WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2015 - Expanding
social protection programs such as school feeding and public works in rural
areas and linking them to agricultural growth policies would rapidly reduce the
number of poor people around the world, a report by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) contends.
The report, The State of Food and Agriculture 2015, argues that these programs offer an economical way to
provide vulnerable people with opportunities to move out of extreme poverty and
hunger and to improve their children's health, education and life chances. Such
programs currently benefit 2.1 billion people in developing countries in
various ways -- including keeping 150 million people out of extreme poverty.
The report was released in advance of
World Food
Day (Oct. 16), whose focus is on social protection's role in breaking the
cycle of rural poverty. "It is urgent that we act to support the most
vulnerable people in order to free the world of hunger," FAO
Director-General José Graziano da Silva said.
Only about a third of the world's
poorest people are covered by any form of social protection, according to the
report, which noted that coverage rates dip even lower in South Asia and
sub-Saharan Africa, regions with the highest incidence of extreme poverty.
Still, even the poorest countries
can afford some kind of social protection program, the report says. FAO estimates that globally, some $67 billion a year in
income supplements, mostly provided by social protection programs, would --
along with other targeted pro-poor investments in agriculture -- allow for the
eradication of hunger by 2030. That is less than 0.10 percent of world GDP.
Currently many extremely poor
households are forced to sell off productive assets, put children to work,
over-exploit their small landholdings unsustainably, or settle for badly paid
jobs.
Yet basic social transfer
initiatives offer the poor an opportunity to improve their own productive
potential, the report says, adding that these programs also have positive
spillover effects on local economies, increasing business opportunities,
raising rural wages, and allowing the poorest to acquire or invest in assets.
In Zambia for example, a pilot
cash-grants program led recipient households to greatly increase livestock
ownership as well as land under cultivation, input use and ownership of tools
such as hoes, sickles and axes, leading to a 50 percent jump in the overall
value of locally produced agricultural commodities.
Beneficiaries also spent more on
food, clothing and health-and-hygiene - an amount 25 percent greater than the
value of the initial transfer, according to FAO. The wider community also
benefited through the increased demand for locally produced goods and services
generated by the transfer -- every dollar transferred generates an additional
79 cents in income, often for non-beneficiaries providing these goods and
services.
At least 145 countries today
provide one or more forms of social assistance, including unconditional cash
transfers, meaning outright grants for eligible recipients, conditional cash
transfers, usually linked to school attendance or health checkups and,
public-works programs that offer guaranteed employment. Other forms include
in-kind transfers, including food distribution and school feeding programs.
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