Getting to Know my International Contacts

Poverty in India

For this week’s assignment, I am yet to receive a response from my conversational partner. I have therefore decided to look at poverty in India through Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center (CHIP) website www.childhoodpoverty.org.  India is the second most populous country in the world with an estimated 1.03billion people in 2001. Over the last five decades the government of India has made efforts to alleviate poverty through liberalization of the economy, targeted programmes, land and tenancy reforms, participatory and empowerment based approaches and the provision of basic services. Despite these efforts, the absolute numbers in poverty remain very high. The social services sectors face major challenges of providing education for about 33million children from poor families,  dealing with communicable diseases, malnutrition, maternal and perinatal illnesses.

Childhood Poverty in India.

India has an estimated 400million of its population to be children from 0 to 18years.  They account for 20% of the world’s out of school children, it has the largest number of working children and serious gender discrimination. The reason for gender discrimination is a perception that boys are permanent members of a family while girls are only temporary members. The on-going gender discrimination leads to lower rate of school attendance among girls, less exposure to the outside world, and emphasis on domestic skills. This situation made life very difficult for many indian children especially the girls.

Action to Address the Situation.

Three main anti-poverty programmes in India are - Rural Employment Creation and Infrastructure Development Programmes; Self-Employment; and Food Subsidy Programmes. All these three have been subjected to reform in recent years to ensure better targeting and coverage. The largest food subsidy programme is the Public Distribution System, which is explicitly targeted towards the poor. Integrated Child Development Services Programme (ICDS) is the largest programme specifically targeted at children in the 0-6 age group. It is a centrally sponsored scheme covering all states. However, more needs to be done.

In conclusion, I will suggest that Indian should emulate what China has done. Remove all the cultural barriers, abolish gender discrimination, support gender equality in employment and birth control. Lack of foresight on the part of government and culture barriers are the main causes of poverty. When there is increase in population and the infrastructures are not increased it is bound to bring poverty. These approaches reduced China’s poverty rate drastically.

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center (CHIP) Findings:

Findings from CHIP website about what works to reduce poverty are as follows:

1.      Maximising the potential of growth-oriented policies for children in poverty requires substantial investment in social infrastructure, particularly universal basic education and comprehensive social protection - preferably before major liberalisation takes place.

·         One effective form of redistribution is cash transfers for poor families - income supplements and minimum guaranteed incomes tend to have the greatest poverty reduction impacts. Programmes that integrate cash transfers with other key services are likely to have the strongest impacts on child wellbeing. Cash transfer refers to financial subsidy to indigenous poor homes.

·         The relationship between poverty, population trends and childhood poverty is very context- and culture-specific. Overall, the poorer the country and the higher the fertility level, the more beneficial the effects of decreasing fertility rates for children's wellbeing. However, policies aimed at reducing population growth should be implemented alongside wider development programmes in order to achieve substantial improvements in childhood wellbeing.

·         Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes can make a substantial contribution to the quality of especially vulnerable children's lives and provide safe childcare for working parents. Substantially more resources are needed if ECD is to make a greater contribution to the wellbeing and development of poor children.

 

Reference

http://www.childhoodpoverty.org