For too many dads, hitting the village bar takes precedence over their child's education. Photo: andré thiel (flickr)

One source of poverty often overlooked is the manner in which the poor choose to spend their money. Many, particularly men, divert limited funds to buy beer, prostitutes, tobacco and other nonessential items, rather then invest in the education of their children.

The consequence of these poor financial decisions is that many children never receive the education they deserve, not due to lack of access, but because of unpaid tuition fees. Children are forced to drop out, repeat grades, or suffer expulsion, while their fathers hit the village bars for a few liters of beer.

These priorities are not limited to the developing world. The average American spends approximately 7 percent of their income on entertainment, alcohol, and tobacco, while spending only 1.9 percent on education, according to a 2008 survey conducted by the U.S Department of Labor. Though everyone, including the poor, deserve to engage in entertainment and the purchase of pleasure items, the lower a family’s income gets, the more devastating its effects on a families overall well-being become.

Investing more in education could be exactly what is needed to lift poor families and future generations out of poverty. Around the world, approximately 103.5 million primary school age children are not enrolled in school, with about 57 percent of these education deprived children being girls. The lack of an education, or an insufficient one, leads to fewer choices and opportunities later in life. Children who receive a well rounded education are provided with the skills to prevent disease, address issues of maternal health, and navigate the world efficiently with skills that will serve them their entire lives.

If families could redirect even a slight percentage of the money spent on tobacco or alcohol, and this applies to all families around the world, their situations could be transformed dramatically, says New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof. In addition, Kristof advocates that women take on greater responsibility for the household budget, as they have consistently been found to be more financially responsible than men and more apt to allocate funds towards family needs, rather then individual ones. Female monetary empowerment has long been advocated for, but day by day, the case grows stronger.

To hear Kristof’s thoughts on this somewhat controversial and overlooked subject, check out the video below.

"If you've ever smoked a major-brand cigarette, the chances are you've smoked Malawian tobacco," says the BBC. "Virtually every western cigarette uses a bit of the produce from this small southern African nation in its blend."

The battle between cigarette companies and anti-tobacco campaigns poses a challenge for Malawi, one of the poorest nations in the world. In Malawi, tobacco production contributes to 10 percent of GDP and is the second-largest employer in the country.

Proponents of tobacco production argue that tobacco is a crop of choice for farmers because it is easy to grow on marginal soils that yield little else, and earns about seven times more than maize and 22 times more than cotton. In Malawi, revenues from tobacco production are generated from a mere 2 percent of the country’s arable land.

Critics of tobacco production argue that the wealth generated by this resource is not spread evenly across the country. With the price of tobacco constantly fluctuating, those hardest hit are small farmers who are often forced to sell their produce at a loss when tobacco prices fall below market value. According to The Malawi Tobacco Control Commission (TCC), a local government watchdog, it takes US$1 for farm workers to produce a kilogram of tobacco, but that kilo is sold for only US$0.70. As a result, farmers on the big tobacco estates become bonded laborers, forcing whole families to work and repay the landlord. One study found Malawi's tobacco industry employs 78,000 children.

What's not in dispute is that Malawi's tobacco industry is struggling. The government is starting to push alternatives. One is farming mushrooms, where there is already a"brisk local market" — and a potential to meet unmet global demand.

On the tobacco auction floor. Photo: joellaflickr (flickr)

Tobacco Farm. Photo: norsenut (flickr)

One of the most ambitious attempts to control tobacco in the world is being ignored.
The World Health Organization’s tobacco control treaty entered into effect almost exactly three years ago today. It was an unprecedented move by global leaders to target the harmful public health outcome of increased tobacco use, notable especially in the developing world.

According to the World Health Organization, if current trends in the expansion of tobacco use worldwide continue, especially in the developing world where currently half of the deaths due to tobacco occur, “seven out of every ten deaths due to tobacco will occur in the developing world by 2020.”

Three years from the day the treaty went into effect, many countries have made no progress toward minimizing this potential public health disaster, according to the editorial board of the New York Times. "With tobacco use declining in wealthier countries, tobacco companies are spending tens of billions of dollars a year on advertising, marketing and sponsorship, much of it to increase sales in these developing countries." This inundation, as well as the tax revenue governments in developing countries can obtain from tobacco companies, have discouraged many of the countries most crucially affected by tobacco use from pushing any harder to promote the changes of this treaty.