Defining poverty seems alarmingly simple. It is popularly associated with a lack of financial resources to afford the simple daily living requirements that so many take for granted.
Statisticians come up with different metrics to try and capture the complexity and dynamic nature of poverty and deprivation. They often fail to see the whole picture of what is undoubtedly the biggest challenge of every generation – winning the war against poverty. Like a deadly virus, the fundamental nature of poverty mutates and new forms appear and afflict different sectors of our society.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has just published a review of Malta’s efforts at alleviating poverty. This 276-page document is, as is to be expected, rich in statistical analysis aimed at assessing the success or otherwise of the national drive to mitigate poverty.
But its strength is the qualitative research carried out among NGOs that work on the coal face of society and experience first-hand the different forms of poverty that afflict our community today. The feedback of these NGOs is arguably as valuable as the clinical statistics produced by empirical research.
The NAO followed European Union Statistics methodology to define the benchmarks used to measure the extent of poverty in different countries. The flaw in this methodology, as acknowledged by the NAO, is that “the population of interest is restricted to all individuals living in private households”.
Those who live in collective households or institutions, such as hospitals, correctional facilities, residential homes and refugee centres do not feature in this vital research. These too are part of our society.
Even with this critical limitation, the NAO gives a balanced view of the way the war against poverty is being waged. There are undoubtedly areas of success in the form of various schemes aimed at improving the living conditions of vulnerable groups. The government schemes aimed at enabling disadvantaged people to have housing security are among the more successful.
There are, however, some alarming indications of how particular sectors of our society are more prone to being caught forever in the poverty trap.
The report makes a sobering comment: “Generally, a greater vulnerability was found for persons who are female, single parents with children living with them, not of working age (like children and pensioners), unemployed or inactive, have a chronic illness or condition, are limited in activity due to health issues or live in overcrowded residences.”
These are the ones most at risk of ending up on the human scrapheap of our society because of material deprivation.
The review concludes that the government is quite successful in defining the strategy against poverty but weak in implementation. Not surprisingly, the NGOs comment on the mixed effectiveness of the dialogue they have with officials in the different ministries responsible for the implementation of this strategy.
As in many organisations, some smart workers make things happen. But some bureaucrats work in silos determined to defend their minister’s turf at all costs.
It would be ideal if the government were to prepare an action plan to address the weaknesses identified in this useful review. This has become all the more important with the increase in impoverishment and inequality brought about by the pandemic in 2020.
The aim should be to achieve better results in the war against poverty in its various forms without discriminating against minority groups.
What the country needs is not a war against the poor but a smarter one against poverty.