ASAP Message

ASAP Message

1. Over 1/6 of humanity lives in extreme poverty or on less than $1/day. 
   
2. The practical solutions and interventions needed to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2025 are currently available.
   
3. $1/day donation over the course of one year will start one family on the path out of extreme poverty.

1. Over 1/6 of humanity lives in extreme poverty or on less than $1/day.

More than one billion people in the world (primarily in Africa and South and East Asia) live on less than $ 1 a day.  They live in a state of poverty so severe that they are unable to meet basic needs for survival.  As described by world renowned economist, Jeffrey Sachs,

       “They are chronically hungry, unable to access health care, lack the amenities of safe drinking water                   and sanitation, cannot afford education for some or all of the children, and perhaps lack rudimentary          shelter—a roof to keep the rain out of the hut, a chimney to remove the smoke from the cook          stove—and basic articles of clothing, such as shoes.”1 

This means that more than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day…300 million are children.  It means that each year, approximately 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria and approximately three million people die as a result.  This also means more than one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water and that 40% of women in Africa do not have access to basic education.2  Living in such conditions, especially experiencing chronic hunger, make the extreme poor highly vulnerable and limit and/or negate their efforts to escape severe poverty.3

Hundreds of millions of these individuals live in remote, rural communities (mostly in Africa), which suffer from the following:

• widespread chronic hunger
• high prevalence of disease
• lack of access to medical care
• severe lack of infrastructure. 

In addition, hundreds of millions of individuals live in urban slums in places such as Nairobi and Delhi, which share the following characteristics:

• inadequate access to safe water
• inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure
• poor structural quality of housing
• overcrowding
• insecure residential status.4

This doesn’t mean that everyone that lives in a rural village of Africa or an urban slum is extremely poor; however, it does mean that the biggest dent in extreme poverty will be made by working in those areas.  But how?

2. The practical solutions and interventions needed to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2025 are currently available.

“The principal route out of poverty is work; however, poverty elimination is impossible unless [an] economy generates opportunities for investment, entrepreneurship, job creation and sustainable livelihoods.”5 

Unfortunately, most of the economies of countries in the developing world (Africa, Latin America and Asia) are too weak and unstable to provide what most people want—formal employment.  In order to survive, hundreds of millions of individuals (many of which are women) start and run microenterprises—a self-employed micro business. 

According to the International Labor Organization, 32% of the world’s employed population was self-employed between 1990 and 2000.6  In Sub-Saharan Africa, 53% of the employed were self-employed. 

Using an image of a ladder representing economic development, we see a very rough estimate of where the world’s population stands in terms of economic well-being and employment.

The upper end of the low-income world (1.5 billion), standing on the lowest rung, is usually self-employed.  These microentreprenuers engage in various business endeavors, which may include selling fruits and vegetables, weaving, baking bread, sewing, raising chickens or selling used clothing. 

In order to start or expand these small businesses, a microentreprenuer will often seek out a microfinance institution (MFI)—an organization that provides financial services such as working capital loans (otherwise known as microcredit), savings and insurance. 

With these products and services in hand, the poor are able to increase the income from their microenteroprises, build assets, stabilize consumption and shield themselves against risks.  They are on the ladder of economic development and moving towards economic self-reliance. 

Unfortunately, however, the lower end of the low-income world, or the extremely poor, don’t even have a foot on the first rung.  Most often, they are neither employed nor self-employed.  They are day laborers, subsistence farmers, or beggars – fighting to survive on pennies each day.  Without a boost onto the ladder this will remain the fate of hundreds of millions of people.

Fortunately, organizations such as BRAC, Oxfam America and others are finding ways to lift millions of the world’s poorest onto the first rung of the economic development ladder, leading them toward economic self-reliance. 

BRAC

Through its Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) program, BRAC is reaching and creating opportunities to help the absolute poorest, or the Ultra Poor of Bangladesh, develop a livelihood and graduate to a mainstream microfinance program.  The diagram below shows this process graphically:

Since food insecurity prevents many individuals from moving forward, members of the of the TUP program first receive a monthly subsistence allowance to help cover the costs of food.  Poor health is also a constraint of upward mobility, therefore, members also receive health services, including basic health care, pregnancy related care, family planning, immunization, tuberculosis control, and vitamin A capsule distribution among children between the ages of 1 and 5. 

At this point, members are ready to receive enterprise development and skills training in poultry and livestock rearing, vegetable farming, horticulture, nursery, and non-farm activities.  After sufficient training, members then receive assets to begin an income generating activity related to the training they received. 

They might receive a couple of goats to raise or a small plot of land to farm.  They might receive a sewing machine to create clothing or be given plastic wares to sell at the local market.  Throughout this entire process, group members are provided with support and counseling on the development of their livelihood strategies and in helping to cope with crises.

Oxfam America

Through their Saving for Change program, Oxfam America helps very poor people in remote rural villages of Mali, Senegal, and Cambodia improve their livelihoods and build a better future by improving their access to financial services. They accomplish this by

• Supporting village groups that act as their own community banks. Savings group members save, lend and pay each other interest. In this way, they don’t need to take on debt from a credit provider, moneylender or intermediary.
• Villagers get a safe place to save, easy access to loans and interest that grows the group fund.

Savings groups bring community members together so they can work together on other development initiatives.

3. $1/day donation over the course of one year will start one family on the path out of extreme poverty.

The world is currently plagued by the inequity between rich and poor and excessive consumption versus excessive poverty. In fact, 20% of the world’s wealthiest people consume 86% of the world’s resources, while the poorest 20% consume a mere 1.3%.7

The good news is that we have enough excess, or discretionary, resources, to end extreme poverty.  Accordingly, a core concept underlying Alliance of  Students Against Poverty is that the $1/day pledge not be simply a request for money but a commitment to conservation—to reduce one’s current consumption by $1/day (or $7/week) and direct that savings to help others escape life-threatening poverty.   

This reduction is achievable by most Americans, even children.  There are thousands of possibilities—all of which can actually benefit the donor as well as the poor. For some donors it will mean drinking one glass of water per day instead of a soft drink, taking their own lunch to work instead of eating out or eliminating two custom coffee drinks per week.   For others it will mean trimming 50 miles of driving per week, perhaps by designating one day for using a bike, car-pool,  metro or public transportation to get to work or class.
Through your commitment to ASAP’s $1/day pledge campaign today, you will help ensure the eradication of extreme poverty tomorrow.  In fact, your $1/day donation over the course of one year will start more than one family on the path out of extreme poverty.  

For example, the cost to reach one family over two years with BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor program is approximately $300.  That means your $1/day donation over one year will be instrumental in starting two families on the path out of extreme poverty.  It will pay for the necessary food and medicine to cover the immediate needs of a family suffering from extreme poverty.  It will pay for the appropriate enterprise development and skills training as well as the assets to begin an income generating activity related to the training they received.

1. Sachs, Jeffrey.  The End of Poverty. The Penguin Press, New York, 2005, page 20.

2. Fast Facts: The Faces of Poverty.  Millennium Project, http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/UNMP-FastFacts-E.pdf

3. Matin, Imran.  “Targeted Development Programmes for the Extreme Poor: Experiences from BRAC Experiments.”  CPRC Working Paper No 20, page 7.

4. UN-Habitat: The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003. Earthscan Publications Ltd, 2003, page 12.

5. ILO: Working Out of Poverty, Report of the Director-General. International Labour Conference, 91st Session, Geneva, 2003, page 7.

6. ILO: Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture. International Labor Organization, 2002, page 22.

7. UN: 1998 Human Development Report. United Nations Development Programme, Oxford University Press, 1998, page 2.

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