More on how poor are my villagers

Written Tuesday, 8 July 2008

 

 

I've just started reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs (finally!), and he classifies poverty into three groups: extreme or absolute poverty, moderate poverty, and relative poverty.  Extreme poverty means that "households cannot meet basic needs for survival.  They are chronically hungry, unable to access health care, lack safe drinking water and sanitation, cannot afford education for some or all children, and perhaps lack rudimentary shelter (like a rain-proof roof) and basic articles of clothing such as shoes."  Moderate poverty "refers to conditions of life in which basic needs are met, but just barely."  Relative poverty is "a household income level below a given proportion of average national income", where basic needs are met but consumer goods (like a car or phone) that are the norm in a particular society are unaffordable.

 

So according to that scale, my villagers mostly fit into the "moderate poverty" category, which according to Jeff Sachs (and the World Bank) means my villagers are probably earning the equivalent of $1 to $2 a day.  It also means that there are over a billion people in the world poorer than my villagers.  Scary thought.

 

On a related note, right now is the hungry season in Senegal.  My family has started cutting back on food – we still eat every meal, but there is just not enough anymore to fill everyone up.