The Times of Zambia edition of March 22, 2018 carried a feature article by Catherine Sakala which read,‘Crop diversification key to poverty-reduction’.
‘Poverty-reduction has been one of the main agendas in many government policies especially in Africa.
However, in spite of efforts put in to eradicate it by various governments and other stakeholders poverty remains a global crisis.
In Zambia today, poverty levels remain stubbornly high and stalking 76.6 percent of the population in rural areas according to the 2015 Living Conditions Survey. The survey further revealed that 40.8 percent of the Zambian population live in extreme poverty’!
Zambia’s high figures of poverty also apply to other African countries. In fact, Zambia’s poverty figures are even better than those of some African countries.
However, the point still stands that poverty levels in Africa are too high for a continent endowed with so much.
Why is African poverty so high? Part of the answer lies in the Poverty-Reduction Strategy which has been prescribed for Africa.
Poverty-Reduction has four main challenges which limit its impact on development in Africa. The first challenge with poverty-reduction strategy is concentrating on poverty.
Since the 1960s, most of Africa has been made to implement Poverty-Reduction Strategy as an engine of national development. By implementing Poverty-Reduction Strategy, most of Africa has been concentrating or focusing its thinking on poverty for more than 50 years since 1960.
To concentrate is to make your thinking about something consistent, habitual, predominant, priority or number one!
Poverty in Africa has been made to be a consistent, habitual, predominant, priority and number one thought. Africa is so synonymous with poverty that most primary and secondary school pupils would struggle hard just to come up with one word which is the opposite of poverty.
This is because they have been hearing the word poverty more than its opposite word since they were born!
For example, if you conducted a content analysis of most national development documents like policies, plans, declarations and visions of most African countries you would find the word poverty has been used much more than the word prosperity or wealth-creation, its opposite.
Now, here is the catch. Thinking or thought is creative energy and what you concentrate or focus your thinking on most of the time, positive or negative, with your emotion you will create and experience in your life.
Your mind transforms your consistent, habitual, predominant, priority or number one thought that is mixed with your emotion into its equivalent or corresponding physical reality!
Emotion is the fuel or power which makes the transformation of your thought into its equivalent or corresponding physical reality possible.
Focusing your thinking or thought on something works like a magnifying glass.
When a magnifying glass is steadily held under the rays of the sun for some length of time and those rays of the sun are concentrated or focused on one spot like on a piece of paper, that spot will burn from the concentrated or focused energy which is produced by the magnifying glass.
Africa’s concentration or focusing on poverty is Africa’s invitation of poverty to Africa!
Energy flows where attention goes!! The second challenge with poverty-reduction strategy is that what you resist persists.
Bob Doyle explains, ‘The reason that what you resist persists is because if you are resisting something, you are saying , “No, I don’t want this thing because it makes me feel this way—the way I am feeling right now”.
So you are putting out a really strong emotion of, ‘I really don’t like this feeling’, and then it comes racing to you’. By resisting something like, ‘I don’t want poverty’, ‘I don’t want poverty’ and ‘I don’t want poverty’, you are giving it audience, attention and hence energy for it to exist and you will always have poverty with you!
Rhonda Byrne observes that, ‘Resistance to anything is like trying to change outside pictures after they have been transmitted. It is a futile pursuit. You have to go within and emit a new thought and feelings to create the new pictures’.
The inside world of your thoughts creates the outside world of your effects like poverty or prosperity.
Your thoughts are the primary cause of everything. Everything else you see and experience in this world is effect and that includes your feelings.
The cause is always your thoughts. Looking at it from another angle, if you were suffering from malaria, went to the hospital and accepted a malarial parasite-reduction medical treatment; chances are that as long as some malarial parasites remain in your body you are likely to suffer a relapse or another malarial attack.
The remaining malarial parasites in your body will grow, multiply and make you sick again. Besides, why on earth would you accept a malarial-reduction medical treatment anyway?
The third challenge with poverty-reduction strategy is that your subconscious mind which transforms emotionalized thoughts into their corresponding or equivalent physical reality only accepts positive commands or instructions.
Here is how your subconscious mind works. When your subconscious mind receives a negative statement like, ‘Poverty-Reduction’, something interesting and surprising happens.
First, it replaces the negative commanding or instructing word of ‘Reduction’in the statement of ‘poverty-reduction’ by its opposite and positive commanding or instructing word of ‘Increase’ before it can transformthe statement of ‘poverty-reduction’ into its equivalent physical reality.
But here is another catch. When the negative commanding or instructing word of ‘Reduction’ in the statement of ‘poverty-reduction’ is replaced by its opposite and positive word of ‘Increase’,the original meaning of the statement of ‘poverty-reduction’ will completely change.
The new statement will become ‘Poverty-Increase’ and this is now the statement which your subconscious mind will transform into its corresponding or equivalent physical reality.
The same thing happens when the negative statement is ‘Fight Against Poverty’ or ‘Anti-Poverty Campaign’.
The negative commanding or instructing words of ‘Against’ and ‘Anti’ will be replaced by their opposite and positive word of ‘For’ before the subconscious mind can accept them and transform them into physical reality.
The new statements will be ‘Fight For Poverty’ and ‘For Poverty Campaign’!!
The fourth challenge with poverty-reduction strategy is that all prosperous countries in the whole world have Prosperity-Increase Strategy as their engine of national development.
Therefore, Poverty-Reduction Strategy has been recommended for most of Africa only as an engine of poverty-increaseto benefit others.
Remember, independence is different from de-colonization. Independence is by declaration; de-colonization is by mind-set change!
Africa to develop must replace its current Poverty-Reduction Strategy by Prosperity-Increase Strategy!!
Author is a Motivational Mentor and Consultant in Positive Mind-Set Change. Email: positivemindpower1511@yahoo.com