Poverty Levels in Cambodia
Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 4:21 pm
CambodiaPoverty|Opinion
May 12, 2019
Depressing truth behind Cambodia’s poverty reduction
Whoever said it – Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli or another casualty of Churchillian Drift – it is a useful attitude to take of there being three types of lies: “lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
It is inescapable if only because the ruling Cambodian People’s Party rarely misses a chance to remind us that under its watch the poverty rate (usually defined as living on less than US$1.90 a day) in Cambodia fell from 53% in 2004 to 20.5% in 2011 and 13.5% in 2014. The government, indeed, ought to be praised for overseeing this, while we must also assign credit to the fact that this has largely been achieved thanks to the proliferation of the free market, with some redistributive elements.
But we must temper our applause. For starters, it is all too easy (and allows one to think the job is almost finished) to assume that just because most Cambodians have exited poverty it means that they have suddenly found prosperity. It does a patient some good to know his condition is critical but not terminal, but it doesn’t give him too much reason for optimism – he is still closer to death than he would want to be. It is just the same when it comes to poverty; the person who leaves the confines of monetarily defined poverty is still closer to destitution than he or she would want, and far closer to destitution than to material comfort.
David Hutt
Full article: https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/opini ... reduction/
May 12, 2019
Depressing truth behind Cambodia’s poverty reduction
Whoever said it – Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli or another casualty of Churchillian Drift – it is a useful attitude to take of there being three types of lies: “lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
It is inescapable if only because the ruling Cambodian People’s Party rarely misses a chance to remind us that under its watch the poverty rate (usually defined as living on less than US$1.90 a day) in Cambodia fell from 53% in 2004 to 20.5% in 2011 and 13.5% in 2014. The government, indeed, ought to be praised for overseeing this, while we must also assign credit to the fact that this has largely been achieved thanks to the proliferation of the free market, with some redistributive elements.
But we must temper our applause. For starters, it is all too easy (and allows one to think the job is almost finished) to assume that just because most Cambodians have exited poverty it means that they have suddenly found prosperity. It does a patient some good to know his condition is critical but not terminal, but it doesn’t give him too much reason for optimism – he is still closer to death than he would want to be. It is just the same when it comes to poverty; the person who leaves the confines of monetarily defined poverty is still closer to destitution than he or she would want, and far closer to destitution than to material comfort.
David Hutt
Full article: https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/opini ... reduction/