by Rudolph A. Neal
In the midst of the global pandemic, Covid-19, the poverty rate in Belize was reported at a staggering 52%! Now if that doesn’t immediately give you chest pain and raise your blood pressure levels, let me break down what a 52% poverty rate indicates. A poverty rate of 52% means that more than half of our country is unable to provide the basic necessities that are needed for sustenance and survival. A 52% poverty rate indicates that in a room with an average of 100 ordinary people, 50 of them are poor. It means that there’s a pretty good chance that the person sitting next to you on that bus ride did not have breakfast and has no idea where the next meal or copper is coming from. But to utterly compound this already terrible situation from bad to worse, it was recently reported that the poverty rate is projected to rise, propelled by incendiary inflation and subsequent stagflation which, when all put together, is causing us to lose our grip on poverty in Belize.
Every day we turn on the news, we are eerily reminded of the crippling effects of poverty, which is highlighted on various platforms. It is now made even more abundantly clear with the advent of technology and the proliferation of mass media, which highlights and broadcasts the plight of the poor and suffering in this country. While poverty has always plagued us, the number of families in the country who were unwittingly subjugated to the bitter and callous trenches of penury and destitution has been exacerbated since the onset of the global pandemic. Now that we have begun to get a hold of the virus and have made significant strides to stymie and reduce new infection and mortality rates, we have inadvertently begun to lose our grip on poverty.
The cost of living in Belize has skyrocketed, and the crippling effects of inflation have taken their unjust place in our homes. The price of almost everything has risen, except, of course for salaries and wages. The sustained increase in the price of fuel in this country has led to a higher cost of transportation, which also, as an underlying corollary, has increased the cost of goods and services. A $50 trip to the grocery store has become a burdensome $120 now and a once-shopping cart of groceries has been reduced to the most affordable shopping basket of absolute necessities. Belizeans are now faced with the harsh dilemma of carefully selecting between the most critical needs while cutting down is now the constant refrain; that is of course for those who are able to.
That is because there are many who don’t even have anything to even curtail. Yes, there are many of our citizens who wake up lacking, in total and complete want for basic needs. There is no money, no food and the shelter that they share doesn’t even constitute a decent abode. UNICEF reports that while the poverty rate for the general population in Belize is generally high, the outlook for children is grim. The report notes that up to 50% of children in Belize under the age of 15 years are marred by the hardships of indigence and poverty while 58% of youths under the age of 18 are classified as multi-dimensionally poor. It goes on to cite that UNICEF and ECLAC estimate that 6 out of every 10 children in Belize lack at least one of the basic needs that are required for sustenance and survival. This is bad, very bad, and this grimacing report cites the rather chilling and inherent poverty situation in Belize that needs urgent redress.
The current path that we are on to seriously address the issues of poverty in this small developing jewel is less than sufficient and quite frankly, unacceptable. Belize is a small country, you know, with a billion-dollar budget, yet almost half of the country suffers from impoverishment and destitution. Little over 400,000 people in this country and half of our children are lacking their basic needs and are already subject to indigence and penury; having not even been privy to a fair start in life. Go figure what the outcome will be if we allow 50% of our children (who are the near future of the country) to continue through poverty into adulthood without stemming it: a repeated and calculated cycle of poverty is the only thing that will be birthed from that. We have seriously got to recognize this as a state of emergency and pool resources together to combat this as a matter of urgency. No excuses can be had. We must address this seriously and with grave concern, because we are losing our grip on poverty!
Unchained Reflections Of A Liberal Pragmatist.