The Poverty File
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Welcome to the Poverty File! | |||||
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The Poverty File is not a textbook, and is not intended to be read from cover to cover. Readers are encouraged to pick and choose those notes that are of interest and relevance to them. Links andreferences for further reading are provided in each note. | |||||
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The Poverty File is currently a work in progress. We are pleased to share the first notes with you below and will add more when they become available. Yourcomments and questions on the Poverty File are most welcome. We look forward to hearing from you. | |||||
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BriefingNote 1: Understanding Poverty This brief introduces different concepts of understanding and measuring poverty – ranging from absolute, income-based definitions of poverty to multi-dimensional definitions including aspects of social exclusion. It concludes that there is no single correct definition of poverty, but that poverty discussions need to acknowledge particular social, cultural and historical contexts and that policy implications differ according to the way poverty is defined.
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Briefing Note 2: Perceptions of Poverty This Brief focuses on different perceptions of poverty; how it is perceived by poor people themselves, people who are not poor, and by development practitioners. In order to have a more complete picture of poverty, it is important to take into account subjective perceptions as well as objective measures. By taking perceptions into account, the dimensions of poverty that are important to poor people themselves can emerge, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the nature, causes and potential paths out of poverty.
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Briefing Note 3: Risks and Vulnerability This brief argues that understanding risk and risk aversion is important when seeking to understand poverty. Exposure and vulnerability to risk overlaps with poverty, but they are not synonymous. All people face risks, the point is how people, especially the poor, are able to deal with them. Measures to reduce risk and vulnerability are gaining importance on the development agenda, and it is increasingly recognised that reducing risks and vulnerability is essential for poverty reduction.
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Briefing Note 4: North-South Inequality This brief presents a number of ways inequality is conceptualised - between the developed North and the developing South; between individual countries; within countries; and between individuals. Inequality occurs both as inequality of outcomes (e.g. different levels of income or life expectancy) and as inequality of opportunity (e.g. through discrimination and exclusion). The brief concludes that ignoring inequality in the pursuit of economic growth and income generation is an ineffective strategy, as there is a pronounced danger that this will lead to the accumulation of wealth by a few and a deepening of the poverty of many.
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Briefing Note 5: Inequality, Power and Social Exclusion in India This brief explores the somewhat paradoxicalstate of affairs in India with regards to “inequality, power and social exclusion”. On the one hand, since its independence India has demonstrated a longstanding political willingness to recognise different forms of inequality and exclusion and to use constitutional and legislative measures to address them. On the other hand, there continue to be large disparities in poverty levels, mortality rates, educational attainments and access to resources between regions, social groups andbetween men and women.
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Briefing Note 7: The OECD/DAC Poverty and Pro-Poor Growth Framework This brief presents the multidimensional definition of poverty as promoted by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD. The DAC suggests that poverty definitions should be context-specific and should encompass the key deprivations faced by poor women and men. Donors, therefore, need to recognise the specific country context and be able to identify the binding political, social and economic factors that either drive or block change in a country.
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Briefing Note 8: Millenium Development Goals This Briefing Note discusses the foundations of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), presents the Goals, and discusses the pros and cons of these time-bound and specific goals and targets.It summarises some of the debates around the MDGs such as uneven progress in reaching the MDGs across regions, the thematic structure of the MDGs, or problems related to measuring success. The brief concludes that despite a number of shortcomings, the MDGs are a unique effort to galvanise international action around on set of development targets and an important tool to leverage action from the powerful.
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Briefing Note 10: Equity and Empowerment This paper introduces the concepts of empowerment and equity and discusses how interlinked these two concepts are. It highlights the benefits of a development agenda that focuses simultaneously on empowerment and equity, and suggests what such an agenda might look like. Empowerment of poor and marginalised people and equity contribute to both wellbeing and the achievement of equality. They also tend to reinforce one another, as both contribute to addressing inequalities, which in turn drive imbalances in power. Empowerment and equity can be seen as ends in their own right, from a moral or social justice perspective, and also as processes or principles that contribute to development’s core goals of reducing poverty and inequality.
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Briefing Note 11: Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to Understand and Tackle Poverty This briefing note presents the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) developed by DFID. SLFs enable coherent analysis of livelihoods, risk, vulnerability and poverty. They are powerful tools for identifying the key drivers of poverty, the factors that push people into poverty, and the potential interrupters or factors that provide pathways out of poverty. The focus of this brief is on the analytical framework and lesson how the SLF can guide practitioners to develop pro-poor programmes.
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Briefing Note 12: Rural Livelihoods Systems This brief presents an adaptation to the DFID livelihoods framework. It is based on a shift in emphasis of sustainability away from a single focus to a much more holistic – and complex – exploration of sustainability. With this shift the targeting of development interventions can be improved by better understanding life-worlds, worldviews, (inner) perspectives and visions of individuals and households that guide their decision-making process. Using the RLS framework can provide the platform for selecting the most appropriate entry point. for poverty reduction.
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The Poverty File consists of a series of briefing notes thatinform readers about poverty andpolicies addressing poverty. The notes present a condensed and synthesized introduction to current state of the artand have been specifically tailored for SDC, its partners and interested development practitioners.The notes do not aim to address the full scope of what poverty means and how it can be understood, but rather to highlight several specificissues.
