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The
Need for A Child Poverty Survey
Sunday,
December 6, 2009
By
Francis W. Nyepon
This
article draws attention to child poverty in Liberia, and suggests areas where
some immediate action can be taken and significant progress made. This
author believes that the government must gain greater understanding of the
impact of chronic poverty in the daily lives of children, and fashion
results-oriented policies and programs, which deals evidently with individual
segments of society and not the one size fits all approach that have become the
hallmark of policy formulation in the Sirleaf administration.
In
resolving the severe and persistent inequality that has plagued the children of
Liberia, there must first be comprehensive institutional reform at key
ministries such as Health and Social Welfare, Education, Gender and Development,
and Youth and Sports. The rampant corruption and graft that currently abounds in
all levels of government must first and foremost be stop in order for
significant socioeconomic progress to be rooted in the foundation of improving
the daily lives of children.
At
the end of the Liberian civil war in 2003, the United Nations Children Fund
(UNICEF) stated that there were approximately one million vulnerable Liberian
children between the ages of 1-20 living in poverty. This number included forced
migrants, orphans, un-parented, under-parented and internally displaced, which
at the time was reported to easily rise to an estimated 2 million by 2015, if a
number of social markers were not rooted into the national poverty index.
Additionally, the World Health
Organization (WHO) estimated in a 2008 report that only thirty percent of
children in Liberia have access to adequate healthcare, sanitation, safe water
and proper nutrition; thereby, superimposing major disparities between urban,
peri-urban and rural children that are preventable.
The
Sirleaf administration has focused like a laser beam on our country’s recovery
through policies dealing with poverty reduction and gender equity,
in addition to intense work on infrastructure development and economic
governance. However, this author believes that there needs to be greater
emphasis on capital allocation and capacity building through manpower
development and a pro-poor growth agenda amongst other challenges, which
deals directly with making the economy sustainable to directly benefit and
impact the lives of ordinary people on a daily basis.
This
author finds one area where the focus does not seem highlighted sufficiently.
This area is child poverty, which deals with vulnerable, un-parented and
impoverished children. Customarily, the majority of Liberian children are born
into poverty, and often goes to work inside or outside the home voluntarily or
reluctantly, by parents or guardians to supplement income, or perform
labor-intensive domestic chores. Unless
the Sirleaf administration tackles this problem with specificity, the government
is not going to be able to deliver good care and service to a population segment
many regard as incapable of giving meaningful
answers about their lives.
To
deal with child poverty in this out-of-the-box manner, this author
believes that the government needs to first conduct a comprehensive national
census that is specific to vulnerable, un-parented and impoverished children
throughout the country. This nationwide survey should be designed to shed light
on the lives of children in poverty, in a way that will allow the government to
first address the fundamental causes of child poverty, child labor, preventable
childhood diseases, and basic services needed to drastically improve the squalor
living conditions of children.
The
goal of such an exercise is to gain a comprehensive assessment of child poverty
by addressing the root causes of poverty and underdevelopment amongst children. Critical
to dealing with child poverty are behavior, nutrition, hygiene, environment,
water, sanitation, health and skills. To begin, workshops
and programs should be conducted to evaluate the activities of a national
program in support of vulnerable, un-parented, orphaned and impoverished
children. These workshops and programs should target
both the causes and symptoms of this endemic problem. Such workshops and
programs should also bring together stakeholders in the health, social welfare,
rights groups and gender sector, for the sole purpose of outlining new projects
and policy objectives to improve the lot of children.
These
workshops and programs should first and foremost account for the diversity in
Liberia’s geography, peoples, and cultures by bringing together workers,
volunteers, and policymakers from all sectors, to tackle the social and
political factors that form the root causes of child poverty in Liberia. Such
workshops and programs should not employ general statistical templates from the
UN that defines people and trend in low and middle income countries. Instead, it
should be geared towards restoring the nutritional, physical and mental
well-being of children, many of whom are neglected and permanently lost basic
family values.
The
survey should ask specific questions of children bearing in mind that many of
them are still harboring a
lot of anger, hatred, and resentment; including everyday frustrations that come
with growing up, childhood, adolescent and young adult. The conclusion of
the survey should be drawn primarily from the children's responses and not the
parent’s. Many parents and guardians will insist, and rightly so, that if the
government truly wants to help Liberia’s children, then the Sirleaf
administration should first focus on helping parents and guardians out of
poverty. But, there has to be a division between general poverty in all of
its manifestations and childhood poverty when dealing with the plight of
children.
To
exert change, the government needs to forcefully draw attention to the subject by
promoting genuine attempts that addresses the root causes of child poverty,
beginning with health and nutrition, education for pregnant, breastfeeding, and
postpartum women and their children. Notwithstanding, the
government should be prepared to dismiss any perceived opposition from parents
who might fear that the administration will come after them if their children
are working and not attending school. To many families who depend on their
children's labor for survival, this fear is a very real one which needs to first
be dispelled.
It
should be stated here that the Sirleaf administration have shown renewed
initiative in tackling child poverty and labor through policy implementation
such as compulsory primary education, which the administration rightfully
promoted as the foundation
for an economically viable and more peaceful Liberia. However, the government
should incorporate strategies that deal with environmental sanitation, health
and education, including safe water and hygiene as prerequisite to effectively
deal with the challenges of child poverty and vulnerable children,
as it energetically endeavors to lay benchmarks to achieving the
millennium development goals (MDGs).
Liberia
is one of the wealthiest countries in the world given its size, population and
abundant natural resources. Yet, its vast resource-based revenues have not
benefited those who need it most. Liberia
is typically at the bottom of any list measuring economic activity, such as per
capita income or per capita GDP, despite our wealth of natural resources, and
our years of independence. Nevertheless, since
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president, she has been able to do two things
very successfully: First, she has stimulated the greater inflow of
national funds to address the causational factors and resulting symptoms of our
country’s chronic challenges. Secondly, she has demonstrated
the political will to prevent national revenues from being siphoned off
by graft and corruption, which oftentimes ended up
lining the coffers of corrupt government officials.
This
author acknowledge that the government has made significant progress in addressing
the issues of institutions and accountability, which play a central role in
remedying issues of poverty, inequality, rampant corruption and graft in
Liberia. However, such a survey would provide valuable insights and a
better picture of child poverty in Liberia which could lead to comprehensive
plan of action, and a roadmap dealing with persistent child poverty issues that
severely influence the life of the average Liberian child on a daily basis.
Francis
Nyepon is Country Director of the West African Children Support Network (WACSN),
and managing partner of DUCOR Waste Management in Liberia. He is a policy
analyst and Vice Chair of the Center for Security and Development Studies, and
serves on several boards of humanitarian, environmental and human rights
organizations in the United States and Liberia. He can be reached at
fnyepon@Gmail.com.
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