Module 1: Poverty reduction with a livelihood focus

1.3: SDC's understanding of poverty

The UN Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals reaffirm the basic right of all human beings to participate in the economic, social, and political processes of society. This means their right to freely, actively, and effectively participate in shaping society, take part in decision-making processes, and share in the fruits that development brings. SDC shares this point of view and bases its mandate of poverty reduction on the following values: dignity, solidarity and responsibility, peace, freedom and security. See "Creating the prospect of living a life in dignity : Principles guiding the SDC in its commitment to fighting poverty" (http://162.23.39.120/dezaweb/ressources/resource_en_24237.pdf).

The understanding is that:

Poverty means discrimination, barriers, and exclusion in satisfying the basic necessities of life

• in the use and development of an individual's physical and spiritual potential, capacities, and creativity;
• in seizing the opportunities and choices for fashioning a fulfilling and dignified life;
• in the realization of personal aspirations;
• from participating in the formulation and decision-making stages of social, political, and economic transformation processes.

Well-being implies

• being able to ensure your subsistence on your own in dignified living conditions, with the ability to ensure your livelihood thanks to the fruit of your own toil;
• being an equal-footed and responsible member in the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of society;
• having equal access to resources, information, services, institutions, and decision-making structures;
• being protected from violence and arbitrariness;
• being able to count on assistance, security nets, and solidarity in the event of crises and disasters;
• enjoying a positive outlook towards the future for yourself and for the coming generations.

Fighting poverty means

• empowering the disadvantaged and enhancing their capacity to mitigate disparities and stop the advance of impoverishment;
• building on the capacities, experiences, and potentials of the disadvantaged;
• establishing priorities in favour of the poor and disadvantaged, and in so doing defending their point of view and respecting their priorities;
• fostering organizations operating in the interest the poor;
• working at all levels - on national as well as multilateral - towards a change in the structures and framework conditions leading to the discrimination, impoverishment, and exclusion of individuals and social groups;
• encouraging effective poverty-reduction policies;
• advocating for the poor in the defence of their rights and in the denunciation of the misuse of power;
• confronting the conflicts that may emerge in aligning ourselves with the poor and disadvantaged and helping to deal with them by peaceful means in the interest of the disadvantaged;
• utilizing disasters, crises, and conflicts as an additional opportunity for a shake-up and a new arrangement in the scope for action.

The focus of SDC is on

• combating the causes of poverty in the interest of sustainable changes and in order to achieve the largest possible impact;
• engagement at the local, national, and multilateral levels to enable people to improve their living conditions on their own. SDC also operates "from the outside" to encourage improvement in national and international framework conditions and in institutions;
• supporting civil society organizations and associations as well as state institutions that contribute to the promotion of human rights and the rule of law;
• coordinating its commitment to poverty reduction by aligning it with coherent national Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) processes and with other development actors.