As a development worker working and traveling in developing countries, I noticed one common and disturbing theme: POVERTY. For me, poverty is THE development issue. It has been a perennial problem that majority of the world’s population faces. But the lack of impact of development efforts on developing countries, despite the years and the billions of dollars spent on programs makes me wonder if development programs helping poor countries as intended or are they fostering dependency on international aid, corruption within the government and consequently, furthering poverty and underdevelopment? This has led me to one major question: what have we not done right?
This is the second part of my effort at examining the historical development trends and progress, with a focus on the Philippines.
DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES
Having a history of more than half a century of development work, the Philippine experience may be the best example to illustrate my answer. Its development history has been driven by both capitalist-led interventions and socialist ideals. The oldest-known non-government organization (NGO), the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) was founded in 1952 based on Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s…
This long history of development in the Philippines has resulted to several positive outcomes. Today, the country has one of the highest literacy rates (98%) in the world. While there are still human rights violations, it boasts of having one of the highest levels of gender equality among developing nations, especially in education and employment.
Many sectoral organizations have formed national-level federations and international alliances to represent and advocate for grassroots interests. The enactment of the Local Government Code (LGC) has empowered local communities to be independent and to address problems at the local level. There has also been a noticeable decrease in the number of people living below the poverty line as the proportion of the middle class expanded.
These gains however, are currently being threatened. The World Bank has categorized the Philippines as a middle income country at the start of the 21st century (year?) due to the rise in its HDI and GDP. As a consequence, much of the international donor agencies pulled out from the country, resulting to a chain reaction starting with the closure of majority of local NGOs. Without support from the NGOs, many cooperatives and community-based organizations (CBOs) collapsed, further weakening the civil society movement.
In addition, majority of financial programs such as credit and livelihood were stopped, and environmental protection and rehabilitation activities were abandoned. In less than a decade the country’s development has regressed, leading the World Bank and other donor agencies to question if they had pulled out of the country too soon.
Blaming the country’s regression solely on the pull-out of international funding is oversimplifying the situation. There are of course several other factors that contributed to the Philippines’ regression. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) implemented in 1988 under the Aquino administration failed to protect farmers from decisions of landowners to convert agricultural lands into residential, commercial or industrial areas.
These converted lands are exempted from CARP and were not distributed to the farmers who have worked on it for decades and centuries. The land remains with the landowner. Moreover, the CARP and the government in general, failed to subsidize small farmers, leaving them vulnerable to exorbitant prices of agricultural inputs.
As the Philippine government pursued industrialization, many farmers found it more practical to sell their land for conversion than to continue tilling them. Many of those who continued farming turned to cash crops which generated more revenues than agricultural food crops. These land conversions and increase in cash crop production led to the scarcity of food in the country. It is ironic that the Philippines, host to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) established to increase rice production, ended up importing rice from other countries that benefitted from IRRI’s research and training.
Please wait for the 3rd part of this 4-part post...
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