BASKET OF BASIC NEEDS (Published)

Many Zambians are struggling to make ends meet and with unemployment levels still high it is vital for planning to be present in households.

It should be realized that Government is making strides at all levels to ensure that its citizens move out of the poverty trap.

However, Zambians should supplement Government efforts by ensuring that they also plan effectively for their own household food and essential non-food items on a monthly basis.

Therefore, the role of planning is essential at both national and household level as the need to compare available resources against competing needs becomes extremely important.

Budgeting is important to ensure that all basic needs of the family are provided for and that there is some money left over for saving and for use in other ventures.

In comes the Basic Needs basket (BNB); wrongly called the food basket by many, it is a planning tool and comprehensive report on what is attaining on the ground.

It analyses what people in different particular areas are consuming and using daily. This helps to measure the amount of income families require to meet basic needs.

The Basic Needs Basket looks at what income is required by a family of five across different town to meet the cost of food and essential non-food items at the bare minimum.

This is done by analyzing what a typical household should spend monthly by collecting the prevailing market prices of essential commodities like mealie meal.

Each area has a different type of basket for example in Ndola the BnB total for month of May was K2, 447, 745 whilst Kasama had K1, 535, 620.

Other towns also proved the differences across the country such as Lusaka K2, 909,820 and Chipata  1,919,988.

The Basic Needs Basket looks at what is the required by families in the community usually by analyzing what each family uses and checking prices in the main shops of an area.

The concept of a basic needs approach to development emerged in the mid-1970s among some economists who questioned the standard yardstick for measuring economic growth.

They believed that development in terms  of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GNP) had no corresponding effects on the lives of the people .

Following this refocusing on micro-economic indicators, the concept of basic needs has since been used as an indicator of poverty.

With the introduction of social welfare and renewed interest in the “working poor”, policy analysts and advocates for the poor have developed “basic family budgets”

These budgets attempt to measure the amount of income families require to meet basic needs. Consequently, such budgets have been useful tools in a number of policy debates surrounding welfare reforms including the “living” or “just” wage discussion and to address in many ways the inadequacies of the official poverty thresholds as measures of well-being.

 Basic family budgets, also referred to as “food baskets”, “bread baskets” or “basic needs baskets”, include essential food and non-food items such as housing, education, health and energy. 

Overall, the basic needs approach is seen as a “credible measure of poverty which relates to basic materials and social needs.

It helps to determine the extent of the problem and whether [government] policies are having any positive impact.”

These measures use a market-based approach that tries to achieve two things firstly, they identify the items necessary for a family to live a decent standard of living; and second they determine how much it costs to provide for each item at an adequate level.

Grace Kunda a resident of Kabwe asks the necessity of measuring poverty and what good it does.

According to a Jesuit Center for Theological Reflections (JCTR) report, the measuring of poverty has several advantages;

“By placing information about the levels of poverty and the resultant inequality in the public domain we can build a national commitment to eradicate poverty that goes beyond government.

By being able to measure poverty we can also begin to map geographically where poverty is more severe and so direct resources accordingly. “the report states

For example by measuring the BnB we can see that some areas  lack basic commodities more than others.

This type of knowledge also assists the government plan on which areas will get more Community Development Funds more than others.

Another sector which benefits from the Basic needs Basket are the trade unions, to negotiate better pay one must have an inkling of what workers are consuming.

Warris Chamba a unionist said that the union leaders do use the BnB to negotiate with the management in their companies.

“We get the report on what our members require and compare it to their income, because sometimes the disparities are too different. You can imagine at times our members have a salary of K450,000 and the total indicated on the Basic Needs basket is K1,334,000 how can a man with a family survive.”

Chama Chipanta says that for her the BnB acts as a guide to help her plan her monthly expenditures.

“When I budget I use the BnB as a guide to help me budget as it is very accurate and on point, also because it specifies the nutritional requirements of a family.”

Ms Chipanta says she was introduced to the concept of using the BnB for budgeting by her late husband who was an Economist.

Davite Hambobe asks why the Basic need does not have all food items consumed by people but instead focuses on just some foodstuffs.

The reasons for this are varied

Every society has different wants depending on financial capabilities, industry and other factors that affect income and nutrition.

However there is a common set of needs and capabilities that are considered basic in all societies these include adequate nourishment , shelter, basic education, security, equitable access to justice, having an income, and taking part in the life of a community.

The most common practice of measuring patterns of poverty in a population involves using income or expenditure data and different area have different income levels.

Another practical example given is that food consumption depends on area for example some areas are farming communities and thus spend more on some goods then others.

Another factor is the difference in pricing of goods, for example in the month of May the price of a 25 KG bag was not equal around the Country.

In Mpika the price of a 25 KG bag was K48,600, In Ndola it was K 39,000 while Lusaka residents had to part with a K40,500.

These figures are proof of the differences individual results of each region in the country.

Many wrongly call the Basic Needs Basket a ‘food basket’ but this is wrong as it incorporate essential food items and non-food items.

So how does this knowledge help different Zambians?

According to the JCTR if utilized properly the Basket can help many stakeholders

The Church can use it as a vehicle to communicate the key values of the Church's Social Teaching while it is meant to challenge the community into organizing people to proactively improve their own conditions before seeking assistance.

Trade Unions as mentioned it is a major tool for unions to advocate for improved conditions of service.

Employers are given an inspiration to use their positions and take a hand in fighting poverty and its causes in Zambia. 

 This is because they can see what their workers are lacking.

Households then learn the need to fight poverty as individuals, family (nuclear and extended) and fellow citizens, and to strive for justice and dignity for all people.

For the Government it is a policy guide to help establish a poverty datum line, a just minimum wage, a fair tax code, strategic fuel reserves, loans for entrepreneurship and subsidized utilities

The development of a nation is a duty of not only the government, in Africa the burden of development is also shouldered by Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

The BnB can thus be used by NGOs as an illustration of how external factors like debt and trade imbalances hinder the ability of average households to meet basic needs.

It is indeed a rather useful tool, which many can use mainly because it uses a simple, concise way of showing what is attaining on the ground.