FISH vendor Paulette Bennett could be among those bordering the poverty line when the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC) for 2008 is published next year.

At 45 years old, she is the primary breadwinner in her family of four, earning between $400,000 and $480,000 annually from the sale of fish at the Rae Town Fishing Village in Kingston.

The problem, said the mother of two, is that the cost of water and electricity is threatening to undermine her ability and that of others like her to afford food, even as it pushed them ever closer to the poverty line.

"If yuh follow dem two things de (light and water), yuh don't eat food. That is where the poverty line comes in. The (National) Water Commission and JPS (Jamaica Public Service), if yuh nuh know what yuh a duh, yuh caan find food," she told the Observer.

Bennett's disclosure comes on the heels of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) putting the nation on notice that the number of people living in poverty could increase - despite gains over the past decade - due to the current economic crisis.

"If we don't act readily, we could well fall back," noted Dr Pauline Knight, the director of social policy, planning and research at the PIOJ.

She was speaking last Monday at the launch of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP's) anti-poverty campaign, being undertaken under the theme 'Poverty is an emergency: Stand up, speak out'.

Jamaica has since 1996 seen a reported 11.8 per cent decrease in the incidence of poverty, even has realised the 2015 target of reducing poverty by half, in accordance with the stipulations of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

till, some 14.8 per cent of the population remains below the poverty line, which stood at $281,000.93 for the reference family of five (two adults and three children) and at $74,349.17 for the individual in 2006, according to information out of the PIOJ.

Anthropologist Dr Herbert Gayle said that Knight's statement should be taken seriously, while suggesting that up to 20-plus per cent of the population could be living in poverty as at the second quarter of next year.

"We are at about 15 per cent on average now. We expect it to hit the 20s. we are not going to see any 14 or 15 per cent anymore," he said.

For this reason Gayle said it was critical that government and other interests begin to act to help lighten the burden of the poor. A starting point, he said, was the expansion of Programme for Advancement through Health and Education (PATH) to capture another 10 per cent or more of the population.

"We have an infant welfare system called PATH with tremendous restrictions favouring women and children so at least it is a start. The problem with PATH is that it needs to be expanded to the entire population below the poverty line, which means it needs to cover another 10 per cent or so of the population," the anthropologist told the Observer.

He added that it would prove necessary to increase the income tax of high earners.

"The people who make up the top quintile, we should tax them another half per cent. What is on the line is the income of people in the quintile which could do tremendously to help the people in the bottom quintile and we don't have a choice now," Gayle said.

In addition, the researcher said it would be necessary for consumer-interests groups or entities to become more vigilant in their monitoring of the pricing of goods and services. This, Gayle said, was necessary since the benefits of decreasing oil prices would need to be felt by poor consumers.

"What is the lacking in Jamaica is the protection of the poor consumer. There is no monitoring process of everyday foods, and things like bus fare that affect the poor," he said. "(With the recent decreases in oil prices) the only prices I see that have rolled back are seasonal prices of fruits. Nothing sold through the merchant class is rolled back and even if things are rolled back, they are treated as a sale, which in itself is a con since it means you are going to sell more. So the question has to be 'who is protecting the poor?'"

Bennett was in agreement, certainly when it comes to utility companies. There is also the challenge of the fluctuating cost of fish on which she is dependent to eke out a living. The economic crisis affecting the island has seen fishers having to bear increased equipment and other costs, which they transmit to fish vendors.

Luckily for Bennett, she has a roof over her head that is her own and she is, at least up until now, still able to afford food.

It is for this reason that Machel Stewart, programme advisor on poverty for the UNDP, has also noted the need for intervention on the poor's behalf.

"These are persons who at the slightest shift in the sand will fall below the poverty. Any time there is any change in the financial system. it is the poor and vulnerable who feel it the most. Strangely enough, when the economy is booming it is the poor and the vulnerable who feel it the least," he said.

As it is now, Stewart said that there are a variety of factors driving poverty in Jamaica that need to be dealt with. Among them are the lack of good evidenced-based poverty policy and the absence of meaningful collaboration among stakeholders involved in the fight against poverty.

"We don't have a very good evidence-based policy making foundation here in Jamaica. Policy is not always based on good studies and information and even where information exists, there are often questions about the quality of the information," Stewart told the Observer.

In addition, he said there was the need for greater education of the poor and a drastic decrease in the incidents of crime, which is both a cause and effect of poverty.

As for Bennett, her dreams of studying nursing have to be put on hold, given her current economic position.
"I love nursing and have it inna mi head seh I want to go do a course. But at the same time, how am I going to survive when I leave de fish to go study?"

The UNDP campaign, meanwhile, is intended to not only raise public awareness on the MDGs - and particularly MDG1, which is the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 - but to also have people see poverty as a critical development issue. Beyond that, the hope is that the campaign, which runs until October 30, will promote public action towards poverty eradication and mobilise support for specific projects that address issues of poverty and its eradication.

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