Coping strategies eroded as poverty deepens

Over the past decade Malawi has lurched from one crisis to another, leaving the country's poor bruised from an array of shocks to their livelihoods. The latest have been floods and drought that have destroyed this year's crop, resulting in what has been described as "the worst famine" the country has experienced in fifty years. Today close to three million people face critical food shortages, according to UN reports. The country's single major natural asset, agricultural land, is under severe pressure from rapid population growth while the volatile twin cocktail of hunger and HIV/AIDS threatens to increase the number of orphans, now standing at 400,000. But what coping strategies do poor people in Malawi adopt in times of crisis? And are these 'informal safety nets' adequate in the face of acute food insecurity? A report by the UK-based Institute of Development Studies (IDG) titled 'Making Less Last Longer: Informal Safety Nets in Malawi' examined the coping strategies among Malawi's poor and asked some pertinent questions of the government. "Rather than programmes that merely compensate for production deficits the Malawian government should consider alternatives to help boost agricultural production," the report remarked. The report sketched how the removal of fertiliser subsidies in 1994/95 and massive currency devaluations had contributed to increasing food production deficits at household and national levels. To illustrate, the report quoted a teacher from Zomba who complained that his annual salary increment of 10 percent in July 1998 was insufficient to cover the dramatic maize and fertiliser price rises after August. "In 1997/98 season he purchased two bags of fertiliser and harvested four bags of maize, but in 1998 he could not afford any fertiliser and he expected to harvest only two bags in 1999," the report said. To mitigate against diminished resources, the rural poor have opted for additional cash through borrowing, or gifts from friends or relatives. In an increasing number of instances, people would ration or skip their daily meals altogether. In urban areas coping strategies are dominated by cost-cutting measures. These include moving to low-rent squatter areas, using unprotected water sources and withdrawing children from schools. The Malawian kwacha has been repeatedly and heavily devalued during the 1990s. In August 1998 the kwacha was devalued by 62 percent resulting in massive escalation in living costs. In comparison to urban respondents those in rural areas had fewer income-generating opportunities to draw on, and more rural households were refused assistance from relatives and friends, the report said. "Informal transfers, either between rich and poor or among the poor themselves, appear to be declining over time, partly as a general consequence of commercialisation and partly because deepening poverty means that the economic basis for redistribution is contracting. "Neighbours who occasionally lend sugar or salt are now asked for interest free loans. The wealthy headman who extracts unpaid labour as tribute from community members is called upon to release some of his surplus grain to villagers who have no food," the report said. But while these coping strategies may be effective for dealing with minor shocks such as illness, Malawi's rural poor are increasingly unable to deal adequately with severe shocks such as drought. "With these shocks and stresses, informal safety nets are contracting and losing their capacity to buffer the poor against temporary or permanent declines in food production," the report noted. The report suggested that the government should move to strengthen formal safety nets, although it warned that government intervention should not encourage dependency and a 'handout mentality' among the poor. "Instead, the cause of deepening poverty and food insecurity should be addressed through productivity-enhancing safety nets that promotes sustainable livelihoods in the longer term." One of the ways this could be done was public works projects that do not compete with farming and provide cash to participants, the report said. A recent evaluation of a major public works project revealed that the majority of workers favoured payment in cash after the harvest, in food during the hungry season, and in fertiliser and seeds at planting time. However, public works projects raised unresolved gender concerns. For example men tended to monopolise cash-for-work projects while women were channelled into lower status food-for-work activities, the report noted. 'Inputs-for-work' would be an innovative way of achieving improvements in agricultural productivity, reversing the declining yields which are the major cause of the current state of food insecurity in rural Malawian households, the report recommended. The report also called for greater emphasis on the development of all forms of capital (including human and social) in poor communities. "Community infrastructure projects could build physical capital, school feeding programmes that encourage attendance build human capital, micro credit for small enterprises offer financial capital to the poor," the report said. The full report can be viewed at: http://server.ntd.co.uk/ids/bookshop/details.asp?id=514