Poverty is inaccurate and useless

In 2011 the Government decided to change the name of its most emblematic instrument of public policy, the so-called Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (PARPA) that was being implemented with the concurrence of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) from the period between 1999/2000.

Of PARPA call went up in 2010, PARP, ie Action Plan for Poverty Reduction. Was removed the word as an adjective absolute poverty. In this context, the government brought a new definition the word poverty, which came to be understood as "impossibility disability or lack of opportunity for individuals and communities to have access to the minimum according to the basic rules of society."

The previous definition officially adopted by the Government in their PARPAS referred to poverty as "the inability of individuals to provide for themselves and their dependents a set of basic minimum conditions for their livelihoods and well-being according to the norms of society."

In "Challenges for Mozambique 2012" launched last week during a conference at IESE, the investigator Anthony Francisco highly critical of the current definition of poverty and the effectiveness of the famous PARPAS. The researcher says that the current definition of poverty found by the Government under the objectives of PARP, has no limits and therefore is inaccurate and useless. "The concept of poverty and engaging in the futility inaccuracy for measuring" he says.

António Francisco says the new definition of poverty elementary lost the attributes of an operational definition, ie "be specific, concrete and measurable useful to play a guiding role and structural analyzes and methods applied in specific circumstances."

The new definition, according to the researcher, distances itself from the monetarist sense of poverty, much blame for the inability of the authors of PARP in conferring intelligibility of the multidimensional nature of poverty. "As if there was no better way to make the multidimensional nature (lack of access to health, water, sanitation, education ...) poverty intelligible, the authors seem to distance itself from the monetarist sense getting rid of the word" absolute ".

The investigator also criticizes the fact that the current PARP in no time explaining the reasons for the replacement of the previous document name and its abbreviation, and states that, take the word "absolute" may seem a minor detail, but the truth is in this case denounces analytical impoverishing an option. "The decision to remove the word poverty was simply unhappy because the definition of the word poverty has become enlarged without limits."

To the economist, the current definition of poverty suggests that the words began to choose the meaning and not the opposite. The investigator also criticizes the failure of the main objectives does not appear sufficient reason for the extinction of PARPAS. "The recent failure of the objectives and goals with the PARPA 2006-2009. Instead of reaching the target in 2009 from 45 percent the incidence of absolute poverty stood at 55 percent, a level statically equal to 2003 but that can not hide the worsening poverty in several provinces, especially absolute poverty. "

Moreover, according to the economist, defaults in any previous authors inhibited PARP in the current state even more ambitious targets: "The PARP 2011-2014 aims to reduce the rate of incidence of food poverty from the current 54.7 percent to 42 percent in 2014 ". (M. Guente)