How to reach the poorest?

Engagement on behalf of poor people, and the reduction of poverty, are legal obligations under Swiss foreign policy. SDC is committed to understanding poverty dynamics and to promoting approaches that are effective in improving the well-being of poor people. Poverty is a multifaceted phenomenon that touches all areas of life, undermining human dignity. According to SDC's understanding of poverty, poverty results in discrimination, obstacles and exclusion

• in satisfying the basic necessities of life;
• in the use and development of an individual’s physical and human potential, capacities and creativity;
• in seizing the opportunities and choices for fashioning a fulfilling and dignified life;
• in the realisation of one’s aspirations;
• from participating in the formulation and decision-making stages of the social, political and economic transformation process.

SDC thus supports efforts to change the structural causes and framework conditions that produce impoverishment, chronic poverty, dependence, injustice, and exclusion, or which allow them to persist.

Short papers on "how to reach the poorest?" and on "how to make the poverty focus in Swiss Cooperation Strategy explicit" are available for download under More on Focus on Poverty. 

A “poverty introduction module” to set common ground on poverty issues is also being developed, and will be made available on this platform in the future.

Under Further Reading and Links, we provide a selected list of additional resources.

Issues related to empowerment are also being discussed in our Blog, check it out!

Your comments and questions are most welcome, please feel free to contact us.