The decision by the government and more specifically the Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, to begin the process of finally determining the level of poverty in Barbados through empirical evidence is a welcome move.
The announcement was made on Friday by Minister Kirk Humphrey, who has displayed his policy chops about the key issues in his ministry.
In his media engagement with Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams, Mr Humphrey spoke to the involvement of critical partners in the project including the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to help the island undertake the study of this important area where credible, current statistics are sadly lacking.
There has been consistent reference to a poverty figure in Barbados at around 20 per cent. It could be higher or it could be lower. Only a fact-based and effective study can determine the present situation.
According to the United Nations, poverty entailed much more than the lack of income or adequate income and the absence of resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. The global body tells us that poverty was also manifested in hunger and malnutrition, “limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in decision-making”.
It has been posited by global development bodies and non-government organisations that about 566 million children around the world who are under the age of 18 years, live in multidimensional poverty.
This means such people experience a significant lack in several areas such as their standard of living, in education, health and overall quality of life.
Some countries that find themselves on the unenviable list of nations with the highest levels of poverty in the world are South Sudan, Madagascar and Equatorial Guinea, all of which have poverty rates at 70 per cent or higher.
Barbados has come a long way in its fight to ensure and preserve an ideal quality of living for its citizens. Our high rating on the UN Human Development Index over several years is evidence of the work of successive administrations and policy planners in this country.
The island has experienced some slippage from its top rankings in the hemisphere with countries such as The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and Grenada in the Caribbean Community, all ranking above Barbados in the 2021 Human Development Index.
While some may view the drop in our ranking as a negative thing, we should be happy for our neighbours who have been able to elevate the quality of life for their citizens and move more of them above the poverty line.
Frankly, the fact that Barbados has not been in a position to offer solid and current data on poverty and directly related issues for some time, could have possibly played a role in our ranking.
In this connection, the decision of the Ministry of People Empowerment to put the wheels in motion to address this administrative deficiency is a necessary move.
The Government of Barbados has scaled up its social assistance programmes, and in some cases, there has been duplication not only in the work of state agencies but overlaps with what is happening in the non-governmental space by individuals and organisations.
The COVID-19 pandemic inflicted its own level of socio-economic dislocation across the region that had previously not been witnessed. In fact, some people who were challenged prior to the pandemic faced even further dislocation and vulnerability.
Minister Humphrey has already spoken to the situation with poverty and homelessness in this country.
At the launch in September 2023 of the Ministry’s One Family Programme aimed at assisting 1000 poor families, Mr Humphrey remarked: “What has been shown clearly in all of the records, reports and studies is that poverty causes and characteristics are always the same. Persons would then have a situation where the economic circumstances are challenging so you have to make sure they have access to greater financing.”
He has also acknowledged publicly that the cost of housing in Barbados was extremely high, and government was “sympathetic to the difficulties” many Barbadian families are facing with regards to the high cost of living.
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