Bill Gates: Rich reach poor in South Asia

BILL GATES IS THINKING of the poor; now, the poor must be thinking themselves. Today, 30 June 2009 Manila time, represented by Ellen McCullough and Austin Walters, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ICRISAT and partners launched a climate-change project in a meeting at the ICRISAT campus in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India. This is another hint that Bill Gates practices what he preaches: Creative Capitalism, the rich reaching out to the poor.

The project, with the long title 'Tracking change in rural poverty in household and village economies in South Asia,' aims to measure the changes in the climate of poverty in Bangladesh and India: western Gujarat, Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkand, and Bihar.

An apt project, as ICRISAT is the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, dedicated to 'science with a human face.' The partners include the National Centre for Agri-Economics & Policy Research of India, SocioConsult, and the International Rice Research Institute.

The project is essentially the gathering of diverse data over time on the dynamics of poverty at the household and village levels, for scientists to be able to describe and prescribe. With the advent of Climate Change, it is necessary more than ever that Policy and Projects be based on the verifiable realities in the field: biological, technical, social, economic. Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr said, 'Nothing exists until it is measured.' And no measure amounts to anything until it is applied.

At the launching, Director General & Captain of Team ICRISAT William Dar explained the choice of study site:

In many ways, South Asia is sitting on a tinderbox. By 2050, its population is likely to exceed 2.2 billion from the current level of 1.5 billion. About 70% of South Asians live in rural areas and account for about 75% of the poor. Most of the rural poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The sector employs about 60% of the labor force, while it contributes only 22% of regional GDP.

As it is, the poor do so much and contribute only so much. Why? Poverty in the villages of South Asia must be understood in terms of globalization, feminization of Agriculture, resource crises, democratization, population, labor markets, including incidence of HIV/AIDS.

South Asia is only the beginning of the project. Dar said:

Let me highlight that the agricultural data from this project will be a launch pad for a more systematic organization, synthesis and use to track agricultural and rural development not only in South Asia but also in other semi-arid and humid tropics of Asia and lessons can be learned for similar (environments) in Africa.

Personally, I'm interested in being able to see, out of the data gathered, how one would be able to gauge how much investments are made and how much returns are received by the farming villages themselves, not only by the government and private sectors. The farmers have too much time in their hands; I know, I am a farmer's son. I say: Let the poor ponder too about the verifiable realities of life, what they can do,

The task of ensuring that the voices of the poor are heard is left to us,' Dar said. 'Let us make them be heard!' In this direction, I say, the rich have much and they can do much more if they want. Given that, the poor themselves must be encouraged to do much more than always and ever expecting manna from heaven.