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Global hunger and undernutrition could end by 2025

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Compact2025 is described as an inclusive global effort to support countries, institutions, and initiatives for the elimination of hunger and undernutrition by 2025. (Photo: World Bank/flickr/cc)

Compact2025 is described as an inclusive global effort to support countries, institutions, and initiatives for the elimination of hunger and undernutrition by 2025. (Photo: World Bank/flickr/cc)

by Thalif Deen, IPS News

The United Nations aims to help eliminate hunger and undernutrition – described as two of “greatest scourges” facing humankind — by the year 2030.

But the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has launched an ambitious new initiative to help end global hunger by 2025 – five years ahead of the UN target.

IFPRI believes that its initiative, dubbed Compact2025, can help end global hunger by 2025 if countries replicate strategies that worked in places such as China, Brazil, and Thailand, where huge strides have been made toward reducing hunger.

“We can eliminate both hunger and undernutrition, and we can do so by 2025—which will also help end extreme poverty and will contribute to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals,” says IFPRI.

But there are significant knowledge gaps related to eliminating hunger and undernutrition that must first be filled for effective and cost-efficient action, IFPRI said.

Compact2025 is described as an inclusive global effort to support countries, institutions, and initiatives for the elimination of hunger and undernutrition by 2025.

It will work toward this goal by identifying pragmatic, innovative, and action-oriented strategies to address challenges on the ground while learning from stakeholders at all levels and from multiple sectors, including agriculture, nutrition, and health.

Compact2025 also plans to address these gaps by acting as a ‘Knowledge and Innovation Hub’ that will help guide countries in developing and implementing strategic actions for food security and nutrition.

Dr. Shenggen Fan, IFPRI’s director general, told IPS eliminating hunger and undernutrition in 10 years is a huge task, but it can be accomplished.

He pointed out that Brazil, China, Thailand, Peru, and Vietnam have each dramatically reduced hunger and undernutrition in a relatively short time.

At the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in the Peruvian capital of Lima last week, the final declaration adopted by over 60 legislators said Latin America and the Caribbean– of all of the world’s regions– had made the greatest progress in reducing hunger.

The region also reduced the proportion of hungry people by more than half, in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which is fast moving towards its 2015 deadline by the end of December.

During the Nov. 15-17 Forum, delegates of the national chapters of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger (PFH) also reasserted their determination to promote laws to “break the circle of poverty and enforce the right to food” in the region.

Dr Fan said learning from the experiences of the five Asian and Latin American countries, “and leveraging strong international and national commitments to end hunger and undernutrition, it is possible to accelerate progress even further, he added.

While not all the MDGs have been achieved, the world has made incredible progress in reducing extreme poverty and hunger, he noted.

In fact, he said, the target on reducing hunger was just narrowly missed, as the proportion of undernourished people in the developing regions has fallen by almost half since 1990, from 23.3 per cent in 1990–1992 to 12.9 per cent in 2014–2016.

IFPRI says Compact2025 will contribute to accelerating progress to end hunger and undernutrition and is fully supportive of SDG 2 (End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture).

Compact2025’s work will also support the achievement of many other SDGs (e.g. Goals 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere, and Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages).

The 2025 target relates to many of the SDGs because ending hunger and undernutrition are stepping stones to ending extreme poverty, said Dr Fan, who received the Hunger Hero Award from the World Food Programme (WFP) in 2014 in recognition of his commitment to, and leadership in, fighting hunger worldwide.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted by world leaders at a summit meeting in September, also include the eradication of poverty by 2030

To inform actions that lead to concrete results, Compact2025, through its Knowledge and Innovation (K&I) Hub, will provide policymakers and practitioners with context-specific, evidence-based advice on scaling up success stories to end hunger and undernutrition.

IFPRI said Compact2025 will also build the knowledge-base and promote innovations to help countries develop, scale up, and communicate policies and programmes for the biggest, most cost-effective impacts—and in doing so will help weed out ineffective or inefficient policies and prevent a duplication of efforts.

To build on existing momentum, Compact2025 will complement established networks such as Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) and initiatives such as the Zero Hunger Challenge.

Additionally, it will also work with those who are already dedicated to achieving this goal by 2025 such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Rwanda at the national level; the African Union at the regional level; and the European Commission, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and World Food Programme (WFP) at the institutional level.

Compact2025 will contribute with the following approaches and activities:

• Serving as a Knowledge and Innovation Hub for stakeholders at all levels. • Sharing experiences, problems, and solutions within and across countries. Supporting evidence-based policies and experiments • Using pilot projects and policy experiments to strengthen the design, sequencing, and scale-up of successful policies and strategies.

• Promoting monitoring and evaluation systems and regulatory mechanisms for effective impact. Mobilizing a data revolution • Providing reliable and timely data on relevant indicators for evidence-based policymaking. • Collaborating to significantly improve data collection and analytical capacity in developing countries. Facilitating country-led strategies and investments • Facilitating implementation of country policies and strategies at national and subnational levels.

• Adapting successful food security and nutrition policies to local contexts. Strengthening inclusive and accountable partnerships • Engaging with established and new players including emerging countries, the private sector, and philanthropic organizations. • Developing country and global level accountability mechanisms for tracking progress.

Asked how much of funding is needed to achieve the goal of eradicating hunger, Dr Fan said that according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), investing 50 billion dollars per year can end hunger by 2025 (Schmidhuber and Bruinsma 2011).

The World Bank et al. estimate that 50 billion dollars over the next 10 years for a package of micronutrient interventions can help meet global stunting targets by 2025.

Additionally, IFPRI research found that investing in 100 dollars per child, or 75 billion dollars per year, can help reduce child stunting in four years (Hoddinott 2013). These estimates are just a fraction of the annual SDG funding requirement of trillions of dollars.

World Bank-funded projects fueling land grabs, displacement of global poor

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Despite mission of ending poverty, new report shows destructive legacy of World Bank projects across the planet

Joseph Kilimo Chebet, a father of five, standing next to the burned remains of his homestead in Kenya, destroyed only hours prior by Kenya Forest Service officers. (Photo: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)

Joseph Kilimo Chebet, a father of five, standing next to the burned remains of his homestead in Kenya, destroyed only hours prior by Kenya Forest Service officers. (Photo: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

The World Bank regularly broke its own promises to protect Indigenous rights around the globe by funding projects that displaced or threatened the livelihood of millions of the most vulnerable people on the planet, a new investigation has found.

Evicted and Abandoned, a joint report published Thursday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and several other outlets, found that a slew of World Bank-funded projects—including dams and power plants—have pushed 3.4 million people out of their homes or off their lands around the world since 2004.

ICIJ reviewed more than 6,000 World Bank documents and interviewed former and current employees and government officials who were involved in Bank-funded projects and found that in many cases, the World Bank violated its own internal policies and ignored evictions caused by its projects. The organization also did little to ensure the safety or livelihood of those who were resettled, in many cases not providing them with new housing or job prospects, as required.

“There was often no intent on the part of the governments to comply—and there was often no intent on the part of the bank’s management to enforce,” said Navin Rai, a former World Bank official who was responsible for the organization’s protection of Indigenous people from 2000 to 2012. “That was how the game was played.”

Between 2009 and 2013, World Bank Group lenders invested $50 billion in projects—like oil pipelines, mines, and dams—that were most likely to have “irreversible or unprecedented” social or climate impacts, such as physical or economic displacements, which have been shown to “rip apart kinship networks and increase risks of illness and disease,” according to the report.

“Resettled populations are more likely to suffer unemployment and hunger, and mortality rates are higher,” the report states.

Moreover, the World Bank and its private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corp., sometimes bankrolled regimes and companies that were accused of human rights violations including rape, murder, and torture, the report found. In some cases, the lenders continued to finance the operations even after evidence of such abuses emerged.

In Ethiopia, one initiative which was focused on health and education led to land grabs which involved violent mass evictions. Authorities there diverted millions of dollars from a World Bank project to fund those forced resettlements, and in 2011, soldiers who were responsible for carrying out the evictions killed at least seven people and targeted villagers for beatings and rape, according to the report.

The World Bank Inspection Panel found that the organization had failed to acknolwedge an “operational link” between its Ethiopian initiative and the mass eviction campaign—an oversight that violated the World Bank’s own rules.

In Nigeria, a Bank-funded project to improve water supplies, roads, and power in Lagos resulted in the eviction of nearly 2,000 slum-dwellers in Badia East, the report found. After Badia East residents sounded the alarm to the inspection panel, chairwoman Eimi Watanabe refused to open an investigation, instead urging them to negotiate with the Lagos state government, which gave out small sums of money as compensation. The panel then reportedly closed the case because of “the progress made and speedy provision of compensation to displaced people.”

Through its projects in those countries, as well as in Albania, Brazil, Honduras, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Kosovo, Peru, Serbia, South Sudan, and Uganda, the World Bank “[failed] to protect people moved aside in the name of progress,” the report found.

“In these countries and others, the investigation found, the bank’s lapses have hurt urban slum dwellers, hardscrabble farmers, impoverished fisherfolk, forest dwellers and indigenous groups—leaving them to fight for their homes, their land and their ways of life, sometimes in the face of intimidation and violence,” the report reads.

ICIJ’s report comes as the World Bank is increasing its call for projects that require forced resettlements. On Friday, the bank will begin its yearly Spring Meetings with the International Monetary Fund, where new policies will be considered. Some of the organization’s officials have expressed doubt over what the bank has called its “strongest, most state-of-the-art environmental and social safeguards,” but which critics say give foreign governments room to avoid complying with the bank’s standards.

Ahead of the meetings, a coalition of more than 260 global NGOs, farmer groups, and trade unions is publicly posing three questions to the bank about its role in the land grabs, as well as “climate destruction and the corporatization of agriculture.”

Those questions include:

  • Why have you not spoken to farmers before promoting massive agriculture-reform programs?
  • Why are you rewarding countries that cede their power and wealth to foreign corporations, while punishing those who spend on the health and wellbeing of their populations?
  • Why are you prioritizing farming models that destroy the environment and impoverish people, over those that work in harmony with the environment and are already feeding the world?

In a joint letter to the World Bank published Wednesday, 85 NGOs urged the organization to address the “numerous and serious failings of the safeguards system” and solve its “deep-seated fundamental flaws… by identifying the people who have been displaced by bank-financed projects and providing them with genuine sustainable development opportunities through a series of new grant-funded projects.”

Among the signatories are Human Rights Watch, Oxfam International, and the Africa Law Foundation, as well as Raquel Rolnik, former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing.

The report’s findings are “deeply troubling,” the letter reads. “While it is important that the review of Bank-financed projects was undertaken and finally published, the lack of transparency demonstrated by the Bank in concealing the Review’s findings—for three years in the case of part one and nine months in the case of part two—is unacceptable for a public institution.”

ICIJ and Huffington Post will feature stories, photographs, and videos of these resettlements on a microsite hosted by the Huffington Post, beginning Thursday, April 16.

World’s richest one percent undermine fight against economic inequalities

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‘We cannot rely on technological fixes. We cannot rely on the market. And we cannot rely on the global elites. We need to help strengthen the power of the people to challenge the people with power.’

Farmers with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) protest the concentration of land ownership in Brazil, during a Feb. 21 demonstration in support of the occupation of part of the Agropecuaria Santa Mônica estate, 150 km from Brasilia. (Credit: Courtesy of the MST)

Farmers with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) protest the concentration of land ownership in Brazil, during a Feb. 21 demonstration in support of the occupation of part of the Agropecuaria Santa Mônica estate, 150 km from Brasilia. (Credit: Courtesy of the MST)

by Thalif Deen, IPS News

United Nations: The growing economic inequalities between rich and poor – and the lopsided concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the world’s one percent – are undermining international efforts to fight global poverty, environmental degradation and social injustice, according to a civil society alliance.

Comprising ActionAid, Greenpeace, Oxfam and Civicus, the group of widely-known non-governmental organisations (NGO) and global charities warn about the widening gap and imbalance of power between the world’s richest and the rest of the population, which they say, is “warping the rules and policies that affect society, creating a vicious circle of ever growing and harmful undue influence.”

The group identifies a list of key concerns – including tax avoidance, wealth inequality and lack of access to healthcare – as being unduly influenced by the world’s wealthiest one percent.

In a statement released Thursday, on the eve of the World Social Forum (WSF) scheduled to take place in Tunis Mar. 24-28, the group argues the concentration of wealth and power is now a critical and binding factor that must be challenged “if we are to create lasting solutions to poverty and climate change.”

The statement – signed by the chief executives of the four organisations – says: “We cannot rely on technological fixes. We cannot rely on the market. And we cannot rely on the global elites. We need to help strengthen the power of the people to challenge the people with power.”

“Securing a just and sustainable world means challenging the power of the one percent,” the group says.

The signatories include Adriano Campolina of ActionAid, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah of Civicus, Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace and Winnie Byanyima of Oxfam.

Asked about the impact of economic inequalities on the implementation of the U.N.’s highly touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Ben Phillips, campaigns and policy director at ActionAid International, told IPS economic inequalities have meant that in many countries progress on poverty reduction has been much slower than it would have been if growth had been more equal.

For example, he said, Zambia has moved from being a poor country (officially) to being (officially) middle income. Yet during that time the absolute number of poor people has increased.

India’s persistently high child malnutrition rate and South Africa’s persistently high mortality rate are functions of an insufficient focus on inequality, he added.

Papua New Guinea has the highest growth in the world this year and won’t meet any MDG, because the proceeds of growth are so unequally shared, he pointed out.

Speaking on behalf of the civil society alliance, Phillips said inequality has also been the great blind spot of the MDGs – even when countries have met the MDGs they have often done so in a way that has left behind the poorest people – so goals like reducing maternal and infant mortality have been met in several countries in ways that have left those at the bottom of the pile with little or no improvement.

The four signatories say: “We will work together with others to tackle the root causes of inequality. We will press governments to tackle tax dodging, ensure progressive taxes, provide universal free public health and education services, support workers’ bargaining power, and narrow the gap between rich and poor. We will together champion international cooperation to avoid a race to the bottom.”

The statement also says that global efforts to end poverty and marginalisation, advance women’s rights, defend the environment, protect human rights, and promote fair and dignified employment are all being undermined as a consequence of the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few.

“Decisions are being shaped in the narrow interests of the richest, at the expense of the people as a whole,” it says.

“The economic, ecological and human rights crises we face are intertwined and reinforcing. The influence of the one percent has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished,” the group warns.

“Faced with this challenge, we need to go beyond tinkering, and address the structural causes of inequality: we cannot rely on technological fixes – there is no app for this; we cannot rely on the market – unchecked it will worsen inequality and climate change; and we cannot rely on the global elites – left alone they will continue to reinforce the structures and approaches that have led to where we are”.

People’s mobilisation and active citizenship are crucial to change the power inequalities that are leading to worsening rights violations and inequality, the group says.

However, in all regions of the world, the more people mobilise to defend their rights, the more the civic and political space is being curtailed by repressive action defending the privileged.

“We therefore pledge to work together locally, nationally and internationally, alongside others, to uphold and defend universal human rights and protect civil society space. A more equal society that values everyone depends on citizens holding the powerful to account.”

Phillips told IPS even the U.N.’s proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to be approved at a summit meeting of world leaders in September, will not be achievable if economic inequalities continue.

As leading economist Andy Sumner has demonstrated, “we find in our number-crunching that poverty can only be ended if inequality falls.” Additionally, healthy, liveable societies depend on government action to limit inequality.

It is also a question of voice, and power. In the words of Harry Belafonte, a Hollywood celebrity and political activist: “The concentration of money in the hands of a small group is the most dangerous thing that happened to civilization.”

Or as Jeff Sachs, a widely respected development expert and professor at Columbia University, has noted: “Corporations write the rules, pay the politicians, sometimes illegally and sometimes, via what is called legal, which is financing their campaigns or massive lobbying. This has got completely out of control and is leading to the breakdown of modern democracy.”

Phillips said tackling inequality is core to progress on tackling poverty – both because extreme and growing economic inequality will undermine poverty reduction and because the warping of power towards the one percent is shifting the focus of governments away from their citizens and towards corporations.

“Inequality is about more than economics and growth – it is now at such high levels that we risk a return to the oligarchy of the gilded age. We need to shift power away from the one percent and towards the rest of society, to prevent all decisions being made in the narrow interests of a privileged few,” he declared.

Richest 1% wealthier than the rest of the world combined

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Dollars

by teleSUR

In new report released to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam reveals that inequality is rising to staggering levels.

The spotlight will be on the world’s richest and most powerful as they gather in a billionaire’s playground in Switzerland this week, as a new report reveals that by next year 1 percent of the world’s population will own more wealth than the other 99 percent.

Anti-poverty charity Oxfam released its latest report “Wealth: Having it all and wanting more” Monday just days ahead of the World Economic Forum, whose annual meeting in ski resort Davos aims to set the global agenda for issues ranging from the global economy to climate change.

Executive director of Oxfam International, Winnie Byamyima, who will be co-chairing the event, has assured that she will use her position to draw attention to rising inequality as she did last year when her charity revealed that the richest 85 people in the world hold the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent.

“Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined? The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast,” Byamyima said.

“In the past 12 months we have seen world leaders from President Obama to Christine Lagarde talk more about tackling extreme inequality but we are still waiting for many of them to walk the walk. It is time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world,” she added.

The report examines how extreme wealth is passed down generations and how policies stay favorable to the interests of the wealthy. More than one-third of the 1,645 billionaires listed by Forbes inherited some or all of their riches.

Furthermore, the report details the massive sums billionaires spend on lobbying Washington and Brussels policy makers to protect their interests.

Twenty percent of the richest have interests in the financial and insurance sectors, a group which saw its cash wealth increase by 11 percent March 2013 to March 2014. These billionaires spent US$550 million lobbying policy makers in 2013.

During the 2012 U.S. elections, the financial sector also gave US$571 million in campaign contributions.

To End Hunger, Empower Women: Study

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We must not tolerate discrimination against women and instead, demand a comprehensive approach to women’s empowerment that includes applying a gender lens to all programs and policies.

Girls who receive quality education are more likely to work when they are adults, have fewer children, and exercise more decision-making power in their households, the Bread for the World Institute finds. Photo: Bread for the World

Girls who receive quality education are more likely to work when they are adults, have fewer children, and exercise more decision-making power in their households, the Bread for the World Institute finds. Photo: Bread for the World

by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams

Empowering women and girls is critical to ending hunger, extreme poverty, and malnutrition around the world—including in the United States—according to a new report released Monday by the Bread of the World Institute.

The report by the Institute, a non-partisan, Christian citizens’ movement aimed at educating policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public about hunger, shows that discrimination against women is a major cause of persistent hunger and that increasing women’s earning potential by boosting bargaining power, reducing gender inequality in unpaid work, increasing women’s political representation, and eliminating the wage gap between male and female labor could help stem the worldwide epidemic.

“Neither women nor men living in poverty have much economic bargaining power—that is, an ability to negotiate favorable economic outcomes for themselves—especially in developing countries, as the vast majority of people do low-paying, low-productivity work,” reads “When Women Flourish…We Can End Hunger” (pdf). “Even within the constraints of poverty, however, working conditions for men and women are far from equal: women suffer many more forms of discrimination, which worsen the effects of poverty on their lives. Discrimination that establishes and reinforces women’s lower status in society starts within the family and extends through community customs and national laws.”

“Discrimination,” the analysis continues, “is why women farmers labor with fewer productive resources than their male counterparts, why women in all sectors of the economy earn less than men, and why girls are pulled out of school to work or to marry.”

Yet women are the ones the world relies on to combat hunger and malnutrition. And when they are afforded more agency—when they are given control of their own earnings, allowed to participate in the development of agricultural programs, protected from domestic violence, or permitted to stay in school longer, for example—health outcomes improve.

“Eliminating barriers and empowering women around the world is key to ending hunger in our time,” said Asma Lateef, director of Bread for the World Institute. “We must not tolerate discrimination against women and instead, demand a comprehensive approach to women’s empowerment that includes applying a gender lens to all programs and policies.”

While the report examines hunger worldwide, it devotes an entire chapter to “The Feminization of Hunger and Poverty in the United States.” To reduce hunger and poverty in the U.S.—issues that are compounded by high levels of incarceration, a persistent wage gap, and insufficient childcare benefits—the report declares, “we must identify and adopt policies that help eliminate entrenched and interconnected sexism and racism.”

The report includes a joint statement from U.S. Representatives Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Nita Lowey (D-New York), urging policymakers at home and abroad to consider the implications of giving women the tools they need to survive and thrive.

“There is no greater force multiplier than empowered women,” they write. “In developed and developing countries alike, from conflict zones to refugee shelters, when we make women’s rights and opportunity top priorities, we stand a much better chance of defeating intolerance, poverty, disease, and even extremism.”

Whose development PM Modi is talking about?

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Modi

– by Irfan Engineer

Prime Minister Narendra Modi often tells his audience that he is working for the development of 1.25 billion Indians. The sub-text is that he would work for development of all Indians regardless of their religion, caste, ethnicity, and regardless of their accident of birth and their cultural heritage. The idea is noble and needs to be fully supported.

However, if we apply a bit of our mind to the contention, two questions would come to mind – 1) Are the resources for development unlimited for the desired development of all 1.25 billion Indians? Given the extremely limited resources, irrespective of the appealing slogans, there cannot be development that is going to benefit all. There would be contested claims on development. Those who are more organized and rich in resources to lobby with the state machinery and have easy access to bureaucracy would exclude those who can’t make their voice heard. To expect the government to be blind and neutral to interest groups, communities, castes, gender, cultural factors and to rise above their own prejudices is contrary to lived human experience. Slogan of benefits of development for all is either noble declaration of intents at best and often to fool the gullible.

2) Are we doing justice when we talk of development of all 1.25 billion Indians, given the levels of inequalities? While increasing number of Indians are joining the club of richest 100 in the world and even richest 50, the number of Indians surviving on income of less than Rs. 20/- a day is staggering 836 million! 200 million Indians sleep hungry every night! 212 million Indians are undernourished and 7000 Indians die of hunger every year, and if we add hunger related diseases to the cause of death, there are 10 million deaths every year!

Increasing number of Indians joining the richest 50 and 100 in the world makes some Indians, particularly the urban middle class, proud. They have ostrich like approach towards increasing inequalities and India being almost at the bottom of all human development indices which include illiteracy, lack of access to health facilities, infant mortality rate, etc. They wished nobody talked about the issues that could trouble their conscience. When Prime Minister Modi talks of development of all 1.25 billion Indians, he is technically talking of development of the poor also. But, given that the resources are limited, the moot questions are, what is the strategy for development of all Indians? And, what are the priorities of the Government? Where is the tax payers money going to be utilized?

One strategy could be to build infrastructure and create assets in the backward regions through the labour of the people of the region ensuring inclusion of all castes, gender and communities – both as beneficiaries of the development and inclusion in contribution of their labour. Infrastructure like irrigation facilities in the hands of the village communities, roads, electricity, health centres, educational institutions, toilets, easy access to markets, common spaces for community gathering etc. That would create opportunities for those who need them most, put income in the hands of hungry and malnourished. Income in their pockets would create demand for industrial goods and the industrialists would be indirect beneficiaries. When Prime Minister Modi talks of development of all, this is obviously not the strategy he has in his mind.

The second strategy could be to spend tax payers money and common resources of the country (including environment, land, water, forests and other natural resources) to create huge assets and public spectacles, from which only a countable few benefit. The proponents of this strategy tell us that poor – labourers, farmers, artisans and small entrepreneurs – will fritter away opportunities and would not lead to faster growth as, say, those having access to huge capital and finance would. Faster growth would create job opportunities and indirectly benefit the poor. The foreign investors do sense the opportunities to make huge profits but they do so by spending as little on labour as possible and by appropriating common resources of the country like land, labour, spectrum and natural resources. In order to maximize profits, spending on labour has to be minimized. That is achieved by automizing technologies that greatly reduces need of human resources. This growth is therefore also called as jobless growth. The second strategy to reduce spending on labour is to keep wages as low as possible, in fact reducing the labour to slave labour. Workers can organize themselves and act concertedly to protect and further their interests and demand their just share for their contribution to the surplus being created in the economy. Labour laws in a democracy should protect and facilitate the workers to organize themselves and enter into collective bargaining for their share in the surplus they are helping create.

The state in the second strategy for ‘development’ makes available land, natural resources at cheapest possible cost to the controllers of huge capital and invests tax payers money in creating few islands of ‘world class’ infrastructure for the entrepreneurs controlling capital, e.g. ports, roads, flyovers, rail links, energy supply etc. The state facilitates coercive land acquisition from the poor without letting them get organized and bargain collectively the price or even to hold on to their asset as of right. The poor are told to buy their needs like fertilizers, pesticides, food grains, from the market and subsidy is bad for the economy but when it comes to selling their assets, the investors are not told to buy from the market. The second strategy therefore benefits those who have access to huge financial capital as the state works for them by allowing them to exploit land and natural resources of the country on the one hand and help keep the wages low by reforming labour laws to make it more difficult for the trade unions to organize the workers. The poor lose their asset to the industries at less than market price on one hand and fewer jobs created with slave labour wages. Hence, increasing inequalities in the country. Prime Minister Modi is offering precisely that to the international capital in his foreign tours under the slogan “make in India”. And this is being called working for the development of all 1.25 billion Indians.

II The development in Gujarat

Let us see the development in some villages in Kachchh District of Gujarat during the years Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Our interaction with people and observations persuaded us to conclude that Dalits and Muslims were left out of even the extremely little developmental benefits reaching the rural areas. Communal issues were time and again concocted by the local elite affiliated to the BJP and the Sangh Parivar in order to divert the attention from the issues of lack of development and to make one section of the development deprived fight another.

On 24/2/14, a Hanuman Temple burnt along with the idols. There was tension and Muslims were suspected. However, the local Hindus did not give any memorandum to the Police station which they were earlier planning, as Muslims also condemned the incident strongly and promised all cooperation. We had earlier elaborately written on how cow transportation is misused to feed to the media as if the bovines were being taken to slaughter house to whip up anti-Muslim feelings.

Bani-Pachchham area is demanding Taluka status. With a population of 60,000 and 85 villages (40 in Pachchham area and the rest in Bani area), the area which is now part of Bhuj Taluka. Khavda is biggest village and central location, a border village. All security agency offices are located in Khavda, like the RAW, LIB, BSF, etc. Bhuj is more than 54 Kms away from Khavda and for villagers have to travel to far for administrative services and applications to the Govt. Even the SSC students till recently had to go to Bhuj to appear for their final Board exams and that was one of the factors deterring students from completing their schooling. This year Khavda was made centre for SSC Board exams and 164 students appeared. The villagers feel discriminated as there is a proper case made out for Bani-Pachchham area to be declared Taluka and the case is long pending whereas Gandhidham with only 10 villages has been declared a Taluka. Bani-Pachchham area is largely inhabited by Muslims – about 85%. The area is not being made a Taluka only because of Muslim majority and because of suspicion against them. During the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, the local Muslim population fully assisted the India Army in every way, including, accompanying them right upto the Pakistani bunkers. Among the Muslim communities inhabiting the Khavda-Bhirandiyara area are the Samas, Sumaras and Nodhis. The Hindu castes include the Kolis, Sodha Rajputs and Suhana dalits. The Bani area is inhabited by Hali Potras, Mutuwas, Raisi Potras, and Hingoras, all Muslims.

Primary Education in Bani Pachchham Area:

There are only 72 schools. 350 teachers posts are vacant. Most schools are single teacher schools with one teacher teaching 1st to 8th Std. classes. Every school under RTE has to have minimum 5½ teachers (half teacher because s/he is supposed to supervise over the rest and step in when other teachers are absent). In three villages – Udai, Jhamri Vat and Lakhabo, there is no school. They are Muslim only villages. There are several petitions demanding school in the villages but the Govt. is not heeding. However, the Luhanas get schools for asking. In Muslim schools, the results are very poor. There is no Govt. supervision. The schools for dalits and Muslims have been separated as those from upper castes. As a result, these schools are worst off.

Met one teacher – Muhammed Khalid in Tuga Village. This village had primary as well as High School still 10th std. This was one of the better run schools. In the primary school where Khalid taught, there were 225 students and 6 teachers for 1 to 8th class. This was possible only because 1st and 2nd class were merged and looked after by the same teacher, as also 3rd and 4th class was taught by the same teacher. They required spl. teachers to teach English, mathematics, social sciences and sciences. If the special teachers were made available to the school, they would be able to introduce teaching period-wise (at present single class teacher taught everything). Khalid agreed that the standards were poor and the schools were neglected but he attributed it to lack of awareness within the community. If the community would have been aware, they would have supervised and the school run more efficiently and effectively. He did not attribute to discrimination against Muslims. The village being remote, teachers would try and get themselves transferred to villages which were nearer their residence and easily accessible. In Tuga village, the educational standards were a little better on account of awareness. There was one graduate from the village, and one or two government employees. Seeing them, others wanted to get educated as well.

In Jam Kunariya village too, Bijal Dungaliya informed us that schools were not working properly. There was no drinking water, let alone toilets.

In Sinogra Village (Anjar Block) there were two schools. One built by Krishna Parinam temple after the old building collapsed during the earthquake in 2001 and the other Kanya Shala (for girls). Muslims constituted about 20% of the village about 100 out of 500 houses were that of Muslims. The schools were situated in the Hindu locality, but not far from Muslim neighbourhood. The upper caste children went to private schools in Anjar (about 7 Kms away) and the only children who attended the village schools were dalits and Muslims. The condition of the schools was little better off than that of Tuga Village as it was constructed by private organization out of the funds collected for rehabilitation of earthquake survivors. There was drinking water tap and toilet. There were benches for the students in one or two classrooms. Only 83 of the 220 students were Muslims. There was a high rate of drop out among Muslims. While there were 16 students in class three, there were only 5 in class 8. Some of those who were enrolled were either did not attend at all or were irregular. The teachers opined that there was lack of awareness among the Muslim parents. Girls worked on the “bandhani” work and boys did odd labour jobs. There were only few pucca houses of Muslims and over a period of time, their land ownership has gone down. Muslims in the village were involved in animal husbandry from Miyana and Jat community. Dalits were more aware of their rights and therefore their attendance in school was much better. Among those Muslim boys who attended were clever. Dropout rate in the girls was less and attendance rate too was better than boys. There were less teachers and vacant posts in both schools. There were 7 teachers in boys schools and 6 teachers in girls school. In both schools, classes would be combined to cope with the shortage of teachers.

The health services too are poor. The Muslim villagers feel that the area is neglected only because they are Muslim majority areas. Agriculture is dependent on rain and only a tiny small patch is irrigated. The local population has to migrate if rainfall is deficient, and it often is.

Irfan Engineer is the Director of the Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai, India.

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