Information and communication technologies for development help to fight poverty. A mobile phone being charged from a car battery in Uganda.
Graph
(based on data from the World Bank) showing the proportion of the
world's population (blue) and the absolute numbers of people (red)
living on <1 1981="" 2008="" a="" and="" between="" day="" dollars="" equivalent="" span="" us="" values="">
Poverty reduction, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classic Progress and Poverty,
are those that raise, or are intended to raise, ways of enabling the
poor to create wealth for themselves as a means of ending poverty
forever. In modern times, various economists within the Georgism movement propose measures like the land value tax to enhance access to the natural world for all. Poverty occurs in both developing countries and developed countries. While poverty is much more widespread in developing countries, both types of countries undertake poverty reduction measures.
Poverty has been historically accepted in some parts of the world as
inevitable as non-industrialized economies produced very little, while
populations grew almost as fast, making wealth scarce. Geoffrey Parker wrote that
In Antwerp and Lyon, two of the largest cities in western Europe, by 1600 three-quarters of the total population were too poor to pay taxes, and therefore likely to need relief in times of crisis.
Poverty reduction occurs largely as a result of overall economic growth. Food shortages were common before modern agricultural technology and in places that lack them today, such as nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation methods. The dawn of industrial revolution led to high economic growth, eliminating mass poverty in what is now considered the developed world. World GDP per person quintupled during the 20th century. In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than a dollar a day, while in 2001, only about 20% did.
Today, continued economic development is constrained by the lack of economic freedoms. Economic liberalization requires extending property rights to the poor, especially to land. Financial services, notably savings, can be made accessible to the poor through technology, such as mobile banking. Inefficient institutions, corruption, and political instability can also discourage investment. Aid and government support in health, education, and infrastructure helps growth by increasing human and physical capital.
Poverty alleviation also involves improving the living conditions of people who are already poor. Aid, particularly in the medical and scientific areas, is essential in providing better lives, such as the Green Revolution and the eradication of smallpox. Problems with today's development aid include the high proportion of tied aid, which mandates receiving nations to buy products, often more expensive, originating only from donor countries. Nevertheless, some believe (Peter Singer in his book The Life You Can Save) that small changes in the way each of us in affluent nations lives our lives could solve world poverty.
Economic liberalization
Some commentators have claimed that, due to economic liberalization, poverty in the world is rising rather than declining, and the data provided by the World Bank, which shows poverty is decreasing, is flawed.
They also argue that extending property rights protection to the poor
is one of the most important poverty reduction strategies a nation can
implement. Securing property rights to land, the largest asset for most societies, is vital to their economic freedom. The World Bank
concludes that increasing land rights is ‘the key to reducing poverty’
citing that land rights greatly increase poor people’s wealth, in some
cases doubling it.
It is estimated that state recognition of the property of the poor
would give them assets worth 40 times all the foreign aid since 1945. Although approaches varied, the World Bank said the key issues were security of tenure and ensuring land transactions were low cost. In China and India, noted reductions in poverty in recent decades have occurred mostly as a result of the abandonment of collective farming in China and the cutting of government red tape in India.
New enterprises and foreign investment can be driven away by the
results of inefficient institutions, corruption, the weak rule of law
and excessive bureaucratic burdens.
It takes two days, two bureaucratic procedures, and $280 to open a
business in Canada while an entrepreneur in Bolivia must pay $2,696 in
fees, wait 82 business days, and go through 20 procedures to do the
same. Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises where most jobs are created.
In India before economic reforms, businesses had to bribe government
officials even for routine activities, which was in effect a tax on
business.
However, ending government sponsorship of social programs is sometimes advocated as a free market principle with tragic consequences. For example, the World Bank presses poor nations to eliminate subsidies for fertilizer that many farmers cannot afford at market prices. The reconfiguration of public financing in former Soviet states during their transition to a market economy called for reduced spending on health and education, sharply increasing poverty.
Trade liberalization increases total surplus of trading nations. Remittances sent to poor countries, such as India, are sometimes larger than foreign direct investment and total remittances are more than double aid flows from OECD countries. Foreign investment and export industries helped fuel the economic expansion of fast growing Asian nations.
However, trade rules are often unfair as they block access to richer
nations’ markets and ban poorer nations from supporting their
industries. Processed products from poorer nations, in contrast to raw materials, get vastly higher tariffs at richer nations' ports. A University of Toronto study found the dropping of duty charges on thousands of products from African nations because of the African Growth and Opportunity Act was directly responsible for a "surprisingly large" increase in imports from Africa. Deals can sometimes be negotiated to favor the developing country
such as in China, where laws compel foreign multinationals to train
their future Chinese competitors in strategic industries and render
themselves redundant in the long term.
In Thailand, the 51 percent rule compels multinational corporations
starting operations in Thailand give 51 percent control to a Thai
company in a joint venture.
Capital, infrastructure and technology
World GDP per capita (log scale)
World GDP per capita
Long run economic growth per person is achieved through increases in
capital (factors that increase productivity), both human and physical,
and technology. Improving human capital, in the form of health, is needed for economic growth. Nations do not necessarily need wealth to gain health. For example, Sri Lanka had a maternal mortality rate of 2% in the 1930s, higher than any nation today. It reduced it to 0.5–0.6% in the 1950s and to 0.06% today. However, it was spending less each year on maternal health because it learned what worked and what did not.
Knowledge on the cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions can be
elusive but educational measures to disseminate what works are
available, such as the disease control priorities project. Promoting hand washing is one of the most cost effective health intervention and can cut deaths from the major childhood diseases of diarrhea and pneumonia by half.
Human capital, in the form of education, is an even more important determinant of economic growth than physical capital. Deworming children costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces non-attendance from anemia, illness and malnutrition and is only a twenty-fifth as expensive to increase school attendance as by constructing schools.
UN economists argue that good infrastructure, such as roads and information networks, helps market reforms to work.
China claims it is investing in railways, roads, ports and rural
telephones in African countries as part of its formula for economic
development. It was the technology of the steam engine
that originally began the dramatic decreases in poverty levels. Cell
phone technology brings the market to poor or rural sections. With necessary information, remote farmers can produce specific crops to sell to the buyers that brings the best price.
Such technology also helps bring economic freedom by making financial services accessible to the poor. Those in poverty place overwhelming importance on having a safe place to save money, much more so than receiving loans. Also, a large part of microfinance loans are spent on products that would usually be paid by a checking or savings account. Mobile banking addresses the problem of the heavy regulation and costly maintenance of saving accounts. Mobile financial services in the developing world, ahead of the developed world in this respect, could be worth $5 billion by 2012. Safaricom’s M-Pesa launched one of the first systems where a network of agents of mostly shopkeepers, instead of bank branches, would take deposits
in cash and translate these onto a virtual account on customers'
phones. Cash transfers can be done between phones and issued back in
cash with a small commission, making remittances safer.
However, several academic studies have shown that mobile phones
have only limited affect on poverty reduction when not accompanied by
other basic infrastructure development.
Employment and productivity
Shiva Kumar – The importance of MDGs in redefining what are the poverty drivers
Economic growth has the indirect potential to alleviate poverty, as a
result of a simultaneous increases in employment opportunities and labor productivity. A study by researchers at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) of 24 countries that experienced growth found that in 18 cases, poverty was alleviated. However, employment is no guarantee of escaping poverty, the International Labour Organization
(ILO) estimates that as many as 40% of workers are poor, not earning
enough to keep their families above the $2 a day poverty line. For instance, in India most of the chronically poor are wage earners in formal employment, because their jobs are insecure and low paid and offer no chance to accumulate wealth to avoid risks.
This appears to be the result of a negative relationship between
employment creation and increased productivity, when a simultaneous
positive increase is required to reduced poverty. According to the UNRISD,
increasing labor productivity appears to have a negative impact on job
creation: in the 1960s, a 1% increase in output per worker was
associated with a reduction in employment growth of 0.07%, by the first
decade of this century the same productivity increase implies reduced
employment growth by 0.54%.
Increases in employment without increases in productivity leads to a rise in the number of "working poor", which is why some experts are now promoting the creation of "quality" and not "quantity" in labour market policies.
This approach does highlight how higher productivity has helped reduce
poverty in East Asia, but the negative impact is beginning to show. In Viet Nam, for example, employment growth has slowed while productivity growth has continued.
Furthermore, productivity increases do not always lead to increased
wages, as can be seen in the US, where the gap between productivity and
wages has been rising since the 1980s. The ODI study showed that other sectors were just as important in reducing unemployment, as manufacturing. The services sector
is most effective at translating productivity growth into employment
growth. Agriculture provides a safety net for jobs and economic buffer
when other sectors are struggling. This study suggests a more nuanced understanding of economic growth and quality of life and poverty alleviation.
Helping farmers
Raising farm incomes is described as the core of the antipoverty effort as three quarters of the poor today are farmers.
Estimates show that growth in the agricultural productivity of small
farmers is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the
poorest half of a country’s population as growth generated in
nonagricultural sectors. For example, a 2012 study suggested that new varieties of chickpea
could benefit Ethiopian farmers in future. The study assessed the
potential economic and poverty impact of 11 improved chickpea varieties,
released by the national agricultural research organization of Ethiopia
in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, (ICRISAT).
The researchers estimated that using the varieties would bring about a
total benefit of US$111 million for 30 years with consumers receiving
39% of the benefit and producers 61%. They expected the generated
benefit would lift more than 0.7 million people (both producers and
consumers) out of poverty. The authors concluded that further
investments in the chickpea and other legume research in Ethiopia were therefore justified as a means of poverty alleviation.
Improving water management is an effective way to help reduce
poverty among farmers. With better water management, they can improve
productivity and potentially move beyond subsistence-level farming.
During the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, for example,
irrigation was a key factor in unlocking Asia's agricultural potential
and reducing poverty. Between 1961 and 2002, the irrigated area almost
doubled, as governments sought to achieve food security, improve public
welfare and generate economic growth. In South Asia, cereal production
rose by 137% from 1970 to 2007. This was achieved with only 3% more
land.
The International Water Management Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka
aims to improve the management of land and water resources for food,
livelihoods and the environment. One project its scientists worked on
demonstrates the impact that improving water management in agriculture
can have. The study, funded by the Japan Bank for International
Cooperation, initially upgraded and irrigated the irrigation system on
the Walawe Left Bank, Sri Lanka, in 1997. In 2005, irrigation was
extended to a further area. An analysis of the whole area was carried
out in 2007 and 2008. This study found that access to irrigation
provided families with opportunities to diversify their livelihood
activities and potentially increase their incomes. For example, people
with land could reliably grow rice or vegetables instead of working as
laborers or relying on rainfall to water their crops. Those without
land could benefit by working within new inland fisheries. Within the
project's control area, 57% of households were below the poverty line in
2002 compared with 43% in 2007.
Building opportunities for self-sufficiency
Making
employment opportunities available is just as important as increasing
income and access to basic needs. Poverty activist Paul Polak
has based his career around doing both at once, creating companies that
employ the poor while creating "radically" affordable goods. In his
book Out of Poverty he argues that traditional poverty
eradication strategies have been misguided and fail to address
underlying problems. He lists, “Three Great Poverty Eradication
Myths”: that we can donate people out of poverty, that national economic
growth will end poverty, and that Big Business, operating as it does
now, will end poverty.
Economic models which lead to national growth and more big business
will not necessarily lead to more opportunities for self-sufficiency.
However, businesses designed with a social goal in mind, such as micro
finance banks, may be able to make a difference.
Growth vs. state intervention: comparative perspective in China, India, Brazil
A
2012 World Bank research article, “A Comparative Perspective on Poverty
Reduction in Brazil, China, and India,” looked at the three nations’
strategies and their relative challenges and successes. During their
reform periods, all three have reduced their poverty rates, but through a
different mix of approaches. The report used a common poverty line of
$1.29 per person, per day, at purchasing parity power for consumption in
2008. Using that metric and evaluating the period between 1981 and
2005, the poverty rate in China dropped from 84% to 18%; India from 80%
to 42%; and Brazil from 17% to 8%. The report sketches an overall
scorecard of the countries on the two basic dimensions of pro-poor
growth and pro-poor policy intervention: “China clearly scores well on
the pro-poor growth side of the card, but neither Brazil nor India do;
in Brazil’s case for lack of growth and in India’s case for lack of
poverty-reducing growth. Brazil scores well on the social policies side,
but China and India do not; in China’s case progress has been slow in
implementing new social policies more relevant to the new market economy
(despite historical advantages in this area, inherited from the past
regime) and in India’s case the bigger problems are the extent of
capture of the many existing policies by non-poor groups and the weak
capabilities of the state for delivering better basic public services.”
Aid
Welfare
Aid in its simplest form is a basic income grant, a form of social security periodically providing citizens with money. In pilot projects in Namibia,
where such a program pays just $13 a month, people were able to pay
tuition fees, raising the proportion of children going to school by 92%,
child malnutrition rates fell from 42% to 10% and economic activity grew 10%. Aid could also be rewarded based on doing certain requirements. Conditional Cash Transfers, widely credited as a successful anti-poverty program, is based on actions such as enrolling children in school or receiving vaccinations.
In Mexico, for example, the country with the largest such program,
dropout rates of 16- to 19-year-olds in rural area dropped by 20% and
children gained half an inch in height.
Initial fears that the program would encourage families to stay at home
rather than work to collect benefits have proven to be unfounded.
Instead, there is less excuse for neglectful behavior as, for example,
children are prevented from begging on the streets instead of going to
school because it could result in suspension from the program.
Welfare states
have an effect on poverty reduction. Currently modern, expansive
welfare states that ensure economic opportunity, independence and
security in a near universal manner are still the exclusive domain of
the developed nations. commonly constituting at least 20% of GDP, with the largest Scandinavian welfare states constituting over 40% of GDP.
These modern welfare states, which largely arose in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, seeing their greatest expansion in the mid 20th
century, and have proven themselves highly effective in reducing
relative as well as absolute poverty in all analyzed high-income OECD
countries.
Philosopher Thomas Pogge is a supporter of gathering funds for the poor by using a sort of Global Resources Dividend.
Development aid
A major proportion of aid from donor nations is ‘tied’, mandating
that a receiving nation buy products originating only from the donor
country. This can be harmful economically. For example, Eritrea
is forced to spend aid money on foreign goods and services to build a
network of railways even though it is cheaper to use local expertise and
resources.
Money from the United States to fight AIDS requires it be spent on U.S
brand name drugs that can cost up to $15,000 a year compared to $350 a
year for generics from other countries. Only Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and Britain have stopped tying their aid.
Some people disagree with aid when looking at where the
development aid money from NGO's and other funding is going. Funding
tends to be used in a selective manner where the highest ranked health
problem is the only thing treated, rather than funding basic health care
development. This can occur due to a foundation's underlying political
aspects to their development plan, where the politics outweigh the
science of disease. The diseases then treated are ranked by their
prevalence, morbidity, risk of mortality, and the feasibility of
control.
Through this ranking system, the disease that cause the most mortality
and are most easily treated are given the funding. The argument occurs
because once these people are treated, they are sent back to the
conditions that led to the disease in the first place. By doing this,
money and resources from aid can be wasted when people are re-infected.
This was seen in the Rockefeller Foundation's Hookworm campaign in
Mexico in the 1920s, where people were treated for hookworm and then
contracted the disease again once back in the conditions of which they
came from. To prevent this, money could be spent on teaching citizens
of the developing countries health education, basic sanitation, and
providing adequate access to prevention methods and medical
infrastructure. Not only would NGO money be better spent, but it would
be more sustainable. These arguments suggest that the NGO development
aid should be used for prevention and determining root causes rather
acting upon political endeavours and treating for the sake of saying
they helped.
Some think tanks
and NGOs have argued that Western monetary aid often only serves to
increase poverty and social inequality, either because it is conditioned
with the implementation of harmful economic policies in the recipient
countries, or because it's tied with the importing of products from the donor country over cheaper alternatives. Sometimes foreign aid is seen to be serving the interests of the donor more than the recipient,
and critics also argue that some of the foreign aid is stolen by
corrupt governments and officials, and that higher aid levels erode the
quality of governance. Policy becomes much more oriented toward what
will get more aid money than it does towards meeting the needs of the
people.
Problems with the aid system and not aid itself are that the aid is
excessively directed towards the salaries of consultants from donor
countries, the aid is not spread properly, neglecting vital, less
publicized area such as agriculture, and the aid is not properly
coordinated among donors, leading to a plethora of disconnected projects
rather than unified strategies.
Supporters of aid argue that these problems may be solved with better auditing of how the aid is used. Immunization campaigns for children, such as against polio, diphtheria and measles have saved millions of lives.
Aid from non-governmental organizations may be more effective than
governmental aid; this may be because it is better at reaching the poor
and better controlled at the grassroots level. As a point of comparison, the annual world military spending is over $1 trillion.
Debt relief
One of the proposed ways to help poor countries that emerged during the 1980s has been debt relief.
Given that many less developed nations have gotten themselves into
extensive debt to banks and governments from the rich nations, and given
that the interest payments on these debts are often more than a country
can generate per year in profits from exports, cancelling part or all
of these debts may allow poor nations "to get out of the hole".
If poor countries do not have to spend so much on debt payments, they
can use the money instead for priorities which help reduce poverty such
as basic health-care and education.
Many nations began offering services, such as free health care even
while overwhelming the health care infrastructure, because of savings
that resulted from the rounds of debt relief in 2005.
The role of education and skillbuilding as precursors to economic development
"Working together to end poverty one nail at a time," T-shirt, 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Universal public education has some role in preparing youth for basic
academic skills and perhaps many trade skills, as well. Apprenticeships
clearly build needed trade skills. If modest amounts of cash and land
can be combined with a modicum of agricultural skills in a temperate
climate, subsistence can give way toward modest societal wealth. As has
been mentioned, education for women will allow for reduced family
size—an important poverty reduction event in its own right. While all
components mentioned above are necessary, the portion of education
pertaining to the variety of skills needed to build and maintain the
infrastructure of a developing (moving out of poverty) society: building
trades; plumbing; electrician; well-drilling; farm and transport
mechanical skills (and others) are clearly needed in large numbers of
individuals, if the society is to move out of poverty or subsistence.
Yet, many well-developed western economies are moving strongly away from
the essential apprenticeships and skill training which affords a clear
vocational path out of modern urban poverty.
Microloans
One
of the most popular of the new technical tools for economic development
and poverty reduction are microloans made famous in 1976 by the Grameen Bank
in Bangladesh. The idea is to loan small amounts of money to farmers or
villages so these people can obtain the things they need to increase
their economic rewards. A small pump costing only $50 could make a very
big difference in a village without the means of irrigation.
A specific example is the Thai government's People's Bank which is
making loans of $100 to $300 to help farmers buy equipment or seeds,
help street vendors acquire an inventory to sell, or help others set up
small shops. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Vietnam
country programme supports operations in 11 poor provinces. Between
2002 and 2010 around 1,000 saving and credit groups (SCGs) were formed,
with over 17,000 members; these SCGs increased their access to microcredit for taking up small-scale farm activities.
Empowering women
The empowerment
of women has relatively recently become a significant area of
discussion with respect to development and economics; however it is
often regarded as a topic that only addresses and primarily deals with gender inequality.
Because women and men experience poverty differently, they hold
dissimilar poverty reduction priorities and are affected differently by
development interventions and poverty reduction strategies. In response to the socialized phenomenon known as the feminization of poverty, policies aimed to reduce poverty have begun to address poor women separately from poor men.
In addition to engendering poverty and poverty interventions, a
correlation between greater gender equality and greater poverty
reduction and economic growth has been illustrated by research through
the World Bank, suggesting that promoting gender equality through empowerment of women is a qualitatively significant poverty reduction strategy.
Gender equality
Addressing
gender equality and empowering women are necessary steps in overcoming
poverty and furthering development as supported by the human development
and capabilities approach and the Millennium Development Goals. Disparities in the areas of education, mortality rates,
health and other social and economic indicators impose large costs on
well-being and health of the poor, which diminishes productivity and the
potential to reduce poverty.
The limited opportunities of women in most societies restrict their
aptitude to improve economic conditions and access services to enhance
their well-being.
Mainstreaming gender
Gender mainstreaming,
the concept of placing gender issues into the mainstream of society,
was established by the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
as a global strategy for promoting gender equality; the UN conference
emphasized the necessity to ensure that gender equality is a primary
goal in all areas of social and economic development, which includes the
discussion of poverty and its reduction. Correspondingly, the World Bank also created objectives to address poverty with respect to the different effects on women.
One important goal was the revision of laws and administrative
practices to ensure women’s equal rights and access to economic
resources.
Mainstreaming strengthens women’s active involvement in poverty
alleviation by linking women’s capabilities and contributions with
macro-economic issues.
The underlying purpose of both the UN and World Bank policies speaks
to the use of discussion of gender issues in the promotion of gender
equality and reduction of poverty.
Strategies to empower women
Several
platforms have been adopted and reiterated across many organizations in
support of the empowerment of women with the specific aim of reducing
poverty. Encouraging more economic and political participation by women
increases financial independence from and social investment in the
government, both of which are critical to pulling society out of
poverty.
Economic participation
Women’s economic empowerment,
or ensuring that women and men have equal opportunities to generate and
manage income, is an important step to enhancing their development
within the household and in society. Additionally, women play an important economic role in addressing poverty experienced by children. By increasing female participation in the labor force, women are able to contribute more effectively to economic growth and income distribution since having a source of income elevates their financial and social status.
However, women’s entry into the paid labor force does not necessarily
equate to reduction of poverty; the creation of decent employment
opportunities and movement of women from the informal work sector to the
formal labor market are key to poverty reduction.
Other ways to encourage female participation in the workforce to
promote decline of poverty include providing childcare services,
increasing educational quality and opportunities, and furthering entrepreneurship for women.
Protection of property rights
is a key element in economically empowering women and fostering
economic growth overall for both genders. With legitimate claims to
land, women gain bargaining power, which can be applied to their lives
outside of and within the household.
The ability and opportunity for women to lawfully own land also
decreases the asset gap that exists between women and men, which
promotes gender equality.
Political participation
Political participation is supported by organizations such as IFAD as one pillar of gender equality and women’s empowerment. Sustainable economic growth requires poor people to have influence on the decisions that affect their lives;
specifically strengthening women’s voices in the political process
builds social independence and greater consideration of gender issues in
policy. In order to promote women’s political empowerment, the United Nations Development Programme
advocated for several efforts: increase women in public office;
strengthen advocate ability of women’s organizations; ensure fair legal
protection; and provide equivalent health and education.
Fair political representation and participation enable women to lobby
for more female-specific poverty reduction policies and programs.
Good institutions
Efficient institutions that are not corrupt and obey the rule of law
make and enforce good laws that provide security to property and
businesses. Efficient and fair governments would work to invest in the
long-term interests of the nation rather than plunder resources through
corruption. Researchers at UC Berkeley developed what they called a "Weberianness scale" which measures aspects of bureaucracies and governments which Max Weber described as most important for rational-legal
and efficient government over 100 years ago. Comparative research has
found that the scale is correlated with higher rates of economic
development. With their related concept of good governance World Bank researchers have found much the same: Data from 150 nations have shown several measures of good governance (such as accountability, effectiveness, rule of law, low corruption) to be related to higher rates of economic development.
Funds from aid and natural resources are often diverted into private hands and then sent to banks overseas as a result of graft. If Western banks rejected stolen money, says a report by Global Witness, ordinary people would benefit “in a way that aid flows will never achieve”. The report asked for more regulation of banks as they have proved capable of stanching the flow of funds linked to terrorism, money-laundering or tax evasion.
Some, like Thomas Pogge, call for a global organization that can manage some form of Global Resources Dividend, which could evolve in complexity with time.
Examples of good governance leading to economic development and poverty reduction include Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Vietnam, which tend to have a strong government, called a hard state or development state.
These “hard states” have the will and authority to create and maintain
policies that lead to long-term development that helps all their
citizens, not just the wealthy. Multinational corporations are regulated
so that they follow reasonable standards for pay
and labor conditions, pay reasonable taxes to help develop the country,
and keep some of the profits in the country, reinvesting them to
provide further development.
The United Nations Development Program
published a report in April 2000 which focused on good governance in
poor countries as a key to economic development and overcoming the
selfish interests of wealthy elites often behind state actions in
developing nations. The report concludes that “Without good governance, reliance on trickle-down economic development and a host of other strategies will not work.”
Despite the promise of such research several questions remain, such as
where good governance comes from and how it can be achieved. The
comparative analysis of one sociologist
suggests that broad historical forces have shaped the likelihood of
good governance. Ancient civilizations with more developed government
organization before colonialism,
as well as elite responsibility, have helped create strong states with
the means and efficiency to carry out development policies today. On the
other hand, strong states are not always the form of political
organization most conducive to economic development. Other historical
factors, especially the experiences of colonialism for each country,
have intervened to make a strong state and/or good governance less
likely for some countries, especially in Africa. Another important
factor that has been found to affect the quality of institutions and
governance was the pattern of colonization (how it took place) and even
the identity of colonizing power. International agencies may be able to
promote good governance through various policies of intervention in
developing nations as indicated in a few African countries, but
comparative analysis suggests it may be much more difficult to achieve
in most poor nations around the world.
Other approaches
Another approach that has been proposed for alleviating poverty is Fair Trade
which advocates the payment of an above market price as well as social
and environmental standards in areas related to the production of goods.
The efficacy of this approach to poverty reduction is controversial.
Community and monetary economist Thomas H. Greco, Jr. has argued that the mainstream global economy
with its debt-based currency has built-in structural incentives that
create poverty through keeping money scarce. Greco points to the success
of modern barter clubs and historical local currencies such as the Wörgl Experiment at revitalizing stagnant local economies, and calls for the creation of community currency as a means to reduce or eliminate poverty.
The Toronto Dollar is an example of a local currency
oriented towards reducing poverty. Toronto Dollars are sold and
redeemed in such a way that raise funds which are then given as grants
to local charities, primarily ones oriented towards reducing poverty. Toronto Dollars also provide a means to create an incentive
for welfare recipients to work: Toronto dollars can be given as gifts
to welfare recipients who perform volunteer work for charitable and
non-profit organizations, and these gifts do not affect welfare
benefits.
Some have argued for radical economic change in the system. There
are several fundamental proposals for restructuring existing economic
relations, and many of their supporters argue that their ideas would
reduce or even eliminate poverty entirely if they were implemented. Such
proposals have been put forward by both left-wing and right-wing
groups: socialism, communism, anarchism, libertarianism, binary economics and participatory economics, among others.
Inequality can be reduced by progressive tax.
In law, there has been a move to establish the absence of poverty as a human right.
The IMF and member countries have produced Poverty Reduction Strategy papers or PRSPs.
In his book "The End of Poverty", a prominent economist named Jeffrey Sachs
laid out a plan to eradicate global poverty by the year 2025. Following
his recommendations, international organizations such as the Global Solidarity Network
are working to help eradicate poverty worldwide with intervention in
the areas of housing, food, education, basic health, agricultural
inputs, safe drinking water, transportation and communications.
The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
is an organization in the United States working to secure freedom from
poverty for all by organizing the poor themselves. The Campaign believes
that a human rights framework, based on the value of inherent dignity
and worth of all persons, offers the best means by which to organize for
a political solution to poverty. Makes camps of anti-poverty.
Also one approach to reduce poverty was with Norplant, a form of
birth control, which was approved in the United States on December 10,
1990. Norplant prevents pregnancy for up to five years by gradually
releasing a low dose of the hormone into the bloodstream.
In an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled "Poverty and
Norplant: Can Contraception Reduce the Underclass?", deputy
editorial-page editor Donald Kimelman
proposed Norplant as a solution to inner-city poverty, arguing that
"the main reason black children are living in poverty is that people
having the most children are the ones least capable of supporting them.
Kimelman claimed in his article "it's very tough to undo the damage of
being born into a dysfunctional family. So why not make a major effort
to reduce the number of children, of any race, born into such
circumstances?"
According to Dorothy Roberts book "Killing the Black Body: Race,
Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty", within two years of Norplant
being approved thirteen state legislatures had proposed some twenty
measures to implant poor women with Norplant and a number of these bills
would pressure women on welfare to use the device either by requiring
implantation as a condition of receiving benefits or by offering them a
financial bonus. Every state made Norplant available to women for free
through Medicaid or other forms of public assistance and to teenage girls through school programs that presented Norplant
as the most reasonable option. Efforts were also made to provide
Norplant to women without Medicaid. As Roberts stated, "California
governor Pete Wilson allocated an extra $5 million to reimburse
state-funded clinics for Norplant going to women without Medicaid or
Medi-Cal coverage."
Climate change adaptation
The increase in extreme weather events, linked to climate change, and
resulting disasters is expected to continue. Disasters are a major
cause of impoverishment and can reverse progress towards poverty
reduction.
It is predicted that by 2030, 325 million (plus) extremely poor
people will be living in the 49 most hazard prone countries. Most of
these are located in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
A researcher at a leading global think-tank, the Overseas Development Institute, suggests that far more effort should be done to better coordinate and integrate poverty reduction strategies with climate change adaptation. The two issues are argued to be currently only dealt with in parallel as most poverty reduction strategy papers ignore climate change adaptation
altogether, while National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs)
likewise do not deal directly with poverty reduction. Adaptation-poverty
linkages were found to be strongest in NAPAs from sub-Saharan Africa
LDCs.
Bicycles
Man on bike with chickens, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Experiments done in Africa (Uganda and Tanzania) and Sri Lanka on
hundreds of households have shown that a bicycle can increase the income
of a poor family by as much as 35%.
Transport, if analyzed for the cost-benefit analysis for rural poverty
alleviation, has given one of the best returns in this regard. For
example, road investments in India were a staggering 3–10 times more
effective than almost all other investments and subsidies in rural
economy in the decade of the 1990s. What a road does at a macro level to
increase transport, the bicycle supports at the micro level. The
bicycle, in that sense, can be one of the best means to eradicate
poverty in poor nations.
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 is a Millennium Development Goal. In addition to broader approaches, the Sachs Report (for the UN Millennium Project)
proposes a series of "quick wins", approaches identified by development
experts which would cost relatively little but could have a major
constructive effect on world poverty. The quick wins are:
- Access to information on sexual and reproductive health.
- Action against domestic violence.
- Appointing government scientific advisors in every country.
- Deworming school children in affected areas.
- Drugs for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
- Eliminating school fees.
- Ending user fees for basic health care in developing countries.
- Free school meals for schoolchildren.
- Legislation for women’s rights, including rights to property.
- Planting trees.
- Providing soil nutrients to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Providing mosquito nets.
- Access to electricity, water and sanitation.
- Supporting breast-feeding.
- Training programs for community health in rural areas.
- Upgrading slums, and providing land for public housing.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The first goal of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
calls for an end to poverty by 2030 and seeks to ensure social
protection for the poor and supporting people affected by
climate-related extreme events.
As the decade that began in 2002, the percentage of the world's
population living under the poverty line by half, from 26 per cent to 13
per cent. If during those 10 years growth rates prevailed over the next
15 years, it is possible to decrease the rate of extreme poverty in the
world to 4 per cent by 2030, assuming that growth will benefit all
income groups of the population on an equal footing. However, if the
growth rates over a longer period of 20 years, the rate of prevalent
global poverty is likely to be about 6 per cent. In other words, the
eradication of extreme poverty will require a significant change from
its historical growth rates.
Global initiatives to end hunger and undernutrition
An important part of the fight against poverty are efforts to end hunger and achieve food security. In April 2012, the Food Assistance Convention was signed, the world's first legally binding international agreement on food aid. The May 2012 Copenhagen Consensus
recommended that efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition should be
the first priority for politicians and private sector philanthropists
looking to maximize the effectiveness of aid spending. They put this
ahead of other priorities, like the fight against malaria and AIDS.
The main global policy to reduce hunger and poverty are the recently approved Sustainable Development Goals.
In particular Goal 2: Zero Hunger sets globally agreed targets to end
hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture.
In 2013 Caritas International started a Caritas-wide initiative
aimed at ending systemic hunger by 2025. The One human family, food for
all campaign focuses on awareness raising, improving the impact of
Caritas programs and advocating the implementation of the right to food.
The partnership Compact2025, led by IFPRI with the involvement of UN organizations, NGOs and private foundations
develops and disseminates evidence-based advice to politicians and
other decision-makers aimed at ending hunger and undernutrition in the
coming 10 years, by 2025.
The EndingHunger
campaign is an online communication campaign aimed at raising awareness
of the hunger problem. It has many worked through viral videos
depicting celebrities voicing their anger about the large number of
hungry people in the world.
Another initiative focused on improving the hunger situation by
improving nutrition is the Scaling up Nutrition movement (SUN). Started
in 2010 this movement of people from governments, civil society, the
United Nations, donors, businesses and researchers, publishes a yearly
progress report on the changes in their 57 partner countries.
Poverty reduction in Taiwan
In spite of the intensive reduction strategies deployed in the previous two decades, poverty levels in several countries of the world has not been reduced.
Recent research has demonstrated that the low wage levels of the needy
families have risen gradually, although in some scenarios they have
declined.
While wage level is the main median pointer of welfare, such results
suggest that past poverty reduction procedures have not been precise.
Unless suitable reduction procedures are formulated and implemented in
the near future, rustic poverty will probably be a real issue for quite
some long time. Families are determined to be low-pay if their monthly
income does not surpass the evaluated monthly minimum set by every city
or region. To meet the family's essential needs (shelter, food,
clothing, and education) in Taipei,
one would need to have $337 every month. This sum changes relying upon
the city's way of life; for instance, one would just need to have $171
every month to live in Kinmen County.
Sustained economic growth is noted as the main propelling agent for Poverty Reduction in Taiwan. While internal FDI has no noteworthy effect on the mean wage of poor people, outward FDI
from Taiwan in the previous two decades appears to have adversely
affected the poorest 20% of the populace. Poverty in Taiwan has nearly
been eliminated, with under 1 percent of the populace considered as poor
or earning the low-level pay. This implies more than 99 percent of the
populace appreciates the advantages of Taiwan's economic flourishing and
extraordinarily enhanced personal satisfaction.
Beside lowly-paid families, the government offers support to other
individuals, for example, the elderly and the incapacitated, who can't
work. During 1980 to 1999 Taiwanese government developed a program
called National Health Insurance program. NHI mainly provides economically disadvantaged people with quality healthcare at an affordable price.
July 1993, the government of Taiwan started giving a monthly
sponsorship to elderly people. People beyond 65 years old whose normal
family salary is not exactly, or equivalent to, 1.5 times the base
monthly costs are fit to get a monthly sponsorship of $174.
Private transfers also play an important role in Taiwan for antipoverty
according to the date Taiwan provided to the Luxembourg Income Studies,
the results indicates the private transfer has greater impact than
public transfers in terms of proving welfare state.
In 1999, the government of Taiwan spent US$5.08 billion on social
welfare projects and offered numerous sorts of assistance to people and
families from low-pay sets.
Notwithstanding money, assistance to get employment is given to the
breadwinners in families, alongside educational guide for school-age
children and well-being programs for women and children. In addition,
there are additionally community associations, scholastic organizations,
and private establishments arranged by government offices to help needy
people. In principle, Taiwan is currently a liberal and elections based
society. Hence social versatility ought to be the standard. Notably, as per an investigation of extra cash in Taiwan by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics,
families with the most astounding dispensable salaries number 2.6
people, while families with the least discretionary cash flow number 4.7
people.
With rising costs of simple commodities and privatization of the
training market, economically distraught families will end up in an
undeniably hard position to educate their own children. However, this
type of social welfare will significantly lower the Taiwan's revenue.
Due to the slow economic development in the past years, this method will
no longer close the income inequality or reduce the unemployment rate
effectively in the future.
