2002 study: Too many Belizeans living in poverty
How do you define poverty? Is it by the amount of money in your pocket or your quality of life: that is, whether you have enough food to eat and clean air to breathe? Those are just two of the questions confronting officials taking on the challenge of poverty alleviation. And while there might be an argument in definitions, there is no question that the issue must be a national priority.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
According to the 2002 National Poverty Study, thirty-three percent of the country?s population, or approximately eighty-nine thousand people, are living under the poverty line.
Oscar Alonzo, Executive Dir., Social Investment Fund
?These studies are important because it enables us to really see where the problem is and be able to target the scarce resources to ensure that we are actually reaching the poor.?
Since 1979, the Caribbean Development Bank, through its Poverty Reduction Programme, has been assisting ten regional countries, including Belize, to improve living conditions in rural areas.
George Yearwood, Operations Officer, C.D.B.
?It is a flagship programme because it?s a programme that deals directly with poverty reduction and poverty reduction is really one of the main thrust of the C.D.B.?
?There is in the region of seventy, seventy-six million dollars involved regionally, and that was bolstered in 2003 by a significant input from CIDA and they actually put approximately twenty-five million U.S. into the programme.?
The work consists of providing basic needs such as water, education, health, skills training, and others. In Belize, much of the work was constructing water systems in the rural communities of the Corozal, Orange Walk, and Cayo Districts. Most villages in these areas now have access to water. But as SIF?s Executive Director Oscar Alonzo emphasise, these facts and figure are already three years old and there remains a lot of work that needs to be done.
Oscar Alonzo
?The intention of the government is to try to obtain resources that would enable us to do all villages at the same time, so that one village does not feel that it is at a greater advantage than the other, and that would require within the range of three to four million dollars to begin with. While under the Caribbean Development Funding the maximum size project we can do is five hundred thousand to a million.?
Today, as the programme enters its fifth cycle, a training work shop was held for the staff of the Basic Needs Trust Fund and community liaison officers.
Carole Houlihan, Consultant
?It is important that they do a good job, but they need to get the right answers so that they can design the project appropriate for the community. So we have a sense that if you only ask one group of people, you get an answer that only reflects those people?s needs. You need to ask the different people in the community in order to be able to design a project that meets the needs of all its people.?
According to officials of the Social Investment Fund, it is hoped that in two years time all villages throughout Belize will have access to sanitary water.
