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Infrastructure development in Uva:

Benefits will trickle down to the poor

The high level of poverty in the Uva province was the clarion call of the Opposition's political campaign in the recently-held Uva Provincial Council election.

Many opinions were expressed as to why Uva became the poorest province in the country.

There will be one province at the bottom when all provinces are ranked according to the level of poverty. If the disparity is not high and the trend of declining poverty is the same, being the lowest in rank is no issue.

However, the situation here is not as simple as that because Uva has turned out to be the poorest district surpassing the terrorist-affected Northern and the Eastern provinces. Poverty levels were much higher compared to the national level.

There are many economic, social and climatic reasons for this situation, said Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) sources. They had an explanation about what the figures mean.

Poverty

According to the Director General of the Department, D.C.A. Gunawardena, the Department had to answer various concerned groups on how these statistics reflect poverty in Uva because statistics are published only once in three years and no politician is bothered, condemning statistics and relegating it to the back-burner, thus it had a huge impact in the election campaign in Uva.

People having low income and not having many possessions are considered poor. It is a judgment of living standards of members of a society and therefore, the term 'poor' is relative.

Poverty is defined for a person or group of persons as the inability to meet the minimum level of well-being such as access to certain consumption standards or income levels. All those who live in poverty are poor but not all the poor people live in poverty.

There are indicators to measure poverty. Sri Lanka uses the Official Poverty Line (OPL), which was compiled by DCS using poverty statistics gathered through household income and expenditure survey conducted every three years (every five years in the past).

OPL is an absolute poverty line, which is fixed at a specific welfare level a person needs to meet minimum nutrition level (2030 kilo calories per capita per day).

This compares household food and non-food expenditure data over time. In general, poverty is declining in Sri Lanka and worldwide except some pockets that have specific political, economical, climatic or geographical constraints are still critical.

According to the 2012-13 survey (the latest), the poverty headcount ratio has been declining compared to the 1990-91 survey. The poverty headcount in Sri Lanka declined from 26.1 in 1990-91 to 6.7 in 2012-13.

This is a significant achievement. (Chart 1)

Africa

Globally the poverty headcount index, ($1.25 a day (ppp) percentage of population), has declined from 43.1 in 1990 to 20.6 in 2010. During the past two decades, the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day declined by 693 million from 1,908 million to 1,215 million.

The highest poverty level 48.5 has been reported in Sub Sahara Africa and the second highest is 31.0 in South Asia.

In Uva, there is a declining trend in poverty but the poverty headcounts are high in the two districts, Moneragala and Badulla. According to 2012-13 statistics the poverty headcount index in Moneragala was 20.8 percent and in Badulla it was 12.3 percent, much higher compared to the national figure 6.7.

Contrary to the general trend, the poverty headcount in the Moneragala district increased from 14.5 to 20.8 during the survey period 1990-91 to 2012-13.(Charts 2 and 3).

Improvement

Gunawardena said that there is a notable development especially in infrastructure in all parts of the country including the Uva province. Construction of roads, improvement in water and sanitary facilities and houses is taking place in the Uva province as well without exception. The improvements are reflected in the statistics.

For instance, the number of households with electricity increased from 68.5 percent in 2009-10 to 77.6 percent in 2012-13. The number of households with safe drinking water facilities has increased from 89.6 percent to 94.0 percent.

The improvements in infrastructure development should be translated to economic benefits and we can expect improvement in the living standards of the people.

However, poverty statistics do not reflect this because the economic benefits of these developments have not trickled-down to the poor yet and it will take time, he said.

The Uva province has been ranked as the poorest province in the country in all previous poverty statistical reports. Moneragala is identified as the poorest district and in the 2004 report Siyambalanduwa Divisional Secretariat (DS) division was ranked as the poorest division in the country.

Although Moneragala continuously held the position as the poorest district, the percentage of poor people continuously declined up to 2009-10.

According to 2012-13 survey statistics, the poorest DS division of the Moneragala district is Wellawaya with an HCI of 55.8 percent and Thanamalwila follows with 39.1 percent.

When compared to the figures of 2009-10, the living standard of half of the low income population in the Moneragala district had deteriorated by 2012-13.

Income distribution

According to statistics, the monthly household income has declined while inequality in income distribution has also widened.

Household income of the lowest 10 percent of the household has declined by 15 percent, while the income of the highest 10 percent of households has increased by140 percent.

Household income of the middle income households has slightly increased but compared to increase in household expenditure during the two survey periods, it is insignificant.

Inequality in income distribution has widened significantly.

According to 2012-13 survey data, 42 percent of the household income has been distributed among the households in the richest 10 percent and the balance 58 percent shared among the 90 percent of the households.

In the 2009-10 survey, 28 percent of household income has been shared by the richest 10 percent and the balance 72 percent has been shared by the rest of the 90 percent.

Another feature is the number of income earners in a household in the poorest 10 percent of households has declined.

The number of employed persons engaged in agriculture has declined to 57 percent from 62 percent.

The reasons for declining household income too have been identified.

The drought is the main reason and 4,900 families in Medagama, Siyambalanduwa, Thanamalwila, and Sevenagala DS divisions had been severely affected by the 2012 drought.

Economic activities were affected as a result and milk production declined by 18% and livestock production declined by 39%. Agricultural crop production suffered. For instance green gram production declined to 1,788 tons in 2012 from 2,428 tons in 2009.

Expenditure

This situation also reflects the expenditure side.

The household expenditure of 60% of the households in the Moneragala district has declined between the two survey periods 2009-10 and 2012-13. This is the main reason for the increase of poverty levels.

The share of the monthly income spent on food has declined in 70 percent of the households. There is no significant change in the consumption pattern of households.

According to the demographic survey report of 2006-07, the highest number of malnourished children below five years of age was reported from the Moneragala and Badulla districts.

The main factor that the responsible authorities, especially the newly elected Provincial Council, should take into account is that the most vulnerable groups, the population with monthly income is at the edge of the poverty line.

They have the highest risk of falling below the poverty line at any small economic crisis or natural catastrophe.

In 2012, 6.2 percent of the population in the Moneragala district was 10 percent above the poverty line.

If the official poverty line increased by 10 percent, poverty in the district would have increased to 27.0.

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