Poverty in Guinea-Bissau

Despite recent improvement in a number of areas, the pace of post-conflict rehabilitation in Guinea-Bissau is acknowledged to be insufficient to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The country remains close to the very bottom of the UN Human Development Index and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) for the period 2007-2010 suggests that the MDGs should be recalibrated so that more realistic targets can be pursued.

Crumbling infrastructure, Bairro Cintra Nema, Bissau © Tom Shaw

The civil war that ended in 1999 caused a 28% drop in GDP in that year alone. Subsequent chronic political instability alongside a fracturing of civil society have severely limited the progress of successive governments in improving citizens' lives. Extreme poverty of over 21% (assessed by the benchmark of $1 per day) has barely changed over the last decade and the original target of 13% remains a distant prospect. Over 65% of the population remains below the national poverty line.

Education goals pose particular difficulty for Guinea-Bissau, owing to a permanent crisis within the public sector. The state is rarely able to pay its public service employees and schools are routinely disrupted or non-operational for months at a time. Whilst primary enrolment has improved in recent years, the rate is still only 55%. Sadly, 10% of rural schools in Guinea-Bissau only have a first grade, and 23% offer only first and second year education. It is not surprising therefore that illiteracy rates in the country are estimated at 47% of men and 76% of women - significantly higher than the regional average.

By and large, poverty is characterised as a predominantly rural phenomenon in Guinea-Bissau, with 85% of those below the poverty line living in the interior. Interestingly, the PRSP identifies female headed households to be less at risk of extreme poverty than households headed by men, owing to the opportunities open to women in the country's vast informal economy, and the widespread practice of polygamy.

Health and HIV/AIDS in Guinea-Bissau

The government spends no more than 4% of its budget on health. Access to health services in Guinea-Bissau is therefore very poor and often unaffordable. With high child and maternal mortality rates rising further rather than falling, the MDG indicators have become an irrelevance. Poor awareness of essential health practices is undermined by the marriage of 27% of girls before the age of 18.

Minimal progress in improving the quality of drinking water and sanitation has led to serious cholera epidemics, first in 2005 and again in 2008. Hundreds of deaths have been recorded, with the capital city, Bissau, especially affected. However, malaria remains the leading cause of death and HIV/AIDS is also a major health problem with very low public understanding of prevention. Guinea-Bissau experiences the relatively rare HIV2 variation of the virus although its incidence has fallen by about a half since 1990. Overall prevalence of just under 4% in 2004 represents a fall from the MDG baseline figure of 5.9% but there is some concern that more recent data may be unfavourable. Access to anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines is limited to about 20% of those in need.
Food Security in Guinea-Bissau

Cashew harvest time in the Bijagos Islands © Tom Shaw

The 64% contribution of agriculture to Guinea-Bissau's economy relies almost solely on a single cash crop - cashew nuts - which are sold to a single country, India, the monopsony buyer. Although the land is generally fertile and rainfall adequate, the lack of irrigation and other technology is such that the country is able to grow only about 60% of its need for staple rice. The centrality of the cashew crop to most Guinean livelihoods makes many people vulnerable to the interplay between the market prices of cashew and rice. Over 2007 and 2008 the price of cashew has softened whilst rice has rocketed. The result is described by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization as “chronic food insecurity”.
The government has reduced tariffs on rice imports, depriving it of income, whilst the World Food Programme supports almost a quarter of the population with food aid. All development plans refer to the need to diversify agricultural produce.
Climate Change in Guinea-Bissau

This mainstream dependency on commodity prices is matched by dependency on weather conditions. Inevitably, the National Programme of Action of Adaptation (NAPA) for Guinea-Bissau warns that the country is “exposed to the negative effects of climate changes in almost all productive sectors of national life”. It is also clear that the combination of poverty and primitive rural infrastructure renders communities vulnerable to very small changes in temperature, rainfall and sea level.

Vulnerable Guinea-Bissau coastline © Tom Shaw

Extreme climatic events such as flooding and salt water inundation appear already to be occurring with greater frequency, with serious implications for food security. Major food shortages resulted in a famine warning for the Tombali region in 2006. Most rice is grown on coastal floodplains which are also home to about 80% of the population. The need to protect rice productivity through sea defences, irrigation, and use of salt-resistant seed varieties emerges as the main target for adaptation. The NAPA requests a modest figure of $6.3 million of aid to carry out the recommended adaptation programmes.
The Economy in Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau depends on cashew nuts © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

After Nicaragua and São Tomé e Principe, Guinea-Bissau is the world's most aid-dependent country, with over 90% of the public budget being funded by external assistance in 2007. The majority of government spending is exhausted by the public sector payroll which itself is greatly in arrears. This creates little room for poverty reduction programmes as well as tension with donors. Whilst the country was formerly very adept at attracting international aid, donors have in recent years been turning their backs on Guinea-Bissau, citing lack of co-operation and credible governance.

The country was provisionally approved for the HIPC debt relief initiative in 1997, but persistent instability has delayed fulfilment of the corresponding structural adjustment requirements. By early 2008 the resulting “debt distress” persuaded the international institutions to award interim HIPC relief which, together with debt rescheduling, has greatly reduced interest servicing obligations in the short term.

However, austerity measures associated with this international debt have left people with few means to survive other than through informal trade, which has boomed in the last two decades. Guinea-Bissau is extremely isolated from global capital, so that lumos - rotating markets organised by the people - and informal cross border trade are essential to the livelihoods of most Guineans outside the capital.
Politics in Guinea-Bissau

The political history of Guinea-Bissau is tied closely to that of Cape Verde, with whom Guineans share the kriolo language. Modern Guinea-Bissau has inherited a legacy of state socialism (1974-1994) under The African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), whose popularity stems from having liberated their country from Portugal in 1974. Its status as the country's sole legitimate party was reversed by parliament only in 1990.

João Bernado Vieira ("Nino"), a popular and iconic figure in Guinea-Bissau, was president between 1980 and 1998, and again from 2005 to the present day, winning the country's democratic elections in 1994 and 2005. In the interim, the country was ruled by Koumba Yala, whose three year rule both started and ended with military coups. Corruption and mismanagement under Yala resulted in a souring of international relations and the suspension of much external assistance.

Politics is polarised along party and personality lines, particularly between the president, the military, and his former party, the PAIGC. After successive prime ministers appointed by the president failed to conduct effective parliamentary business, the three main parties signed a stability pact in April 2007 pending a general election due a year later. In the event the election was deferred until November 2008 due to financial and logistical difficulties, a move which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. Amidst fears of a military coup, the president responded by imposing a transitional government. European Union observers are due to attend the election.

Civil society has long been thought of as strong in the sense of inter-ethnic solidarity and traditional mutual support systems, although its influence has only recently become more visible on a more organised, political level. In fact, the majority of the populace of the interior remain politically rather detached, as has been the case since colonial and state-socialist rule.
Conflict in Guinea-Bissau

This pattern of ineffective government betrays a much more serious underlying reality in Guinea-Bissau whereby, in the words of the International Crisis Group, “its political and administrative structures are insufficient to guarantee control of its territory…… or counter-balance the army’s dominance”. Non existent border controls and no capacity for criminal investigation have enabled a dramatic upsurge of drug trafficking activity from Latin America, which has prompted fears that Guinea-Bissau will soon become Africa's first narco-state. As corruption and crime follow in its wake, the value of the trafficking is believed to exceed the country’s GDP. Such is the potentially serious destabilising influence of the narcotics trade, not only on Guinea-Bissau but the West African region as a whole, that the UN Secretary-General has called for an expert panel to be established to investigate the extent of the crisis.

Reminder of civil war in Bissau © Tom Shaw

This spectre of Guinea-Bissau becoming a failed state has its origins in the civil war of 1998-9 when the ethnic Balanta faction of the army, consistent opponents of Nino's government, responded with force to the sacking of an army commander. The country was plunged into a brief but bitter civil conflict. Almost the entire population of Bissau fled during the fighting. The United Nations now runs a Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) whose mandate has recently been extended to provide support for the country's transition to constitutional rule.

The long period of peace consolidation has been marked by worries about minor, but growing, ethnic tension, mirroring increasingly antagonistic and mistrustful relations within government. A security strategy was completed in October 2006, outlining plans to downsize and retrain the armed forces in order to reduce their destabilising influence. Military spending amounts for around one third of the national budget. The re-integration of ex-combatants and reconstruction of civil institutions remain major concerns for the country.
Human Rights in Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau has a generally positive reputation for media freedom. But the country is in a state of denial about narcotics and journalists are expected to remain silent on the subject. Suggestions in the media that government or military figures might be involved in drugs trafficking are likely to place a journalist in grave danger.

A consequence of extreme poverty and food insecurity is the susceptibility of families to bogus offers to provide “free education” for children. The reality involves a truck journey across the Senegal border to Dakar where the children are forced on to the streets as beggars for their masters. As many as 100,000 street children in Dakar may come from Guinea-Bissau. Another human rights concern is the widespread practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is believed to have been experienced by 44% of adult women. A law banning the practice was recently proposed but has yet to be passed by parliament.



The OneWorld Guinea-Bissau Guide was first published in March 2007 with a text written by Volunteer Editor Tom Shaw.

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