing hurts like when one is trapped in poverty.

I  have been reading a lot these days about  liberation theology  as  articulated by  Latin priest Gustavo Guterres, who says God favours the poor, the landless, the oppressed and the vulnerable.  In America it was Theologian James Cone who termed it into black theology, saying God is black, which shook the foundation of religious circles in America in particular among whites. When my fellow columnist , Mr Vusi Sibisi,  lamented how the  church had abandoned  the plight of the poor to enjoy  political favours,  liberation  and  black theologians  revealed how  some church leaders confronted with similar conditions  we have in Eswatini  find  that God,  especially Jesus  Christ aligned  to the poor.

Statistics

I would like to share some interesting statistics as reflected in the World Population Report, which paints a gloomy picture about the plight of the   poor in worst affected countries globally including Eswatini.  The worst affected countries include; Equatorial Guinea at 76.8 per cent, Madagascar  70.6 per cent, South Sudan 70.7 per cent, Guinea Bissau 69.3 per cent, Eritrea 69 per cent, Sao Tome and Principe 66.7 per cent, Burundi 64.9 per cent, DR Congo 63.9 per cent, Central Republic of Congo 62 per cent, Guatemala 59.3 per cent, Eswatini 58.8 per cent, Haiti 58.5 per cent. According to the World Population Review, the poverty is a state of being in which a person lacks the income (or other means of support) to reliably meet their basic personal needs, such as food, shelter and clothing. Poverty exists in every country in the world, though it is a more pressing issue in some countries than in others. The poverty rate is the number of people (usually expressed as a percentage) in a given demographic group whose income falls below the poverty line.According to wikipedia, poverty is a state or condition in which one lacks the financial resources and essentials for a certain standard of living. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects.

Compare

When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: absolute poverty compares income against the amount needed to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing and shelter;  relative poverty measures when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. The definition of relative poverty varies from one country to another, or from one society to another. Poverty has a wide range of possible causes, from the amount of fresh water and arable land in a region to government policies or conflict. Additionally, natural disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the 2016 El Nino drought and cyclones such as those experienced recently in southern African region can further strain an impoverished area’s already scarce resources. Poverty can be a cyclical trap. For people to rise above poverty, they need education, proper health care and sanitation, access to clean water, and job opportunities that can help them improve their financial situation. Unfortunately, people in poverty often live in areas low on these resources. Therefore, the people become trapped in a vicious cycle in which they can’t get better jobs until they improve their situation (education is particularly helpful), but they can’t afford to improve their situation until they get better jobs. Country-wide poverty is typically measured in one of two ways. The first is to determine the percentage of people whose daily income falls below specific baseline amounts, such as US$10 per day. These baselines remain the same for every country, enabling a slightly different perspective on country-to-country comparisons.

Baseline

The most widely used baseline amount is US$1.90 per day, measured in 2011 PPP international dollars (INT), a theoretical unit of currency used to make country-to-country comparisons easier. People who make less than this amount are considered to be in ‘extreme poverty’, which is to say they are the poorest of the poor. While overall poverty rates have improved considerably in recent decades, several individual countries have experienced a rise in poverty. As previously mentioned, 696 million people still live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than US$1.90 (INT) per day. More than 430 million of these people live in Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region in the world, where more than 40 per cent of people lived in extreme poverty as of 2018. Many countries in which poverty is rising have been plagued by political instability or conflict. Others are hampered by frequent natural disasters or ongoing environmental stresses (increased drought in particular) caused by climate change. Several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face both of these concerns. I appeal to the country’s authorities, the Government, Parliament and the church   to   honestly answer this question, is their development agenda that is  poverty centred? Is the plight of the poor   foremost in their programmes? Is right to human dignity  not worth protection?

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