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PRF – Embracing Social Capitalism to Alleviate Poverty

Contact: Dana Augustin

Friday, July 26, 2002 -, The Poverty Reduction Fund (PRF) says that poverty is about a deficiency of financial resources in the country as well as a lack of basic physical infrastructure. Assessing the rampant problem of poverty in St. Luca over the years , Executive Director of the PRF, Donavan Williams believes that access to roads, drains, footpaths, water and electricity are some of the basic amenities that can assist in raising the standard of living and alleviate poverty.

Williams stated that “The first study that we draw reference from when we refer to poverty in St. Lucia, is the Poverty Assessment Report. We sought to understand poverty from the standpoint of an individual or households income or households consumption patterns. A poverty line was actually developed at $156. 37. What was actually done was that a food basket identifying what were the nutritional values of the household and how much it would actually cost the household to sustain itself over a period of a month.”

According to the report, twenty-five percent of St. Lucia’s population was poor in 1996. Other studies revealed that poverty existed for various reasons such as a low level of community organization and vulnerability of groups. The PRF reports that today, poverty is on the increase in St. Lucia along with adverse global circumstances. The Fund is embracing the concept of social-capitalism to eradicate poverty in the communities.

“The underlying principle of social capitalism is fundamental to poverty reduction and eradication efforts in that it is really about the systems of networking and support within communities that enable you to take the kinds of actions that would impact positively on your lives. How do you manage a crisis? How do you laise with agencies within the community and agencies outside of the community?”

Anthony George, Community Participation and Training Specialist attached to the PRF says currently a number of projects are being implemented in communities around the island aimed at improving the quality of life of residents.

“Over the past years we’ve been able to implement well within fifty projects around the island. Currently we have about 48 ongoing projects being implemented around St. Lucia. These range from the footpaths, and drains to the roads, to the community centres to the information technology centres. What is essential to us at the poverty reduction fund on the ground and within the communities, is building the capacity of communities for self-management, management of the projects themselves as well as providing community training programmes,” George ended.

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