PERU:
Upbeat Poverty Stats
Questioned
By Milagros Salazar
LIMA (IPS) - The
Peruvian government has
announced that poverty
fell by 5.2 percent in a
year and forecasts that
by 2015, less than 10
percent of the
population will be below
the poverty line. But
experts and provincial
governors cast doubt on
these figures, given the
unmet basic needs of
peasant families.
"These poverty figures
show that Peru’s
economic model is
working," Finance
Minister Luis Carranza
said on Wednesday after
announcing that
according to the
National Institute of
Statistics and
Informatics (INEI), the
proportion of people
living in poverty
dropped from 44.5
percent of the
population in 2006 to
39.3 percent in 2007.
This means that nearly
1.4 million Peruvians
have escaped poverty,
and is an improvement on
the 42 percent poverty
rate projected by the
authorities. President
Alan García celebrated
the result, saying that
he had not been
over-optimistic when he
promised that by the end
of his term, in 2011,
poverty would be reduced
to 30 percent.
"I can tell the country
that my aspirations go
even further and that by
2015 we will have a
poverty rate of less
than 10 percent of the
population, which means
that Peru will no longer
be a Third World
country," said the
president, making a
forecast that exceeds
his five-year term of
office.
Meanwhile, the
proportion of people
living in extreme
poverty shrank from 16.1
percent to 13.7 percent
of the population. The
country’s Andean
highlands, as opposed to
the coastal and Amazon
jungle regions of Peru,
are home to 67.5 percent
of the extreme poor.
The results of the 2007
census, to be released
on Jun. 9, will give a
more precise idea of how
many people have been
lifted out of poverty,
and what extrapolations
can be made, said the
head of INEI, Renán
Quispe.
President García did not
make allowances in his
calculations for
population growth, which
is occurring at a rate
of 1.3 percent a year.
According to the latest
official statistics,
27.2 million people live
in Peru.
But Farid Matuk, a
former head of INEI,
said that the figures
given out by the
authorities were not
credible.
"In spite of the nine
percent gross domestic
product growth posted in
2007, the García
administration could not
possibly have managed to
reduce poverty by nearly
10 percent in two years,
when the previous
government of President
Alejandro Toledo only
achieved a fall of six
points in five years,"
Matuk told IPS.
The expert also said the
García administration
has manipulated the
figures by increasing
the 2005 poverty rate by
nearly four percentage
points, from 44.5 to 48
percent of the
population, by changing
the method used to
measure poverty.
"These results are
completely illogical. I
suspect that urban
incomes have been
inflated in order to
show this reduction in
poverty," Matuk said.
That would explain that
poverty was reported to
have fallen most in
urban areas, from 31.2
to 25.7 percent.
But the figures show
apparent improvement in
rural areas as well.
Between 2005 and 2006
rural poverty fell by
only 1.6 percent, but in
2007 it was reduced by
4.7 percent.
The highlands region
showed the least
progress in fighting
rural poverty, with a
total reduction of only
3.2 percent, while in
coastal rural areas
poverty dropped by up to
11 percent.
In Matuk’s view, the
INEI experts may have
overvalued the prices
assigned to the food
grown by rural families
Since many families,
mainly in the rural
areas, grow their own
food or provide their
own essential services,
such as water, INEI
assigns these goods a
value which, in Matuk’s
opinion, should be made
public, in order to
assess the reliability
of their figures.
Based on this method,
INEI set the poverty
line at 229.4 soles (82
dollars) a month per
person, and the extreme
poverty line at 121.2
soles (43 dollars) a
month. Persons consuming
less than these amounts
are considered poor, or
extremely poor,
respectively.
"It’s important to know
what price was assigned
to some foods like eggs
and potatoes, and also,
for example, what value
was established for
‘self-rent’ in
marginalised urban
areas. So far none of
this is known, so the
poverty lines are a
mystery," he said.
In response to the
criticism, INEI
published this
information on its web
site on Tuesday, and
experts are now
analysing it. INEI
emphasised that it had
received advice from the
World Bank and several
research centres in
drawing up its report.
"The results are in
compliance with
international
guidelines, and most
importantly, they are
transparent," said World
Bank regional director
Felipe Jaramillo.
Matuk said that one way
of demonstrating that
the economic growth
achieved between 2006
and 2007 had no impact
on the living conditions
of the majority of the
population is that
hunger had only been
reduced by just over one
percent -- "in other
words, hardly at all" --
over the same period.
For his part, Pedro
Francke, an economist at
the Pontificia Catholic
University, concluded
that the method used by
INEI did not take into
account higher food
prices, and was only
showing one side of
poverty. He said the
institute should use a
much broader form of
measurement that is not
only monetary.
"The quality of health
and education services
that are provided to the
population should be
measured, as well as
whether or not people
have identity documents,
and what access they
have to democracy, for
example," said Francke.
Several provincial
governors expressed
doubts that poverty
reduction in their area
could have been as great
as the statistics
suggest, especially in
provinces where
historically over 70
percent of the people
were considered poor.
"The statistics must
have been manipulated,
because people are still
protesting in the
streets due to the fact
that they are not seeing
the benefits of economic
growth. INEI does not
measure poverty in
villages and towns in
the rural areas, where
the extreme poor are
concentrated," Hernán
Fuentes, the governor of
Puno, told IPS.
In his southern Andean
region, poverty fell
from 76.3 percent to
67.2 percent, according
to the official figures.
The poverty rate also
fell in Ayacucho,
another southern Andean
province, from 78.4 to
68.3 percent. "We were
sure that poverty had
fallen by three or four
percent, but not to such
an extent. I hope it’s
true," said Governor
Ernesto Molina.
Loreto, in the
northeast, is the
province that apparently
made the most progress,
with a spectacular 11.7
percent drop in the
poverty rate. Governor
Iván Vásquez said that
such a reduction was
indeed possible, but
mainly in large cities
like Iquitos, the
provincial capital,
where over half of the
population lives.
In Cuzco, however, the
poverty rate rose from
49.9 to 57.4 percent.
"The social programmes
aren’t working, because
out of every 10 soles
the government allocates
to fight malnutrition or
poverty, six are
swallowed up by
bureaucracy," said
Governor Hugo González.
Huancavelica remains the
poorest province, with
85.7 percent of the
population below the
poverty line, after a
reduction of barely
three percent.
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