Poverty Reduction And Rural Development

By Ayaz and Gulnaz

It is part of man's nature never to be satisfied as long as he sees other people better off than him self.

Any study of poverty should logically begin with a definition of the problem we are trying to solve. This study stresses that improvements in the well being of the poor will only be possible through enhancement of their productive, social and environmental assets. This means increasing the productivity and growth of both the farm and non-farm economies. The discussion today is conducted dominantly in these comparative terms. Our struggles are constantly telling us that we must improve the condition of the lowest of the population.

It is obvious, however, that all merely relative definitions of poverty make the problem insoluble. If we were to double the real income of everybody, or multiply it tenfold, there would still be a lowest third, a lowest fifth, a lowest tenth.
By the poor we mean those who are not now maintaining a decent standard of living, those whose basic needs exceed their means to satisfy them, or in other words “Poverty is the inability to satisfy minimum needs."

As the term poverty is now understood to all of readers so it’s the time to explain some examples on the subject topic. First of all I am going to tell you about a courageous lady Husan Zari resident of Baja Naray Distt Mardan. She is the mother of 5. Six years ago her husband has been died in an accident, after his death Husan Zari is responsible to look after her children’s in all respect including household’s expenses.

HDF strategy to achieve ambitious poverty reduction and social uplift goals, like literacy rate, better health facilities, safe drinking water and specially micro credit policy are so much in the interest of the rural community that I think without this the community will be helpless and will face the difficulties for a very long term.

The successive example of HDF micro credit policy can be understood from the story of this woman, who joined the female development organization formed in her village, become a very active member of the DO, regularly submitting her savings. As HDF has started different trainings in her village, so it is her positive step towards development to facilitate her daughters by this training. Her daughters also hold the supportive rope of HDF trainings program and successfully completed the basic garments training, and now her daughters are not only become trainers but also helping her mother in supporting their family to meet household’s expenses in a very socially acceptable means. Besides this she took a loan of Rs.5, 000/- for livestock fattening. She bought calves by this amount and now the calves are in the position to be sold. Now she wants to sell these calves and to buy a buffalo by taking again some credit from HDF in participation with, and by this investment she will be able to meet her family basic requirements for the time being. I think its one of the successive steps towards poverty reduction, if you are being a judge then what will be your decision about this, is it a step towards poverty reduction or not?

Actions speaks louder than words, this statement is perfectly fit for the community in the village Khazana Dheri at the moment when they had completed an infrastructure project of watercourse in a very short period of time with full participation and commitment towards development. The community is so much happy that they are demanding another project of this type, because this type of project is directly linked with their income generating activities. Also workload on farmers has been reduced and social disputes arising over shortage and theft of water in peak cropping days has also been minimized with this project.

HDF vision “to improve the condition of the lowest of the population” is achieved to some extent by completing this type of projects, as agriculture land is the most sustainable asset of farmers. With this project land productivity is increased by 40% and the farmers are able to get 100% cropping intensity from farms, with such high productivity this asset of land will become more valuable.

Also with proper availability of water for irrigation all type of crops can be cultivated over this land, thus food availability will become more secured. By more cultivation and agriculture production more food will be available for livestock and more production can be got from livestock.

HDF policies towards agriculture, rural development and extension have focused exclusively on increased productivity of land, because increased productivity of land results in cash income for farmers, as with secured water for irrigation cash crops can be cultivated over the area.

These were few examples regarding poverty reduction and rural development, not explained only to go with, but our aim is to motivate our colleagues towards the mentioned fields of overall development.

Date/Time Last Modified: 8/3/2003 10:02:44 P