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Towards the Non-Traditional Security: Poverty and Human Security. Wenefrida D. Widyanti The SMERU Research Institute Jakarta – Indonesia www.smeru.or.id
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Towards the Non-Traditional Security:Poverty and Human Security Wenefrida D. Widyanti The SMERU Research Institute Jakarta – Indonesia www.smeru.or.id Presented at the Non-Traditional Security Course for Indonesian Police Lecturers & Doctors and NGO Leaders, Consortium of Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia, RSIS - NTU, Singapore, 22-24 August 2007.
Planning • Measurement & analysis • Dimension of measurement • Unit of measurement • Being used approach • Poverty reduction strategy • Approach • Target (including where are the poor?) • The forms of intervention • Concept • Who are the poor? • Why are the poor? Monitoring and Evaluation Poverty: Concept – Measurement - Strategy
Overview: Poverty • Defining and measuring poverty is difficult because poverty is a complex issue, but it is essential for designing and implementing poverty programs. • Good and reliable definition and measurement of poverty helps the formulation and testing of hypotheses on the causes of poverty. • Good and reliable definition and measurement will also enables government, international community, and any other stakeholders to set itself measurable targets for judging actions.
Concepts (1) • The World Development Report 1990 of the World Bank focused on the issue of poverty. The World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, once again focused on poverty, on the series of “Voices of the Poor” reports. • Poverty is a situation in which a decent standard of living is not achievedinadequate food, inadequate housing and clothing, inability to access medical treatment when sick, and low access to education. • Poverty has three dimensions: lack of income and assets, voiceless and powerlessness, and vulnerability. • Attacking poverty requires: expanding opportunities, promoting empowerment, and enhancing security “security” is interconnected with the concept of “vulnerability”.
Concepts (2) • United Nations (1997 Report on the World Social Situation): • Poverty is a condition related to the inability to fulfill basic needs nutritional deficiency, illiteracy, bad health, improper housing and clothing, etc. • JICA’s definition of poverty: • A condition in which “people deprived of opportunities to develop capabilities (political, social, economic, human, and protective) required to lead a basic human life and are excluded from society and development processes”.
Concepts (3) • Poverty is a multidimensional concept. It may include the economic, social, political, physical conditions and psychological aspects of human being. • Poverty is routinely defined as lack of what is necessary for material well-being -especially food, housing, land and other assets. Later definitions also reveal other aspects of poverty, such as lack of voice, power, and independence. • The poor rarely speak about income, but they do speak about assets that are important to sustain their daily activities. These assets include a broad range of tangible and potential resources, both material and social, such as: • physical capital (land & material belongings), • human capital (health, education, training and labor power), • social capital (social networks), • environmental assets (grass, trees, water, and non-timber products).
Who are the poor? (1) • Less educated • Unemployed • Low quality of housing • Unhealthy housing (limited space, no specific room functioning).
Who are the poor? (2) Lack of access to safe water Lack of access to sanitation
Who are the poor? (3) • Living in unhealthy environment that will affect the quality of living
Why are they poor? (1) • The root causes of poverty: an example from one of regression analysis • At the household level (using household survey data), poverty is related to, among others: • Low education • Female headed household • Unemployment • Working in agricultural sector • No access to safe drinking water • No access to electricity
Why are they poor? (2) The root causes of poverty: an example from the PPA results
Geographical dimensions of poverty: Where do the poor live (pockets of poverty)? Especially relevant under regional autonomy poverty map is one of the tools. Where are the poor?
Furthermore, how can we identify the poor? • Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS) is one of the tools. • It can identify local-specific poverty conditions. • Village (or other geographical administrative unit) specific poverty criteria is determined after data collection using Principal Components Analysis (PCA). • The poverty criteria can be used to identify “relatively” poor families that require government assistance (targeting purpose). • Since the criteria are generated by the data itself, they are not known prior to data collection (difficult to be tampered). • Provide results of rank welfare level of every family in a location (NOT to calculate poverty rate). • CBMS data also permits calculation of other welfare indicators, including monitoring of MDGs at local level.
CBMS and Localized MDG Monitoring Example: Selected education and health indicators as proxy for MDGs achievements, at hamlet level, from a CBMS village.
Measuring poverty (1) • Poverty is multidimensional: • Income/consumption • Health conditions • Educational attainment • Housing, sanitation, and clothing • Social & political participation • Other dimensions • Some approaches to measure poverty: • Money-metric utility (income or consumption poverty, e.g. World Bank $1 or $2 PPP per day), is still the most widely used single measure of poverty. • Composite index, built from chosen aspects/determinants of poverty (economics, health, education, social, political, etc). Human Development Index (HDI) of the UNDP is an example. PCA (Principle Component Analysis) and MCA (Multivariate Correspondence Analysis) are some ways/methods to assign non-arbitrary weight of variables for the composite index.
Measuring poverty (2) • The multidimensionality of poverty has to be taken into account in its measuring: • what dimensions should be included? • how should each dimension be measured? • how to define poverty? • all dimensions • any dimension • indexation • utility function • Qualitative and quantitative poverty analysis are complements, not substitutes. • The most important contributions of qualitative analysis (such as Poverty Participatory Assessment/PPA) are in providing causality (what causes what) and in verifying findings made from quantitative analysis.
Measuring poverty (3) • Measuring one-dimensional poverty: income/expenditure poverty • Distribution of household income or expenditure (Data from household survey, e.g. National Socio-economic Survey/Susenas) • Poverty line (Food poverty line + Non-food poverty line) • Reference group • Measuring multidimensional poverty • Examples: Men of Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara, 1999: A rich man has (among other things), “10-50 livestock and 2-3 wives”; a middle-class man has “5-10 livestock and up to 2 wives”; whereas a poor man has only “1-5 pigs and sometimes not even 1 wife” (because he can not afford the bride price) (Indonesia: Consultations with the Poor. World Bank, 1999).
Multidimensional poverty measures Source: Susenas 2004
Poverty comparison: Consumption based poverty • Across areas • Over time to measure progress, need a consistent standard
HDI across Asian countries • TheHuman Development Index (HDI) measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. • Comparison across countries • Over time to measure progress, need a consistent standard
Risks and Vulnerability (1) • Risks may affect individuals differently (Amartya Sen: entitlements differ for each person). • Vulnerable is a situation with a substantial downturn in the well-being of people or substantial threatening of their daily lives because of their inability or lack to deal with risks when they face threats. • The vulnerable are those who cannot cope with risks, they are deprived of entitlements and fall into destitution. Therefore, priority should be given to ensure human security for those who are the most vulnerable. • Individuals who are vulnerable to poverty include those with insufficient income & assets, the socially excluded, and the socially disadvantaged such as the elderly, women, children, and disabled. Vulnerable people are also defined as those who are unable to cope with risks by themselves.
Risks and Vulnerability (2) • Vulnerability can be defined as a function of the magnitude of risks and the ability to cope with risks. Vulnerability also means the probability of being exposed to a number of risks. • Identification of risk & vulnerability factors accurately and integrating those analyses into poverty analysis are important. • Moreover, it is important to reduce the risks faced by the poor, so that they can cope with vulnerability.
Who are the most vulnerable? Elderly Women & children
Economic crisis, poverty, and its consequences • The severe economic downturns in Asia due to the crisis in the late of 1990s created a pervasive sense of insecurity with a wide range of political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. • Increasing poverty as a result of the fall of real incomes which led to food shortages, malnutrition, declining health and education, intensifying crimes, and lack of confidence in existing political systems has gone beyond the state’s capacity to resolve through the use of traditional security instruments. • The economic crisis also hit public and private corporations, which then led to a pervasive unemployment due to the lay-off and bankruptcy. As a result people faced a serious decline in real income. • The poor population who are already losing their purchasing power have become more exposed to extreme poverty, malnutrition, and serious illnesses.
The dynamics of poverty • The poor people are vulnerable, also those who are near poor. Therefore, poverty is dynamics. Poverty (in this term, is the consumption based) can be categorized into “chronic poverty” and “transient poverty”.
Overview: Security (1) • Security concept has become increasingly expanded in the past few years: • Richard Ullman: • extend the security concept to include a wide range of issues from natural disasters & diseases to environmental degradation. • Buzan et.al.: • in conceptual term, securitization can be perceived as the classification of and consensus about a non-traditional framework of understanding of security concept that moves beyond the state and beyond military threats. • The Copenhagen School: • proposed five extended of security: military, environmental, economic, societal, and political security (traditional + non-traditional).
Overview: Security (2) • Security concept has become increasingly expanded in the past few years: • Robert McNamara • began to recognize that environmental degradation & natural disasters (e.g. epidemics, floods, earthquakes, and drought) are important threats to security as much as human-made military disasters The security studies have then shifting from traditional to non-traditional approach such as non-military threats. • The Consortium of Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia (NTS-Asia): • promote a focus on the security of individuals, societies and groups, and to encompass the chronic and complex insecurities confronting Asia. The concerns of the growing trends in the region to all non-military threats (non-traditional security threats) such as environmental degradation, infectious diseases, and illegal migration.
Concept of human security • The particular phrase of “human security” is most associated with the UNDP “1994 Human Development Report” on Human Security. • The definition in the report was rather ambitious. Human security was defined as the summation of seven distinct dimensions of security, which include: • Economic security (unemployment, insecure jobs, inequalities, poverty, homelessness) • Food security (inadequacies in terms of food availabilities and food entitlements) • Health security (infectious and parasitic disease, new viruses, respiratory infections) • Environmental security (degradation of air, water, soil, and forests) • Personal security (discrimination, exploitation, crimes, terrorism) • Community security (ethnic & communal conflicts) • Political security (violation of human rights).
Core of the human security concept • According to Amartya Sen the following distinct elements lie at the core of the human security concept: • A clear focus on individual human lives • An appreciation of the role of society and social arrangements in making human lives more secure in a constructive way • A reasoned concentration on the downside risks to human lives • A choice to focus on the ‘downside’ – emphasizing the more basic human rights.
Rethinking human security • GARY KING & CHISTOPHER J.L. MURRAY: “Many attempts to ensure the territorial security of nation-states through military power have failed to improve their total human condition. In response, the international community has moved to combine economic development with military security and other basic human rights to form a new concept of ‘human security’. Unfortunately, by common assent the concept lacks either a clear definition or any agreed upon measure of it.” (Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 116(4), 2001-02)
Characteristics of human security • Four essential characteristics of human security: • Universal concern • It is relevant to people everywhere, in rich nations and poor. • Interdependence • The components of human security are interdependent. • Prevention • Human security is easier to ensure through early prevention than later intervention. • People-centeredness • It is concerned with how people live in a society, how freely they exercise their choices, how much access they have to market and social opportunities, and whether they live in conflict or in peace.
Incorporating concepts of human security in the official foreign policies • Canada: defines human security as “safety for people from both violent and non-violent threats”, a more conservative and narrower focus than the UNDP version. • Japan: their definition of human security is more inclusive than Canada’s. Human security comprehensively covers all the menaces that threaten human survival, daily life, and dignity (e.g. environmental degradation, violations of human rights, transnational organized crime, illicit drugs, refugees, poverty, anti-personnel landmines and other infectious diseases). • Norway: focuses on the freedom from fear aspects of human security and identifies a core agenda of preventive action, small arms and light weapons control, and peace operation, which its emphasis on protecting individual. They thus founded the Human Security Network (13 countries) and have mobilized around practical responses to humans security threats.
Case: JICA’s principles to implement human security • Seven principles to integrate the concept of human security into its activities: • Reaching those in need through a human-centered approach • Empowering people as well as protecting them • Focusing on the most vulnerable people, whose survival, livelihood, and dignity at risk • Comprehensively addressing both “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” • Responding to people’s needs by assessing and addressing threats through flexible and intersectoral approaches • Working with both governments & local communities to realize sustainable development • Strengthening partnership with various actors to achieve higher impact from assistance.
Human security and risks • Relationship between downside risks and poverty: • Human security deliberately focuses on “downside risks” and takes into account a variety of elements that inhibit human development. • The idea of security contains two key elements: • An orientation to future risks • A focus on risks of falling below some critical threshold of deprivation. • People suffering from deprivation (the chronic poor) are always exposed to the risks of poverty. • In order to protect people’s lives from threats and risks, it is important to combine the two approaches: • Efforts to empower people • Protection by governments and the international community.
Types of threats that damage human security Risk:probability of degradation/ aggravation in the future well-being of people caused by various threats.
The perspective of human security and poverty • The human security framework analyzes poverty by focusing on the risks and vulnerabilities faced by an individual. It is, therefore, important to identify risk and vulnerability factors accurately. • Human security emphasizes two important aspects of poverty reduction: • First, it addresses the significance of risk management by focusing on factors that inhibit development and aggravate poverty, as well as risks towards human insecurity and vulnerability. The chronic poor are most seriously affected by risks. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent/mitigate risks or enhance their capacity to deal with risks. • Second, human security stresses the individuality of people and communities. This concept emphasizes individual features of fear and want in term of region, class, age, and gender.
Human security and poverty reduction • The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) was adopted at the joint meeting of the IMF and the World Bank in 1999. This was followed by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. Poverty reduction is the most important issue, which can be seen from the goals: • Eradicating extreme poverty & hunger • Achieving universal primary education • Promoting gender equality and empowering women • Reducing child mortality • Improving maternal health • Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases • Ensuring environmental sustainability • Developing a global partnership for development.
Integrating the human security perspective into a poverty reduction strategy/program • A poverty reduction strategy based on a human security perspective should include three dimensions of risk managements: • Preventative & mitigating measures against risks (to avoid disaster/risk) • Protecting or coping measures when human security is threatened by increases risks (to cope with disaster/risk), and • Promoting measures to enhance social opportunities or human capabilities of the poor to fight chronic poverty over the medium and long term (to enhance human capabilities/social opportunity). • From those three dimensions, promoting measure to enhance social opportunities and human capabilities work most effectively towards the prevention of risks. • The suggested actions of poverty reduction strategy are: “protection” and “empowerment”.
Grand design of a human security oriented poverty reduction strategy • Freedom from large external shocks is a preconditioned for securing human security. The first and foremost task of human security is to prevent threats such as violent conflicts and macro-economic instability, environmental degradation, natural disasters and pandemic diseases. • Strengthening governance and government capabilities. • Safety net programs, such as emergency funds and food-for-work programs that are adopted when people face risks. • Sustainable social protection programs, particularly for those who are poor and vulnerable.
Case: Considering human security into poverty reduction strategy in Indonesia • Improvement of poverty reduction program design: • Schemes: • BLT (Unconditional Cash Transfer/UCT) program for the poor & near poor has been replaced by the Program Keluarga Harapan/PKH (Conditional Cash Transfer), in which require certain criteria related to the human well-being (ensure the education access for children, health care services for children and women, and nutritional improvement). This program prioritizes particularly the chronic poor as the beneficiaries. • Scaling up the Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) and Urban Poverty Program (UPP) programs towards Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat/PNPM (National Community Empowerment Program) which aimed to reduce unemployment and poverty and empower the community. • State budget: significant increase of the state budget plan for 2008 particularly for the sectors highly related to basic public services (e.g. health, education, agriculture, energy, transportation, and public work).
Future considerations (1) • Poverty and human security is becoming more crucial and part of global issues. Knowledge and awareness of those, therefore, are absolutely important and it should be taken into consideration in the policy making. • The traditional security concept has been transforming into the non-traditional security one, many aspects/component of human lives are included in the latter concept. • It is an obligation of the regional and international communities to promote the human security issues into policies and actions of each country.
