Deepa Narayan, Ph.D.
Poverty Reduction and Economic Management
The World Bank
"Voices of the Poor: A Call to Action"
October 10, 2000

[Excerpts of World Bank video shown]

Deepa Narayan: I hope that gives you a bit of a sense of the kinds of things that we found out from the study "Voices of the Poor." We did the study, as we said, to inform the World Bank’s World Development Report. Once a decade a major policy paper is written on poverty which sets the tone and sets the policies for the next decade, not just for the Bank but because of the influence of the Bank it really becomes the cornerstone for development policies. This last year that report had been released and we didn’t know what would happen. The Bank, as you know, has a paradigm that is dominated by economic thinking. Over the last 15 or 20 years the number of sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists at the Bank have been increasing and then much more dramatically once Mr. Wolfenson, our president, joined. What many of us within the Bank have been arguing, and it’s been coming for a while, is that development is not just about economics.

Economics is embedded in society. It’s influenced by the institutions, the formal as well as the informal institutions of society. It’s influenced by the distribution of power within a society. Now these are very different ways of thinking about the world than only looking at economic policies in a very narrow perspective. I am in the poverty group and feel it is very important to try and influence this document. And I must say that we have been more successful than I could ever have imagined. That also has set up great challenges in terms of how do we change this to action. The Bank’s definition of poverty had been primarily economic and they still will it to be very important. They measure by income expenditure surveys. And then in the early ‘90s it included health and education. And now because of the study and because of the World Development Report, this study provided the conceptual foundation for the World Development Report, it basically focuses on three things: empowerment, security, and opportunity. All three are important and all three are interlocked and I hope to come back to some of these. But the most important contribution, I think, of this study, has been that poverty has to do with powerlessness and voicelessness.

Despite the fact that the study was done in very different social, political, and economic environments from Argentina to Brazil, from Russia to Georgia to Latvia to Bosnia, from Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia to Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, to Brazil, Argentina to Pakistan, to India, to Bangladesh. We didn’t cover the whole world but we did cover a good sampling of countries from the different regions. What’s striking is that we heard the same echoes from different countries over and over again, which forced us to think about ‘why do we hear very similar experiences emerging from very different contexts?’ It’s not intuitive. I would bet you that if you did this study in the poorer areas of Washington, D.C., or if there are poor areas here in Charlottesville, that you would find very similar findings. That commonality that emerged has to do with powerlessness and voicelessness and dependency of poor people (men and women) on the wealthy. And the fact that because they feel dependent, because they have few options, they cannot take the chances of voicing their experiences, voicing their feelings, even in the face of wrongdoing, which leads people to say that if you are poor today, you will be poor tomorrow. In Brazil they said, "The miserable will be miserable and the rich will continue to be rich." In Ethiopia they picked up their hand and said, "Are your fingers equal? Are my fingers equal?" In Uspekistan they said, "A dog will never betray its master."

So this issue of dependency and the issue of the local elite taking over whatever resources come along is a critical one that we will come back to. This is why I want to emphasize…and I hope if you leave with one message from our conversation/discussion today, it is that power and voice make a difference; and without power and voice, no matter where you are, the chances of decisions being made that make your life better are pretty remote, especially if you’re poor, even amongst well-intentioned groups and governments. And I think this is a fundamental reason why a lot of development assistance is wasted. It’s that outsiders presume to know what is best in a particular environment without building on the knowledge that already exists in a situation.

So what are the five findings. If you could put that slide up that would be great. The first very simply is that well-being of poverty is holistic. There are multiple dimensions. Let me read to you a couple of them. In Ethiopia, a woman said, "A better life for me is to be healthy, live peacefully, in love and without hunger. Love is more than anything. Money has no value in the absence of love." Poor peoples’ definitions weren’t very different from, their concerns were not very different from what you and I would be concerned about. They talked about dependable livelihood, they talked about peace of mind, good health, belonging to a community, being treated with respect, with dignity, being listened to, caring for the family, care and nurture of the soul or spirit. But they also talked about that the material dimensions are very important. In Ethiopia a poor man said, "My children are hungry, so I told them the rice was cooking until they feel asleep." In Jamaica they talked a lot about the interlinking of various dimensions of poverty, which makes it difficult for people to escape poverty. In Jamaica they characterized it as poverty is like living in jail, living under bondage, waiting to be free.

They also talked a lot about…and there were gender differences. Throughout there were some gender differences that are important. But there weren’t always gender differences. For example sometimes there were no differences in priorities that poor people talked about, especially in very poor communities. For example, a poor woman in Uganda said and also in South Africa said, "When I speak in public, the men laugh at me. What I want the most is to be listened to." In Bangladesh, even where there is extreme poverty a poor man said, "Of course it is important that I have food in my stomach, but it is equally important that when I have a meeting, I am not told to sit on the outside, and that when I speak, I am not told to keep quiet." And similar things came out from women. It’s that poor people hunger for food but they also hunger to be treated with dignity, to be heard for voice as well as for partnerships with outsiders.

The other thing that comes out that I think development assistance has ignored before is the psychological dimensions of poverty. Over and over again people talked about feelings of shame or feelings of humiliation, embarrassment, and the rudeness and abuse they often experienced with outsiders. And I’ve come into this a little bit later in terms of how the experience with institutions.

If I was to summarize all this it is that poverty is multidimensional. Material well-being is important, but so is social, so is physical, and so is spiritual, and so is security, that it is not that you’ve got to have enough to eat, but you’ve got to know what tomorrow will bring. Poor people talk a lot about assets, assets that will help them overcome periods of shock. They don’t talk as much about income.

The second major finding has to do with insecurity. What we found is that over and over again, even in areas where economic poverty had declined, poor people said that insecurity has increased, that unpredictability has increased and that they had not been able to take advantage of economic opportunities, or the economic opportunities were greater for many people. Why is that? Basically what comes up is that poor people lack the connections with those who have the jobs, lack the connections with financial institutions and credit institutions with information about jobs, and they lack of course access and certain skills as well. They talk also a lot about corruption. The issue of corruption came up over and over again, and I’ll get to that in a little bit. Even in Vietnam in which poverty had decreased tremendously, poor people said that insecurity or the unpredictability of life has increased. Because they have so few cushions, so few assets, where the rich man can overcome a calamity in one year, a poor man who has no money will never recover. So the issue of insecurity becomes very important.

The thread that runs through peoples’ descriptions of their lives is fear and anxiety. And when you are fearful and anxious, you don’t make the best decisions, nor do you reach out and take advantage of opportunities that come your way. In Russia it was characterized as "Every day I am afraid of the next." In Egypt it was defined as "Security is peace of mind, and the possibility to sleep relaxed." In Bulgaria it was "Security is knowing what tomorrow will bring, to know how I will get food tomorrow." And in Equador they said, "Insecurity is total. The police and laws are absent." I think what is important to remember is what we often think about is us versus them. But I think there are more similarities amongst poor people around the world than there are differences and the collapse of the system of both the political and the economic system in Eastern Europe has had devastating effects on many people. In fact, the most devastating demoralized, the most…I guess the deepest embattled was from Eastern Europe because their people are coping with poverty in a society which never experienced poverty. So it’s not intergenerational poverty and there is a lot of shame and a deep sense of individual failure and so people don’t want to even acknowledge that they are poor, which on the researchers was very difficult because one of the things that the researchers came back and said was that this research methodology helped them learn more about their own country than other methods had because they didn’t go in with a lot of preconceptions.

The third issue is on gender inequity and domestic violence. I was very surprised that despite the efforts of a lot of people focusing on gender equity and women in development that basically gender inequity still remains deeply entrenched and widely spread. And I want to just make the case by using the example of domestic violence. What we find is that with increasing difficulties in finding employment, poor men often are going into collapse and out of this collapse in a sense of failure often into alcohol, drugs, and domestic violence, which means basically physical abuse of women, their partners, as well as children. Poor women on the other hand and this came out over and over again, seem to be less willing to give up and more willing to take on, just literally hit the streets and doing whatever it takes, whatever demeaning jobs they can find, to bring food to the family table. So in Russia we found professors and in many of the Eastern European countries we found professors and teachers who said they were cleaning toilets, public toilets. The women were doing so but the men couldn’t cope with that. Women also are primarily in the informal sector on the streets. And in Rowanda they called themselves the marathon runners . Because of local regulations and harassment by police, they found that they constantly had to move to earn their incomes. I want to show you a slide on the gender violence which basically shows that out of the communities we visited, over 90% acknowledge that gender violence or physical abuse of women was present. The most dramatic, the most depressing increases are in Eastern Europe, where every community acknowledged the presence of gender violence, even when this was a taboo subject. There are regions in which domestic violence is going down and this has to do with the activities of the church, the fact that women are earning greater incomes, and that some women are willing to take a stand. But no one really emerges a winner when there is domestic violence in the family.

The reason why this is of such critical importance is that the household, in whatever form it is, is the fundamental building block of societies, and if the households are in trouble, then it is reflected in society. All poverty reduction strategies impact the household and what’s happening within it. We’ve got to take this into account to ensure that policies being put into place have the desired impact, have the positive impacts that they are meant to have.

The fourth area is on state institutions. Basically what we find is that from poor people’s perspectives the institutions of the state seem pretty dysfunctional. They talk both about corruption as well as ineffectiveness. Despite this, poor people over and over again say that they want to work with their governments, but they want a fairer deal. Corruption emerges as a core poverty issue. And although we may think of it as a petty corruption, it actually not only disempowers, but it eats away at the little money that poor people have. In Russia a poor man cried and said, "I have got paid in vodka and mayonnaise when I need money to buy medicines for my daughter who is ill." So it’s over and over again, even though I am using codes to communicate what we heard, what I am focusing on are findings that came out over and over again.

It’s the same thing in terms of access to the market place. Harassment by the police probably emerged as more than anything else. In country after country, basically what emerged is that the police are perpetuators of violence and extortion, rather than protectors. In Uspekastan, they said, "the police have become a rich man’s stick against the poor." In Argentina they said, "the police are like rubbish, they are everywhere." In Bangladesh and India, they said, "the police are an unnecessary evil." In Bangladesh, they said, "if you are poor and you go to a police station, you get caught and the rich man…and the wrongdoing is reversed. So there is no hope for justice." Within this kind of an environment, there is no way that people, given their dependency, their precarious livelihood, that they can take a stand.

Let me show you some findings that came out from the study and what is important to remember is that no single organization or institution emerged as making a difference consistently in poor peoples’ lives. So on the right-hand side are a whole range of civil society groups, that includes NGO’s, community-based organizations, poor peoples’ own organizations , religious organizations, kin family, local leader, credit, and other formal organizations. On the left-hand side are a whole range of state government institutions, from health, education, police, municipality, ministries, utilities, transport, financial, and then private enterprise. The message from this is that when you talk to poor people without giving them any cues about ‘what do you do when you have trouble? Where do you turn for help? How do you cope?’ A whole range of institutions become important in their lives.

Now if you could change to the next slide. And this was what are the ratings on what are the most effective institutions. What you see is that the number shift to the right, which is civil society organizations. But please notice that it is not NGO’s that are the highest. It is community-based organizations. It’s poor people’s informal groups that are their most effective that they think about. And state institutions remain there but the numbers drop.

Now look at the slide on the most ineffective. The number shift dramatically to state institutions and some numbers remain on civil society. And so the message is that the government institutions all over the world, there are many exceptions but by and large, are not really reaching poor people. These are the aggregate findings for rural areas and we see the exact same finding for urban areas. Yes state institutions are not doing well, but neither are NGO’s. NGO’s are very, and that’s non-government organizations…NGO’s are very valued where they exist. They are not as present as we think they are and they are very effective in helping poor people survive. But by and large, given the scale of poverty, they have not made a difference in shifting poor peoples’ power and ability to negotiate different decisions, whether it is with the state or the private sector. And I think that is extremely important. By the way, in terms of global poverty figures, just in terms of income criteria, there are 1.2 billion people who live on less than one dollar a day. The world over there are 2.8 billion people who live on less than 2 dollars per day. 2.8…that’s almost 50%. It’s 48% of the world lives on less than 2 dollars per day. I think that is a very sobering figure.

The church organizations, or faith-based organizations, did relatively well. But they, together with NGO’s, were criticized for not being accountable, for not again listening to poor people, and not getting them involved in decision-making. Once again there were gender differences. Women said, "You know we go and do all the work in the church, but we are never asked to participate in any decisions or management, etc." Participatory development is a slogan that has become very popular. It’s very important but the message we get from the poor is that participation takes time. When you have nothing, that time and the work that you can do in that time is extremely important. So they feel they are being exploited, that they are being asked to participate in projects that make absolutely no difference in their lives. And they are being asked to participate and give their opinions and then those opinions don’t make any difference, are not taken into account. And this is a real problem that needs to be addressed.

How then do poor people survive? If they don’t depend upon government. They don’t depend upon NGO’s. Churches have limited resources. The basic message is that they survive by depending upon their own resources, by depending on their kin and family, and upon their own informal groups. But it doesn’t mean that that’s what we should focus on because poor people…we shouldn’t romanticize this. Poor people are very clear about the limitations of these groups. In Pakistan they said, "There is a limit to how much one hungry man can feed another hungry man." And these kind of findings came up from all over the world.

So the challenge to us of course then is how, given the picture that has emerged from the study, what can be done? Policy makers pay attention to that which can be measured and can be tracked over time. If you are going to focus on income, that is what is going to get the attention. So if you think voice and power are important to make a system work, then we’ve got to figure out ways of measuring changing voice and empowerment. No matter what you do, if governance is dysfunctional, if the money is going to be siphoned off, if there is no way for governments to connect with poor people and be informed by poor peoples’ realities, it is unlikely that programs will have the form or the shape or the timing or the nature that benefits poor people. So it’s not only about corruptions, it’s about developing programs that have relevance in poor peoples’ lives. And I can give you hundreds of examples of credit programs or education programs or health programs that people don’t use because they don’t see any value in it.

Finally I think what you are seeing now and what you will see played out in the newspapers is the struggle of bringing the economic and the social together. And I am talking about social broadly, not social sectors in terms of education and health, but sociological thinking, sociological mindsets, because if you think about it it’s the informal rules, it’s the cultural norms, it’s the social norms that determine how people behave and not just the sort of rational economic thinking. People work based on what we call social networks, the connections between each other, and unless we take this into account centrally in our thinking, whether it’s about privatization in Russia or about public sector reform in Brazil, there will continue to be problems. Poverty is a huge problem but the poor people are a resource and not a problem. And what comes up over and over again from the study is that they are a resource, they work hard, and their resilience in their struggle to survive is remarkable. This widow in India who, the moment she was widowed with young children was thrown out of her house, said, "Even at times of crisis, I held on to my nerves and I did not give in. My God has stood beside me."