Government on a mission to build intergenerational wealth

By Shamar Blunt 

Barbados will soon conduct a new assessment survey, aimed at understanding the current state of poverty and general living conditions for citizens on the island.

This was announced by Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey, who was speaking in the Lower House on Wednesday during the 2023/2024 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure debates. He said that in the face of great social and economic disruption after the COVID pandemic, a new survey was necessary.

“A lot of the things that we would have dealt with over the last few years, the nature of poverty I think has also changed, [or has] been affected at least by it. The first thing that we need to do is to have a proper poverty assessment…we refer to it as the Enhanced Poverty Assessment (EPA),” he said.  

Research Analyst with the Bureau of Social Policy, Research and Planning, Rean Gibson, said that the Caribbean Development Bank would be partnering with the ministry in facilitating the new research project.

“In this financial year, if we are going to work on reducing intergenerational poverty, we need to have more accurate data on what poverty around Barbados actually is. The last study was done in 2017 and previously in 2010. We have started discussions with the Caribbean Development Bank to engage in an enhanced Country Poverty Assessment, because it goes beyond looking at monetary income poverty, we are also going to be looking at the multi-dimensional aspects of poverty,” she explained.

Areas such as health, education, and climate change, will all be taken into consideration during the study period, with the ministry focusing on the vulnerability aspect caused by different levels of poverty.

Gibson added that the survey will cover several levels of living conditions amongst at-risk groups.

“It has a survey of living conditions which looks at that same income component, so that we would get a poverty line figure and know if we are providing assistance to families and what’s the basic income that they would need to meet their needs. This can guide our programming.

“It also has a participatory poverty assessment, where we will actually speak to households and get an in-depth understanding on their living situations and how they are coping, as well as an institutional assessment where we look at how we can strengthen the social protection network.”  

shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb