ways to reduce poverty essay

Poverty eradication

Related sdgs, end poverty in all its forms everywhere ....

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The 2030 Agenda acknowledges that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.

The first Sustainable Development Goal aims to “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”. Its seven associated targets aims, among others, to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty, and implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable

As recalled by the foreword of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals Report, at the Millennium Summit in September 2000, 189 countries unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration, pledging to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty”. This commitment was translated into an inspiring framework of eight goals and, then, into wide-ranging practical steps that have enabled people across the world to improve their lives and their future prospects. The MDGs helped to lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty, to make inroads against hunger, to enable more girls to attend school than ever before and to protect our planet.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the remarkable gains, inequalities have persisted and progress has been uneven. Therefore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its set of Sustainable Development Goals have been committed, as stated in the Declaration of the Agenda, “to build upon the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals and seek to address their unfinished business”.

The theme of the 2017 High-Level Political Forum was "Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing worl” ", and it included SDG 1 as one of the focus SDGs

From Agenda 21 to Future We Want In "The Future We Want", the outcome document of Rio+20, Member States emphasized the need to accord the highest priority to poverty eradication within the United Nations development agenda, addressing the root causes and challenges of poverty through integrated, coordinated and coherent strategies at all level.

In the context of the multi-year programme of work adopted by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) after the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), poverty eradication appears as an "overriding issue" on the agenda of the CSD each year.

Poverty eradication is addressed in Chapter II of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (2002), which stressed that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, particularly for developing countries.

Priority actions on poverty eradication include:

• improving access to sustainable livelihoods, entrepreneurial opportunities and productive resources;
• providing universal access to basic social services;
• progressively developing social protection systems to support those who cannot support themselves;
• empowering people living in poverty and their organizations;
• addressing the disproportionate impact of poverty on women;
• working with interested donors and recipients to allocate increased shares of ODA to poverty eradication; and
• intensifying international cooperation for poverty eradication.

The General Assembly, in its 1997 Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 (paragraph 27) decided that poverty eradication should be an overriding theme of sustainable development for the coming years. It is one of the fundamental goals of the international community and of the entire United Nations system.

"Combating poverty" is the topic of Chapter 3 of Agenda 21. It is also in commitment 2 of the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development.

Agenda 21 emphasized that poverty is a complex multidimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains. No uniform solution can be found for global application. Rather, country-specific programmes to tackle poverty and international efforts supporting national efforts, as well as the parallel process of creating a supportive international environment, are crucial for a solution to this problem.

The years following the 1992 Rio Conference have witnessed an increase in the number of people living in absolute poverty, particularly in developing countries. The enormity and complexity of the poverty issue could endanger the social fabric, undermine economic development and the environment, and threaten political stability in many countries.

For more information and documents on this topic,  please visit this link

Sustainable Development Outlook 2020

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A Free World from Child Poverty

While there is great diversity in the almost 200 countries in which children live, there is much about children and their childhoods that are universal: in almost every country in the world – richer countries and poorer – children are more likely to be living in poverty than adults, and everywhere t...

Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom, We recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for su...

Human Development Report 2014

As successive Human Development Reports have shown, most people in most countries have been doing steadily better in human development. Advances in technology, education and incomes hold ever-greater promise for longer, healthier, more secure lives. Globalization has on balance produced major human ...

A Measured Approach to Ending Poverty and Boosting Shared Prosperity

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Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries Innocenti Report Card 12

Twenty-five years after the Convention on the Rights of the Child became international law, many of its commitments remain unrealized, and the developed countries most capable of delivering on them are losing ground. The Great Recession, which was triggered by a financial meltdown that started in th...

A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development

The Panel came together with a sense of optimism and a deep respect for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The 13 years since the millennium have seen the fastest reduction in poverty in human history: there are half a billion fewer people living below an international poverty line of $1.25 a ...

China Sustainable Development Report 2013 - the road to ecological civilization: the next decade

Indonesia: low carbon development options for indonesia.

The report on ‘Low carbon Development Options for Indonesia’ produced by the World Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance for Indonesia, puts forward a series of economic development options for Indonesia that will help in the transition to a green economy. The phase 1 report recognises ...

Thailand: Supporting Sustainable Development in Thailand: A Geographic Clusters Approach

Market forces and government policies, including the Tenth National Development Plan (2007-2012), are moving Thailand toward a more geographically specialized economy. There is a growing consensus that Thailand’s comparative and competitive advantages lie in amenity services that have high reliance...

Mexico: Low-carbon Development for Mexico

The Low carbon Development for Mexico report by ESMAP, provides an analysis of how Mexico is able to substantially reduce its carbon emissions whilst at the same time growing the economy. The document begins by asserting that low]carbon development is indeed possible in Mexico however there are man...

Ukraine: OECD Investment Policy Reviews: Ukraine 2011

The 2011 OECD Investment Policy Review of Ukraine assesses the country’s ability to comply with the principles of liberalisation, transparency and nondiscrimination and to bring its investment policy closer to recognised international standards such as the OECD Declaration on International Investmen...

SDG Global Business Forum 2024

 The 2024 SDG Global Business Forum will take place virtually as a special event alongside the 2024 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), the United Nations central platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs. The Forum will place special emphasis on the SDGs under

Expert Group Meeting on SDG 1 and its interlinkages with other SDGs

The theme of the 2024 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions”. The 2024 HLPF will have an in-depth review of Sustainable Development Goa

Expert Group Meetings for 2024 HLPF Thematic Review

The theme of the 2024 High Level Political Forum (HLPF) is “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crisis: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions”. The 2024 HLPF will have an in-depth review of SDG 1 on No Poverty, SDG 2 on Zero Hu

International Workshop on “Applications of Juncao Technology and its contribution to alleviating poverty, promoting employment and protecting the environment”

According to the United Nations Food Systems Summit that was held in 2021, many of the world’s food systems are fragile and not fulfilling the right to adequate food for all. Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise again. According to FAO’s “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023

Fifth UN Conference on the LDCs (UNLDC-V)

Cdp plenary 2020, 58th session of the commission for social development – csocd58, ending child poverty as part of the sdgs: indicators and implementation under goal 1.

For the first time, the global community has recognized the centrality of children to address global poverty. As part of the new SDGs proposed to end poverty, the new agenda aims to ‘reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all dimensions acc

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2015

The 2015 Commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP) will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York, focusing on the theme - "Building a sustainable future: Coming together to end poverty and discrimination".

• January 2015 SDG 1 Goal 1 aims to "End poverty in all its forms everywhere" and its targets aim to: 1.1 By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day 1.2 By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions 1.3 Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable 1.4 By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance 1.5 By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters 1.a Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions 1.b Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication action
• January 2012 Future We Want (Para 105- 107) Future We Want recognizes that, while there has been progress in reducing poverty in some regions, this progress has been uneven and the number of people living in poverty in some countries continues to increase, with women and children constituting the majority of the most affected groups, especially in the least developed countries and particularly in Africa. Sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth in developing countries is identified as a key requirement for eradicating poverty and hunger and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Therefore, Future We Want highlights the importance to complement national efforts of developing countries by an enabling environment aimed at expanding the development opportunities of developing countries. In paragraph 107, Member States recognize the important contribution that promoting universal access to social services can make to consolidating and achieving development gains. Social protection systems that address and reduce inequality and social exclusion are essential for eradicating poverty and advancing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
• January 2008 2nd UN Decade for Eradication of Poverty The General Assembly declared the Second UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017) in December 2007 and selected as theme “Full Employment and Decent Work for All”. This Second Decade was proclaimed to support the internationally agreed development goals related to poverty eradication, including the Millennium Development Goals. It has stressed the importance of reinforcing the positive trends in poverty reduction, experienced by some countries as well as the need of extending such trends to benefit people worldwide. This Second Decade recognizes as well the importance of mobilizing financial resources for development at national and international levels and acknowledges that sustained economic growth, supported by rising productivity and a favourable environment, including private investment and entrepreneurship is vital for rising living standards
• January 2002 JPOI (Chap. 2) Chapter 2 identifies eradication of poverty as the greatest global challenge facing the world today and as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, particularly for developing countries. JPOI recognizes the primary responsibility and role national governments and policies have for ensuring their own sustainable development and poverty eradication strategies. The JPOI at the same time highlights the importance of concerted and concrete measures at all levels to enable developing countries to achieve their sustainable development goals as related to the internationally agreed poverty-related targets and goals, including those contained in Agenda 21, the relevant outcomes of other United Nations conferences and the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
• January 2000 Social Summit +5 As recommended by the World Summit for Social Development, the General Assembly convened a special session in 2000 to revise and assess the implementation of the outcome of the Social Summit and to identify new and further initiatives for social development. The GA held its twenty-fourth special session, entitled “World Summit for Social Development and beyond: achieving social development for all in a globalizing world”, in Geneva from 26 to 30 June 2000. Agreement was reached on a wide array of initiatives to reduce poverty and spur job growth in the global economy. Reducing poverty, promoting job growth, and ensuring the participation of all people in the decision-making process were the main objectives of the agreement. To achieve these goals, countries endorsed actions to ensure improved education and health, including in times of financial crisis. The General Assembly adopted an outcome document entitled “Further initiatives for social development” consisting of a political declaration reaffirming the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development; a review and assessment of the implementation of the outcome of the Summit; and proposals for further initiatives for social development.
• January 2000 MDG 1 MDG 1 aims at eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Its three targets respectively read: halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 a day (1.A), achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people (1.B), halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger (1.C).
• January 1997 1st UN Decade for Eradication of Poverty The First United Nations Decade for Eradication of Poverty was declared for the period 1997-2006 by the UN General Assembly at the end of 1995. As theme for the Decade, the GA established at the end of 1996 the following: "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind."
• January 1997 GA 19th Special Session A GA Special Session (UNGASS-19) was held in June 1997 in order to review and assess progress undergone on Agenda 21. With Resolution A/RES/S-19/2 delegates agreed on the adoption of the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21. The Programme appraised progress since the UNCED, examined implementation and defined the CSD’s work programme for the period 1998-2002. For the CSD’s subsequent four sessions, poverty and consumption and production patterns were identified as dominant issues for each year by the work programme. Delegates also agreed on the sectoral, cross-sectoral and economic sector/major group themes, endorsed the IPF’s outcome and recommended a continuation of the intergovernmental policy dialogue on forests. Subsequently, the Intergovernmental Forum on Forest (IFF) was established by ECOSOC under the CSD.
• January 1995 Copenhagen Declaration (Social Summit) The Copenhagen Declaration was adopted at the end of the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD), held in March 1995 in Copenhagen. Being the largest gathering of world leaders at that time, this event represented a crucial milestone and pledged to make the conquest of poverty, the goal of full employment and the fostering of stable, safe and just societies overriding objectives of development. Chapter 2 is entirely devoted to eradication of poverty with a particular attention to the strategies to be adopted to achieve concrete results in this matter, to improve access to productive resources and infrastructure, meet the basic human needs of all and to enhance social protection and reduce vulnerability.
• January 1992 Agenda 21 (Chap.3) Chapter 3 of the Agenda describes poverty as "a complex multidimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains". The Agenda notes that no uniform solution can be found for global application and identifies country-specific programmes to tackle poverty and international efforts supporting national efforts, as well as the parallel process of creating a supportive international environment as crucial tools for a solution to this problem.

The future is equal

• Press releases

How we fight inequality to end poverty and injustice

Fatoumata Tangara, 14, has been a peer educator for 2 years. She says it is important that young people talk to other young people, because “sometimes when we talk with adults, we can’t say everything.” She adds that parents also have to be sensitized for them to allow their girls to go and stay in school. Photo: Laeïla Adjovi/Oxfam

Today’s economic models have failed the world. Flawed and sexist, they have concentrated power in the hands of a few, at the expense of the world’s poorest and most marginalized. They have exacerbated a climate crisis that is destroying millions of lives and livelihoods. They have sustained multiple and interlinked forms of inequality that are the root cause of poverty and injustice. Across countries and regions, people are denied the ability to shape their future.

But inequality is not inevitable. The tide is turning. A better world is within our grasp. Where women and girls have agency and people are freed from the shackles of poverty. A world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

We are working across regions in 85 countries, with thousands of partners and allies, supporting communities to build better lives for themselves, grow resilience and protect lives and livelihoods also in times of crisis. Because we want lasting solutions, we fight the inequalities that keep people locked in poverty and injustice, we tackle not the symptoms but the systems, and we campaign for genuine, durable change.

Valerie Mukangerero walks to her pineapple farm in Rwamurema village, eastern Rwanda. Credit: Aurelie Marrier d'Unienville/Oxfam

Our vision for a just and sustainable world

We believe all lives are equal. No-one should be discriminated against or live in poverty. We want a just and sustainable world in which everyone can safely speak truth to power, claim their human rights, and build a better future for themselves.

We offer direct support to people and communities living with poverty, above all in countries in the global South. We seek to add value to the work of our partners and of all those who challenge discrimination, exclusion and exploitation.

But for change to be sustainable, it must be systemic. To contribute to change that lasts, we mobilize to transform the systems, policies and practices that have the most significant impact on people’s lives.

A just economy is inclusive. It promotes equality, protects the planet, and ends poverty. It builds social cohesion and promotes the economic empowerment of women and marginalized groups. It supports the rights of all workers, offers social protection and ensures that livelihoods and planetary resources can be sustained.

In an increasingly unequal world, advancing gender equality is fundamental to tackling poverty and injustice. A just society is not possible unless women and girls have agency over their lives. It needs to challenge harmful social norms and belief systems that underpin gender and power relations, especially where they impact women living in poverty the most. To achieve this, it needs to expose the patriarchal practices that prevent women from realizing their rights.

The climate crisis is a man-made disaster that is already reversing progress made in the fight against poverty and inequality. It contributes to vulnerable communities becoming even more fragile and exacerbates the risk of conflict and disaster. To change its course, governments and corporations must stop destructive practices and instead invest in sustainable solutions. The voices of feminist organizations, youth, and indigenous peoples must be amplified in climate negotiations, and lead the transition towards greener and fairer economic solutions.

International norms and multilateral frameworks are consistently undermined. A populist and anti-rights agenda is chipping away at the hard-won gains achieved by the worldwide movement for women’s rights, and in the fight against poverty. The demand for accountable and inclusive governance that protects human rights and our planet has never been higher. A just and sustainable future depends on safe and vibrant spaces that allow all people to hold the powerful to account.

Aisha is one of Docoloha's community health promoters, Somaliland. Together with other women, she trains the community on hygiene, water and waste management.

How we work is as important as what we work on

We are guided by our vision, mission and values, and the transformational change that we seek. We know that to meet the challenge of a complex and unpredictable future, we need to develop new skills, innovate and improve our ability to adapt rapidly to changing contexts.

The inequalities that drive poverty and injustice are complex and multi-dimensional. They are created and sustained by unjust, deeply entrenched and interacting systems such as patriarchy, sexism, caste and racism that can affect anyone, anywhere. We take a multi-dimensional approach which makes us and our impact distinctive.

We apply a feminist lens to all our analysis and address gender justice and women’s rights across all our actions.

We amplify the voices and actions of people that experience poverty and injustice and work with those who fight for their causes.

We think and act locally and globally . We build coalitions within and between regions and from the local to the global level.

We work with communities before, during and after crises to build their resilience, save lives, and together address the root causes of conflict and disaster.

We leverage the power and influence of digital technology , expanding digital spaces and seizing the potential they offer to social justice activists.

We mobilize to transform the systems that perpetuate poverty and injustice. We innovate, identify and scale-up lasting solutions that are grounded in evidence experience.

We are part of a global movement for social justice

Change at scale is possible when we act in solidarity with, and amplify, the voices of people experiencing poverty, injustice, exclusion and crisis.

Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. Across the world, where we share vision and values, we partner with activists, communities, social movements and civil society. We seek new ways to connect with young people and women in all their diversity and aspire to become a partner of choice for them. We know that it is our supporters, volunteers, partners, staff and donors who make it possible for us to make a difference.

Together, we generate energy for transformative change. We campaign to influence local and national governments, corporate actors, and the institutions whose decisions, policies, and practices can put an end to inequality, poverty and injustice.

Our ambition for 2030

The years to 2030 will be a time of rapid and unpredictable change, and we do not know how these complex realities will play out. Our new global strategy sets out our commitment, over the next decade, to a just and sustainable future. It is made more urgent in a world further torn apart by coronavirus and offers a framework and strategic direction that remain as relevant as ever.  

To End Poverty, Give Everyone the Chance to Learn

Paul Romer, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, World Bank End Poverty Day event, Dhaka, Bangladesh Dhaka, Bangladesh

Arithmetic tells us that a nation can reduce its rate of poverty with more economic growth or a more equal distribution of income. A simple saying, oft repeated because it sounds so plausible, frames this arithmetic as a grim choice between growth and equality. "You can make the pie bigger or divide it up more evenly, but you cannot do both."

Despite its appeal, this intuition is wrong, and wrong not just about the details, wrong not just by a little. It is totally off the mark. We know from the recent experience in Bangladesh that it is possible to have more growth and more equality. I am also convinced that it is possible to sustain a pattern of growth via equality as it evolves into a middle income country, but only if the government takes on new responsibilities and makes the new types of investments required to give everyone the chance to learn.

When growth speeds up, income inequality can increase temporarily. When it does, this seems to confirm our fears about the grim tradeoff. But this type inequality arises because the benefits that all can ultimately share diffuse slowly. At first, only a few people have access to the chance to learn from new ideas. Then as others gain access, they learn too. During this second, catch-up phase, the diffusion of ideas increases growth as it equalizes income. The experience in Bangladesh shows that it is possible to diffuse new ideas quickly enough to avoid even this temporary increase in inequality. The question is what it must do to sustain this high rate of diffusion as the economy becomes more sophisticated.

There are many visible examples of the benefits that people receive from the diffusion of ideas. In 1980, there were about 300 million phones on earth. Today, there are more than 6 billion, and the vast majority of people who got the new phones lived in a low or middle income country. But what we see when a country such as Bangladesh or China opens itself up to inflows of ideas is not simply that people have the chance to buy a phone that is much less expensive. The more profound benefit from the diffusion of ideas is that people gain access to the chance to learn. Access to new ideas lets them acquire more human capital. 

Because opening up lets them acquire more human capital, a shrinking number of agricultural workers can supply all the food for everyone else. A growing number of workers can escape the hardship and risk of small-holder agriculture and switch to jobs in manufacturing, then in services. Many women get their first chance to be paid a wage for the work that they do. All these workers get more than a wage. They get the chance to learn on the job. They absorb such basics as the importance of strict adherence to quality standards when work is done by a large team. These basics open up opportunities for new types of employment. These workers also learn from the stimulation of richer social environment offered by the cities they move to.

In the data, the extra human capital shows up not just in the changing mix of jobs, but also in higher wages. As the World Bank's new report on Poverty and Shared Prosperity shows, in the last few decades, this catch-up process means that income have been rising more rapidly at the bottom end of the worldwide distribution of income. As a result, the worldwide distribution of income is becoming more equal.

The dynamic I am describing shows up both in comparisons between countries and also in comparisons across people within a country. New ideas spur growth. Income inequality goes up because in the beginning, only a few have access to the chance to learn from them. Frequently, those few are the lucky ones who live in its cities. If better policy could speed up the rate of diffusion of access to new ideas, growth will be faster and the temporary period of increasing inequality will be shorter, perhaps might even be skipped entirely.

So today, on End Poverty Day , my goal is to convince you that the strategy based on catch-up growth that has worked for your nation can work equally well as you strive to sustain your rate of growth and keep reducing poverty. You do not face a tradeoff of growth versus equality. You have a chance to pursue growth via equality.

The highest returns may come from investing in the people who have the biggest opportunity to catch up with everyone else. All they need is a chance.

There is a tradeoff that you will face, a tradeoff between government and the market. But here too, the familiar story misleads when it suggests that to sustain growth, an economy needs less government. The government can get in the way, and the economy does need less of this, but in Bangladesh, and in many similarly situated countries, the real problem is too little of the type of government that the market needs to keep generating more sophisticated jobs. Only the government can ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn from new ideas. As an economy develops, providing this type of access becomes ever more challenging.

Let me illustrate what I mean when I say “give people the chance to learn.” The government can make it possible for a foreign firm to enter and open a factory. Workers in this factory learn on the job, and as a result, accumulate human capital and earn wages that are higher with each year of experience. Typically, this means that within a few years, the worker moves to a job that can use her new skills, often in a different firm, perhaps one that the worker starts. Just as some schools give students a better chance to learn, some jobs offer better chances to learn. Firms that have access to more modern technology and more skilled managers are likely to offer the best chance to learn. This chance is a particularly important one because it gives people who are no longer in school a chance to keep learning. Even when schools fail, there is another way for someone to learn.

Bangladesh has clearly been very successful at offering many workers this chance to learn on the job. In the early stages of the growth process, a government can offer this opportunity merely by welcoming foreign firms. But very quickly, the amount of room that is available in a nation's cities becomes a binding constraint. To offer this opportunity to everyone, the government must take the lead in expanding its urban area to make room for all the firms and workers who want to benefit by working together. The congestion for which Dhaka is now famous suggests that the plan for urban expansion throughout the country was not ambitious enough to meet the rapidly growing demand.

The more familiar way to offer a chance to learn, the one that the World Bank has with good reason, been emphasizing for years, is by having the government provide good schools. When a young person spends an extra year in a good school, this increases the amount that he or she will produce and earn on the job. Sadly, many schools fail to deliver on this promise. It is not enough to get children to sit in a classroom. An effective government ensures that children actually learn more with each year of seat-time.

As development takes place, providing equalizing access to the chance to learn requires even more sophisticated government services. Many children start life with a disadvantage because disease and poor nutrition leave them with a smaller body and a less developed brain. The experience in Peru demonstrates that an effective government can use modest expenditures to reduce the fraction of children who suffer from this type of stunting. The experience in other countries also demonstrates that a government can devote resources to this type of effort and end up with nothing to show for its efforts.

Extra mental stimulation, especially more exposure to the words said by an adult, can help a child be ready to learn when he or she starts school. This extra stimulation can help so much that it offsets the disadvantage of stunting. We know from the experience in Bangladesh that civil society can step in to fill gaps and provide services that improve health for everyone. Nevertheless, in most countries, only the government can provide the targeted assistance that removes disadvantage and ensures that every student starts school with a realistic chance to keep up with the other children.

Once children are in school, the best school systems make extra investments in the children that would otherwise fall behind. Throughout primary school, anyone who lags gets extra instruction time by the most experienced teachers. With these compensating investments, the school system can keep all children in at the same level of achievement. For example, some children take a little longer to learn to read. These compensating investments make sure that this minor and short-lived problem does not turn into a self-reinforcing cycle of discouragement and reduced effort that ends with an early departure from school.

All these investments can be justified on the basis of a commitment to equality. The point I want to emphasize is that they can also be justified purely on the basis of a commitment to economic growth. The return on an investment that prevents someone from giving up the chance to learn is likely to be much higher than the return that would follow if the same resources were used to help children who will learn in any case.

So to conclude, you do not face a choice of growth versus equality. You have the chance to pursue growth via equality. Government investments that pay the highest returns are likely to be the ones that provide people the chance to catch up by learning, and these investments also reduce income inequality.

It is an easy strategy to endorse, but not an easy one to implement. Many countries miss this opportunity because the government is not effective enough to make the investments that make it possible for everyone to have a realistic chance to learn.

As Bangladesh strives to move from a low-middle-income country to middle-income, End Poverty Day provides an opportunity to ask whether its government is keeping up with the rapidly evolving economy. Is there room in its cities for all who want to come? Can people in these cites get to and from work? Can firms get the inputs they need on a timely basis and ship out the goods they produce? Does the average student actually learn something during each year spent in school? Do the schools and government service providers make the compensating investments needed to ensure that small disadvantages that can easily be addressed do not deprive any child of the opportunity that everyone wants, the chance to keep learning?

Let me confess that there are comparable questions that you should ask me as Vice President with direct responsibility for the research efforts of the World Bank. Are we providing relevant guidance to a government such as yours? If you came to us and said “what specific steps should we do to reduce stunting quickly, or ensure that children are ready to learn, or to plan for rapid but orderly expansion of your urban area, would we be able to respond? I think we too can do better. As we both strive to do better, perhaps we will find opportunities to work together.

If Bangladesh and the World Bank can soon answer yes to such specific questions as these, Bangladesh will be able to sustain its recent pattern of rapid growth and more equality. All countries will be better able to learn from its experience. Then we will have a realistic chance to lift everyone out of extreme poverty.

But we must move quickly. Every day of delay wastes precious human potential. Every person, young or old, rich or poor, should have the chance to keep learning.

Thank you very much. 

• END POVERTY DAY It's Possible to End Poverty
• #ProsperBangladesh
• FEATURE STORY Rising Bangladesh Brings Hope, Ambition, and Innovation to End Poverty

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2.6 Reducing Poverty

Learning objectives.

• Explain why the United States neglects its poor.
• List any three potentially promising strategies to reduce US poverty.
• Describe how to reduce global poverty from a sociological perspective.

As this chapter noted at the outset, the United States greatly reduced poverty during the 1960s through a series of programs and policies that composed the so-called war on poverty. You saw evidence of the success of the war on poverty in Figure 2.1 “US Poverty, 1959–2010” , which showed that the poverty rate declined from 22.2 percent in 1960 to a low of 11.1 percent in 1973 before fluctuating from year to year and then rising since 2000. The Note 2.19 “Lessons from Other Societies” box showed that other democracies have much lower poverty rates than the United States because, as many scholars believe, they have better funded and more extensive programs to help their poor (Brady, 2009; Russell, 2011).

The lessons from the 1960s’ war on poverty and the experience of other democracies are clear: It is very possible to reduce poverty if, and only if, a nation is willing to fund and implement appropriate programs and policies that address the causes of poverty and that help the poor deal with the immediate and ongoing difficulties they experience.

A major reason that the US poverty rate reached its low in 1973 and never went lower during the past four decades is that the United States retreated from its war on poverty by cutting back on the programs and services it had provided during that good war (Soss, et. al., 2007). Another major reason is that changes in the national economy during the past few decades have meant that well-paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced by low-paying service jobs with fewer benefits (Wilson, 2010). Yet this has also happened in other democracies, and their poverty rates remain lower than the US rate because, unlike the United States, they have continued to try to help their poor rather than neglect them.

Why does the United States neglect its poor? Many scholars attribute this neglect to the fact that many citizens and politicians think the poor are poor because of their own failings. As summarized by sociologist Mark R. Rank (Rank, 2011), these failings include “not working hard enough, failure to acquire sufficient skills, or just making bad decisions.” By thus blaming the poor for their fate, citizens and politicians think the poor do not deserve to have the US government help them, and so the government does not help, or at least not nearly as much as other democracies do. We have seen that the facts do not support the myth that the poor lack motivation to work, but that does not lessen the blame given the poor for being poor.

To renew the US effort to help the poor, it is essential that the actual facts about poverty become better known so that a fundamental shift in thinking about poverty and the poor can occur. Rank (Rank, 2011) says that one aspect of this shift must include the recognition, as noted at the beginning of this chapter, that “poverty affects us all” because it costs so many tax dollars to help the poor and because a majority of the public can expect to be poor or near poor at some point in their lives. A second aspect of this shift in thinking, adds Rank, is the recognition (following a blaming-the-system approach) that poverty stems much more from the lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, declining government help for the poor, and other structural failings of American society than from individual failings of the poor themselves. A third aspect of this shift in thinking, he concludes, is that poverty must become seen as a “moral problem” and as “an injustice of a substantial magnitude” (Rank, 2011). As he forcefully argues, “Something is seriously wrong when we find that, in a country with the most abundant resources in the world, there are children without enough to eat, families who cannot afford health care, and people sleeping on the streets for lack of shelter” (Rank, 2011). This situation, he says, must become seen as a “moral outrage” (Rank, 2011).

Sociologist Joe Soss (Soss, 2011) argues that a change in thinking is not enough for a renewed antipoverty effort to occur. What is needed, he says, is political protest and other political activity by the poor and on behalf of the poor. Soss notes that “political conflict and mass mobilization played key roles” in providing the impetus for social-welfare programs in the 1930s and 1960s in the United States, and he adds that the lower poverty rates of Western European democracies “are products of labor movements, unions, and parties that mobilized workers to demand more adequate social supports.” These twin histories lead Soss to conclude that the United States will not increase its antipoverty efforts unless a new wave of political activity by and on behalf of the poor arises. As he argues, “History suggests that major antipoverty victories can be achieved. But they won’t be achieved by good will and smart ideas alone. They’ll be won politically, when people—in poor communities, in advocacy groups, in government, in the academy, and elsewhere—mobilize to advance antipoverty agendas in ways that make politics as usual untenable.”

Antipoverty Programs and Policies

To help reduce poverty, it is essential to help poor parents pay for child care.

Herald Post – Family Child Care – CC BY-NC 2.0.

If a renewed antipoverty effort does occur for whatever reason, what types of programs and policies show promise for effectively reducing poverty? Here a sociological vision is essential. It is easy to understand why the hungry schoolchildren described in the news story that began this chapter might be going without food during a very faltering national economy. Yet a sociological understanding of poverty emphasizes its structural basis in bad times and good times alike. Poverty is rooted in social and economic problems of the larger society rather than in the lack of willpower, laziness, or other moral failings of poor individuals themselves. Individuals born into poverty suffer from a lack of opportunity from their first months up through adulthood, and poverty becomes a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle. To the extent a culture of poverty might exist, it is best seen as a logical and perhaps even inevitable outcome of, and adaptation to, the problem of being poor and not the primary force driving poverty itself.

This sort of understanding suggests that efforts to reduce poverty must address first and foremost the structural basis for poverty while not ignoring certain beliefs and practices of the poor that also make a difference. An extensive literature on poverty policy outlines many types of policies and programs that follow this dual approach (Cancian & Danziger, 2009; Greenberg, et. al., 2007; Iceland, 2006; Lindsey, 2009; Moore et al., 2009; Rank, 2004). If these were fully adopted, funded, and implemented, as they are in many other democracies, they would offer great promise for reducing poverty. As two poverty experts recently wrote, “We are optimistic that poverty can be reduced significantly in the long term if the public and policymakers can muster the political will to pursue a range of promising antipoverty policies” (M. Cancian & S. Danziger, 2009, p. 32). Cancian, M., & Danziger, S. H. (2009). Changing poverty, changing policies . New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Although a full discussion of these policies is beyond the scope of this chapter, the following measures are commonly cited as holding strong potential for reducing poverty, and they are found in varying degrees in other Western democracies:

• Adopt a national “full employment” policy for the poor, involving federally funded job training and public works programs, and increase the minimum wage so that individuals working full-time will earn enough to lift their families out of poverty.
• Increase federal aid for the working poor, including higher earned income credits and child-care subsidies for those with children.
• Establish well-funded early childhood intervention programs, including home visitations by trained professionals, for poor families.
• Provide poor families with enough income to enable them to pay for food and housing.
• Increase the supply of affordable housing.
• Improve the schools that poor children attend and the schooling they receive and expand early childhood education programs for poor children.
• Provide better nutrition and health services for poor families with young children.
• Establish universal health insurance.
• Increase Pell Grants and other financial aid for higher education.

Global Poverty

Years of international aid to poor nations have helped them somewhat, but, as this chapter has shown, their situation remains dire. International aid experts acknowledge that efforts to achieve economic growth in poor nations have largely failed, but they disagree why this is so and what alternative strategies may prove more successful (Cohen & Easterly, 2009). Cohen, J., & Easterly, W. (Eds.). (2009). What works in development? Thinking big and thinking small . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. One very promising trend has been a switch from macro efforts focusing on infrastructure problems and on social institutions, such as the schools, to micro efforts, such as providing cash payments or small loans directly to poor people in poor nations (a practice called microfinancing ) and giving them bed nets to prevent mosquito bites (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011; Hanlon, Barrientos, & Hulme, 2010; Karlan & Appel, 2011). Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2011). Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty . New York, NY: PublicAffairs; Hanlon, J., Barrientos, A., & Hulme, D. (2010). Just give money to the poor: The development revolution from the global south . Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press; Karlan, D., & Appel, J. (2011). More than good intentions: How a new economics is helping to solve global poverty . New York, NY: Dutton. However, the evidence on the success of these efforts is mixed (Bennett, 2009; The Economist, 2010). Bennett, D. (2009, September 20). Small change. The Boston Globe . Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/20/small_change_does_microlending_actually_fight_poverty/ ; The Economist. (2010). A better mattress. The Economist, 394 (8673), 75–76. Much more to help the world’s poor certainly needs to be done.

In this regard, sociology’s structural approach is in line with dependency theory and suggests that global stratification results from the history of colonialism and from continuing exploitation today of poor nations’ resources by wealthy nations and multinational corporations. To the extent such exploitation exists, global poverty will lessen if and only if this exploitation lessens. A sociological approach also emphasizes the role that class, gender, and ethnic inequality play in perpetuating global poverty. For global poverty to be reduced, gender and ethnic inequality must be reduced.

Writers Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2010) Kristoff, N. D., & WuDunn, S. (2010). Half the sky: Turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide . New York, NY: Vintage Books. emphasize the need to focus efforts to reduce global poverty of women. We have already seen one reason this emphasis makes sense: women are much worse off than men in poor nations in many ways, so helping them is crucial for both economic and humanitarian reasons. An additional reason is especially illuminating: When women in poor nations acquire extra money, they typically spend it on food, clothing, and medicine, essentials for their families. However, when men in poor nations acquire extra money, they often spend it on alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. This gender difference might sound like a stereotype, but it does indicate that aid to women will help in many ways, while aid to men might be less effective and often even wasted.

Key Takeaways

• According to some sociologists, a change in thinking about poverty and the poor and political action by and on behalf of the poor are necessary for a renewed effort to help poor Americans.
• Potentially successful antipoverty programs and policies to help the US poor include expanding their employment opportunities and providing them much greater amounts of financial and other aid.
• To help people in poor nations, gender and ethnic inequality must be addressed.

For Your Review

• Write a brief essay summarizing the changes in thinking that some sociologists argue must occur before a renewed effort to reduce poverty can take place.
• Write a brief essay summarizing any four policies or programs that could potentially lower US poverty.

Brady, D. (2009). Rich democracies, poor people: How politics explain poverty . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Cancian, M., & Danziger, S. H. (2009). Changing poverty, changing policies . New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Greenberg, M., Dutta-Gupta, I., & Minoff, E. (2007). From poverty to prosperity: A national strategy to cut poverty in half . Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Iceland, J. (2006). Poverty in America: A handbook . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lindsey, D. (2009). Child poverty and inequality: Securing a better future for America’s children . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Moore, K. A., Redd, Z., Burkhauser, M., Mbawa, K., & Collins, A. (2009). Children in poverty: Trends, consequences, and policy options . Washington, DC: Child Trends. Retrieved from http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends-2009_04_07_RB_ChildreninPoverty.pdf .

Rank, M. R. (2004). One nation, underprivileged: Why American poverty affects us all . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Rank, M. R. (2011). Rethinking American poverty. Contexts, 10 (Spring), 16–21.

Russell, J. W. ( 2011). Double standard: Social policy in Europe and the United States (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Soss, J. (2011). The poverty fight. Contexts, 10 (2), 84.

Soss, J., Hacker, J. S., & Mettler, S. (Eds.). (2007). Remaking America: Democracy and public policy in an age of inequality . New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Wilson, W. J. (2010). More than just race: Being black and poor in the inner city . New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

390 Poverty Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

• 📑 Aspects to Cover in a Poverty Essay

Students who learn economics, politics, and social sciences are often required to write a poverty essay as part of their course. While everyone understands the importance of this topic, it can be hard to decide what to write about. Read this post to find out the aspects that you should cover in your essay on poverty.

🏆 Best Poverty Topics & Free Essay Examples

👍 powerful topics on poverty and inequality, 🎓 simple & easy topics related to poverty, 📌 interesting poverty essay examples, ⭐ strong poverty-related topics, 🥇 unique poverty topics for argumentative essay, ❓ research questions about poverty.

Topics related to poverty and inequality might seem too broad. There are so many facts, factors, and aspects you should take into consideration. However, we all know that narrowing down a topic is one of the crucial steps when working on an outline and thesis statement. You should be specific enough to select the right arguments for your argumentative essay or dissertation. Below, you will find some aspects to include in your poverty essay.

Poverty Statistics

First of all, it would be beneficial to include some background information on the issue. Statistics on poverty in your country or state can help you to paint a picture of the problem. Look for official reports on poverty and socioeconomic welfare, which can be found on government websites. While you are writing this section, consider the following:

• What is the overall level of poverty in your country or state?
• Has the prevalence of poverty changed over time? If yes, how and why?
• Are there any groups or communities where poverty is more prevalent than in the general population? What are they?

Causes of Poverty

If you look at poverty essay titles, the causes of poverty are a popular theme among students. While some people may think that poverty occurs because people are lazy and don’t want to work hard, the problem is much more important than that. Research books and scholarly journal articles on the subject with these questions in mind:

• Why do some groups of people experience poverty more often than others?
• What are the historical causes of poverty in your country?
• How is poverty related to other social issues, such as discrimination, immigration, and crime?
• How do businesses promote or reduce poverty in the community?

Consequences of Poverty

Many poverty essay examples also consider the consequences of poverty for individuals and communities. This theme is particularly important if you study social sciences or politics. Here are some questions that may give you ideas for this section:

• How is the psychological well-being of individuals affected by poverty?
• How is poverty connected to crime and substance abuse?
• How does poverty affect individuals’ access to high-quality medical care and education?
• What is the relationship between poverty and world hunger?

Government Policies

Governments of most countries have policies in place to reduce poverty and help those in need. In your essay, you may address the policies used in your state or country or compare several different governments in terms of their approaches to poverty. Here is what you should think about:

• What are some examples of legislation aimed at reducing poverty?
• Do laws on minimum wage help to prevent and decrease poverty? Why or why not?
• How do governments help people who are poor to achieve higher levels of social welfare?
• Should governments provide financial assistance to those in need? Why or why not?

Solutions to Poverty

Solutions to poverty are among the most popular poverty essay topics, and you will surely find many sample papers and articles on this subject. This is because poverty is a global issue that must be solved to facilitate social development. Considering these questions in your poverty essay conclusion or main body will help you in getting an A:

• What programs or policies proved to be effective in reducing poverty locally?
• Is there a global solution to poverty that would be equally effective in all countries?
• How can society facilitate the reduction of poverty?
• What solutions would you recommend to decrease and prevent poverty?

Covering a few of these aspects in your essay will help you demonstrate the in-depth understanding and analysis required to earn a high mark. Before you start writing, have a look around our website for more essay titles, tips, and interesting topics!

• Poverty Research Proposal To justify this, the recent and most current statistics from the Census Bureau shows that the level and rate of poverty in USA is increasing, with minority ethnic groups being the most disadvantaged.
• Wordsworth’s Vision of Childhood in His Poems “We Are Seven” and “Alice Fell or Poverty” Specifically, the joint publication he released in 1798 known as “Lyrical Ballads” are considered the most important publications in the rise of the Romantic literature in the UK and Europe.
• Poverty: A Sociological Imagination Perspective I was raised in a nuclear family, where my mum was a housewife, and my father worked in a local hog farm as the overall manager.
• “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” by Peter Singer The article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” by author Peter Singer attempts to provide a workable solution to the world poverty problem.
• Poverty in the World In this paper, we will be looking at the situation of poverty in the world, its causes and the efforts of the international organizations to manage the same.
• The Philippines’ Unemployment, Inequality, Poverty However, despite the strong emphasis of the government on income equality and poverty reduction along with the growth of GDP, both poverty and economic and social inequality remain persistent in the Philippines.
• The End of Poverty Philippe Diaz’s documentary, The End of Poverty, is a piece that attempts to dissect the causes of the huge economic inequalities that exist between countries in the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere.
• Poverty in India and China India’s slow rate of poverty reduction compared to China is due to the differences in their approach to the economy. Improving the living conditions and general well being of the people is not only the […]
• Poverty in Africa These pictures have been published online to show the world the gravity of the poverty situation in the African continent. The pictures represent the suffering of majority of the African people as a result of […]
• Poverty Areas and Effects on Juvenile Delinquency The desire to live a better life contributes to the youths engaging in crimes, thus the increase in cases of juvenile delinquencies amid low-income families. The studies indicate that the fear of poverty is the […]
• Poverty Effects on Child Development and Schooling To help children from low-income families cope with poverty, interventions touching in the child’s development and educational outcomes are essential. Those programs campaign against the effects of poverty among children by providing basic nutritional, academic, […]
• Max Weber’s Thoughts on Poverty Weber has contributed to the exploration of the origins of poverty and the impact of religions on the attitude to it.
• Analysis of Theodore Dalrymple’s “What Is Poverty?” With ethical arguments from Burnor, it can be argued that Dalrymple’s statements are shallow and based on his values and not the experience of those he is judging.
• The Singer Solution to World Poverty: Arguments Against The article compares the lives of people in the developed world represented by America and that of developing world represented by Brazil; It is about a school teacher who sells a young boy for adoption […]
• What Causes Poverty in the World One of the major factors that have contributed to poverty in given areas of the world is overpopulation. Environmental degradation in many parts of the world has led to the increase of poverty in the […]
• Poverty and the Environment The human population affects the environment negatively due to poverty resulting to environmental degradation and a cycle of poverty. Poverty and the environment are interlinked as poverty leads to degradation of the environment.
• Community Work: Helping People in Poverty The first project would be water project since you find that in most villages water is a problem, hence $100 would go to establishing this project and it’s out of these water then the women […]
• Relationship Between Crime Rates and Poverty This shows that the strength of the relationship between the crime index and people living below the line of poverty is.427.
• Children Living in Poverty and Education The presence of real subjects like children is a benefit for the future of the nation and a free education option for poor families to learn something new and even use it if their children […]
• Is Poverty a Choice or a Generational Curse? The assumption that poverty is a choice persists in public attitudes and allows policy-makers to absolve themselves of any responsibility for ensuring the well-being of the lower socioeconomic stratum of society.
• Poverty and Global Food Crisis: Food and Agriculture Model Her innovative approach to the issue was to measure food shortages in calories as opposed to the traditional method of measuring in pounds and stones.
• Cause and Effect of Poverty For example, the disparities in income and wealth are considered as a sign of poverty since the state is related to issues of scarcity and allocation of resources and influence.
• The Problem of Poverty in Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” To see the situation from the perspective of its social significance, it is necessary to refer to Mills’ concept of sociological imagination and to the division of problems and issues into personal and social ones.
• Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development The research focuses on the causes of poverty and the benefits of poverty alleviation in achieving sustainable development. One of the causes of poverty is discrimination and social inequality.
• Poverty Simulation Reflection and Its Influence on Life Something that stood out to me during the process is probably the tremendous emotional and psychological impact of poverty on a person’s wellbeing.
• The Connection Between Poverty and Mental Health Problems The daily struggle to earn a daily bread takes a toll on an individual mental health and contributes to mental health problem.
• Third World Countries and the Barriers Stopping Them to Escape Poverty The phrase Third World was initially used in the Cold War period to represent those countries that were neither on the West NATO nations referred to as the first world countries, nor on the East-Communist […]
• Consumerism: Affecting Families Living in Poverty in the United States Hence, leading to the arising of consumerism protection acts and policies designed to protect consumers from dishonest sellers and producers, which indicates the high degree of consumer’s ignorance, and hence failure to make decisions of […]
• Global Poverty: Famine, Affluence, and Morality In the article Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Michael Slote contends that rich people have a moral obligation to contribute more to charities.
• Poverty in Bambara’s The Lesson and Danticat’s A Wall of Fire Rising It is important to note the fact that culture-based poverty due to discrimination of the past or political ineffectiveness of the nation can have a profound ramification in the lives of its victims.
• Environmental Degradation and Poverty It is however important to understand the causes of the environmental degradation and the ways to reduce them, which will promote the improvement of the environmental quality.
• Poverty in Urban Areas The main reason for escalation of the problem of poverty is urban areas is because the intricate problems of urban poverty are considered too small to attract big policies.
• Health, Poverty, and Social Equity: The Global Response to the Ebola Outbreak Canada and Australia, as well as several countries in the Middle East and Africa, were the most active proponents of this ban, halting the movements for both people and goods from states affected by the […]
• Poverty and Diseases A usual line of reasoning would be that low income is the main cause of health-related problems among vulnerable individuals. Such results that the relationship between mental health and poverty is, in fact, straightforward.
• “The End of Poverty” by Phillipe Diaz In the film End of Poverty, the filmmaker tries to unravel the mystery behind poverty in the world. The film is arranged in such a way that the author has persuasively argued his case that […]
• Social Issues of Families in Poverty With the tightened budget, parents of the families living in poverty struggle to make ends meet, and in the course of their struggles, they experience many stresses and depressions.
• We Can Stop Poverty in Ghana Today One of the main disadvantages of the document is that the problem of poverty is not considered separately, but only as a part of other economic and social problems.
• Poverty in Rural and Urban Areas My main focus is on articles explaining the sources of poverty in rural and urban areas and the key difference between the two.
• Reflective Analysis of Poverty It can be further classified into absolute poverty where the affected do not have the capability to make ends meet, and relative poverty which refer to the circumstances under which the afflicted do not have […]
• Poverty Through a Sociological Lens Poverty-stricken areas, such as slums, rural villages, and places hit by disasters, lack the required economic activities to improve the employment and wealth status of the people.
• Global Poverty: The Ethical Dilemma Unfortunately, a significant obstacle to such global reforms is that many economic systems are based on the concept of inequality and exploitation.
• Concept of Poverty The main difference between this definition and other definitions of poverty highlighted in this paper is the broad understanding of the concept.
• Social Issues; Crime and Poverty in Camden This has threatened the social security and peaceful coexistence of the people in the community. The larger the differences between the poor and the rich, the high are the chances of crime.
• The Myth of the Culture of Poverty Unfortunately, rather all of the stereotypes regarding poor people are widespread in many societies and this has served to further increase the problem of generational poverty. Poor people are regarded to be in the state […]
• Dependency Theory and “The End of Poverty?” It is also reflected in the film “The End of Poverty?” narrating the circumstances of poor countries and their precondition. It started at the end of the fifteenth century and marked the beginning of the […]
• Poverty, Government and Unequal Distribution of Wealth in Philippines The author of the book Poverty And The Critical Security Agenda, Eadie, added: Quantitative analyses of poverty have become more sophisticated over the years to be sure, yet remain problematic and in certain ways rooted […]
• Tourism Contribution to Poverty Reduction Managers usually make targeting errors such as poor delivery of tourism benefits to the poor and accruing tourism benefit to the rich in the society.
• Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality? & How to Judge Globalism The article Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality by Robert Hunter Wade explores the phenomenon of globalization and its influence on the poverty and inequality ratios all over the world.
• Analysis of a Social Problem: Poverty Furthermore, the World Bank predicts that both the number of people and the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty will increase in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
• Poverty in Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London” The fact that the structure of society is discussed is especially interesting, and it is suggested that opinions of people that live in poverty are not acknowledged most of the time.
• Poverty: $2.00 a Day in America When conversations about the poor occur in the city of Washington, they usually discuss the struggles of the working poor, forgetting about the issues that the non-working poor face day by day.
• Poverty as Capability Deprivation In this paper, the importance of social justice manifests through the understanding of social deprivation, as opposed to the understanding of income levels in the achievement of social justice.
• Poverty in the Bronx: Negative Effects of Poverty South Bronx is strictly the southwestern part of the borough of Bronx and Bronx is the only borough in New York city in the mainland.
• Social Work at Acacia Network: Poverty and Inequality Around the 1980s, the number of older adults was significantly increasing in society; the local government of New York established a home for the aged and was named Acacia Network. The supporting staff may bond […]
• Economic Growth vs. Development: Dreze and Sen’s Analysis The majority of the poor people in the slums and villages use small capital to run their businesses. Good institutions enforce the property rights of the majority in the society, create constraints for the elites, […]
• How Poverty Contributes to Poor Heath The results show that poverty is the main cause of poor health. The study was purposed to assess the effect of poverty in determining the health status of households.
• Global Poverty Project: A Beacon of Hope in the Fight Against Extreme Poverty The organization works with partners worldwide to increase awareness and understanding of global poverty and inspire people to take action to end it.
• The Causes of an Increase in Poverty in Atlanta, Georgia The key causes of the high poverty rise in the city include housing policies and instabilities, the lack of transit services and public transportation infrastructure in suburban areas, and childhood poverty.
• Thistle Farms: Help for Women Who Are Affected by Poverty As I said in the beginning, millions of women need help and assistance from the community to overcome poverty and heal emotional wounds caused by abuse. You can purchase a variety of its home and […]
• Median Household Incomes and Poverty Levels The patterns of poverty in the Denver urban area show that rates are higher in the inner suburb and the core city and lower in the outer suburb.
• Poverty: The American Challenge One of the main problems in the world is the problem of poverty, which means the inability to provide the simplest and most affordable living conditions for most people in a given country.
• The Poverty Issue From a Sociological Perspective The core of the perspective is the idea that poverty is a system in which multiple elements are intertwined and create outcomes linked to financial deficits.
• Saving the Planet by Solving Poverty The data is there to make the necessary links, which are needed when it comes to the economic variations and inadequate environmental impacts of climate change can be distinguished on a worldwide scale.
• Anti-Poverty Programs From the Federal Government The programs provide financial assistance to low-income individuals and families to cover basic needs like housing and food. The anti-poverty programs that have been most effective in reducing poverty rates in the United States are […]
• Rural Development, Economic Inequality and Poverty The percentage of the rural population is lower for developed countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Thus, the objective of the proposal is to determine how the inhabitants of the country in […]
• Global Poverty: Ways of Combating For example, one of such initiatives is social assistance and social protection programs, which ensure the safety and creation of various labor programs that will help increase the number of the working population.
• Poverty and Homelessness as a Global Social Problem What makes the task of defining poverty particularly difficult is the discrepancy in the distribution of social capital and, therefore, the resulting differences in the understanding of what constitutes poverty, particularly, where the line should […]
• Poverty: Aspects of Needs Assessment The target neighborhood and population for the following analysis are women of reproductive age, defined as 15 to 49 years, in Elmhurst and Corona, Queens. 2, and the percentage of births to women aged over […]
• What Is Poverty in the United States? Estimates of the amount of income required to meet necessities serve as the foundation for both the official and supplemental poverty measurements.
• The Caribbean Culture: Energy Security and Poverty Issues Globally, Latin American and the Caribbean also has the most expensive energy products and services because of fuel deprivation in the Caribbean and the Pacific regions.
• Poverty: The Main Causes and Factors Because of the constant process of societal development, the concept of poverty changes rapidly, adapting to the new standards of modern human life.
• How to Overcome Poverty and Discrimination As such, to give a chance to the “defeated” children and save their lives, as Alexie puts it, society itself must change the rules so that everyone can have access to this ticket to success. […]
• Poverty and Homelessness in American Society It is connected with social segregation, stigmatization, and the inability of the person to improve their conditions of life. The problem of affordable housing and poverty among older adults is another problem that leads to […]
• Private Sector’s Role in Poverty Alleviation in Asia The ambition of Asia to become the fastest-growing economic region worldwide has led to a rapid rise of enterprises in the private sector.
• Connection of Poverty and Education The economy of the United States has been improving due to the efforts that have been made to ensure that poverty will not prevent individuals and families from having access to decent education.
• The Opportunity for All Program: Poverty Reduction The limiting factors of the program may be the actions of the population itself, which will not participate in the employment program because of the realized benefits.
• Early Childhood Financial Support and Poverty The mentioned problem is a direct example of such a correlation: the general poverty level and the well-being of adults are connected with the early children’s material support.
• Discussion: Poverty and Healthcare One of the research questions necessary to evaluate this issue is “How do ethical theories apply to the issue?” Another critical research question worth exploring is “Which cultural values and norms influence the problem?” These […]
• Explosive Growth of Poverty in America The three richest Americans now own 250 billion USD, approximately the same amount of combined wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the country. Wealth inequality is a disturbing issue that needs to be at […]
• The Poverty and Education Quality Relationship Although the number of people living under the poverty threshold has decreased in the last 30 years, more than 800,000,000 people still have to live with insufficient money and a lack of food, water, and […]
• The Problems of Poverty and Hunger Subsequently, the cause in this case serves as a path to a solution – more social programs are needed, and wealthy citizens should be encouraged to become beneficiaries for the hungry.
• “Life on a Shoestring – American Kids Living in Poverty” by Claycomb Life on a Shoestring – American Kids Living in Poverty highlights the widening disparity between the poor and the wealthy in America and how the economic systems are set up to benefit the rich and […]
• Decreasing Poverty With College Enrollment Program In order to achieve that, it is necessary, first and foremost, to increase the high school students’ awareness of the financial aid programs, possibilities of dual enrollment, and the overall reality of higher education.
• Reducing Poverty in the North Miami Beach Community The proposed intervention program will focus on the students in the last semester of the 9th and 10th grades and the first semester of the 11th and 12th grades attending the client schools.
• Food Banks Board Members and Cycle of Poverty What this suggests is that a large portion of the leadership within these collectives aim to provide assistance and food but not to challenge the current system that fosters the related issues of poverty, unemployment, […]
• Poverty as a Social Problem in Burundi The rationale for studying poverty as a social problem in Burundi is that it will help to combat poverty through the advocacy plan at the end of this paper.
• Poverty: Subsidizing Programs Subsidizing programs are considered welfare and net initiatives that the government takes to aid low-income families and individuals affected by poverty.
• The Problem of Poverty in Chad Thus, the study of the causes of poverty in the Republic of Chad will help to form a complete understanding of the problem under study and find the most effective ways to solve it.
• “Poverty, Toxic Stress, and Education…” Study by Kelly & Li Kelly and Li are concerned with the lack of research about poverty and toxic stress affecting the neurodevelopment of preterm children.
• Poverty in “A Modest Proposal” by Swift The high number of children born to poor families presents significant problems for a country.”A Modest Proposal” is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift that proposes a solution to the challenge facing the kingdom.
• Life Below the Poverty Line in the US The major problem with poverty in the US is that the number of people living below the poverty threshold is gradually increasing despite the economic growth of the country. SNAP is not considered to be […]
• The Relationship Between Single-Parent Households and Poverty The given literature review will primarily focus on the theoretical and empirical aspects of the relationship between single-parent households and poverty, as well as the implications of the latter on mental health issues, such as […]
• Aspects of Social Work and Poverty In terms of work principle, both the poor working and the welfare poor have it to varying degrees, but it does not help them much because the only employment available is low paying and leads […]
• Poverty and Its Effect on Adult Health Poverty in the UK is currently above the world average, as more than 18% of the population lives in poverty. In 2020, 7% of the UK population lived in extreme poverty and 11% lived in […]
• Child Poverty in the United States The causes of child poverty in the United States cannot be separated from the grounds of adult poverty. Thus, it is essential to take care of the well-being of children living in poverty.
• Poverty in New York City, and Its Reasons The poverty rate for seniors in New York is twice the poverty rate in the United States. New York City’s blacks and Hispanics have a much higher poverty rate than whites and Asians in the […]
• “The Hidden Reason for Poverty…” by Haugen It is also noteworthy that some groups of people are specifically vulnerable and join the arrays of those living in poverty.
• Juvenile Violent Crime and Children Below Poverty The effect of this trend is that the number of children below poverty will continue to be subjected to the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
• Poverty and Homelessness as Social Problem The qualifications will include a recommendation from the community to ensure that the person is open to help and willing to be involved in the neighborhood of Non-Return.
• Discussion of the Problem of the Poverty To help prevent homelessness for the woman in question and her children, I think it would be essential to provide mental support for her not to turn to alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism.
• Poverty Effects and How They Are Handled Quality jobs will provide income to the younger people and women in the community. The focus on developing and facilitating small and medium-sized enterprises is a great strategy but more needs to be done in […]
• Feminization of Poverty and Governments’ Role in Solving the Problem However, women form the greatest percentage of the poor, and the problem continues to spread. Furthermore, the public supports available are inaccessible and inadequate to cater for women’s needs.
• Free-Trade Policies and Poverty Level in Bangladesh The purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which the end of the quota system and introduction of a free-trade system for the garment industry in Bangladesh has impacted on poverty in […]
• Poverty and Risks Associated With Poverty Adolescents that are at risk of being malnourished can be consulted about the existing programs that provide free food and meals to families in poverty.
• Poverty and Inequality Reduction Strategies Thus, comprehending the causes of poverty and inequalities, understanding the role of globalization, and learning various theoretical arguments can lead to the establishment of appropriate policy recommendations.
• International Aid – Poverty Inc This film, the research on the impact of aid on the states receiving it, and the economic outcomes of such actions suggest that aid is a part of the problem and not a solution to […]
• Poverty Effects on American Children and Adolescents The extent to which poor financial status influences the wellbeing of the young children and adolescents is alarming and needs immediate response from the community.
• Progress and Poverty Book by Henry George George wrote the book following his recognition that poverty is the central puzzle of the 20th century. Thus, George’s allegation is inconsistent with nature because the number of living organisms can increase to the extent […]
• Vicious Circle of Poverty in Brazil The vicious circle of poverty is “a circular constellation of forces that tend to act and react on each other in such a way that the country in poverty maintains its poor state”.
• Global Education as the Key Tool for Addressing the Third World Poverty Issue Global education leads to improvements in the state economy and finances. Global education helps resolve the unemployment problem.
• Poverty, Partner Abuse, and Women’s Mental Health In general, the study aimed at investigating the interaction between poverty and the severity of abuse in women. The research question being studied in this article is how income intersects with partner violence and impacts […]
• America’s Shame: How Can Education Eradicate Poverty The primary focus of the article was global poverty, the flaws in the educational system, as well as the U.S.government’s role in resolving the problem.
• Global Poverty and Ways to Overcome It These are some of the strategies, the subsequent application of which would significantly reduce the level of poverty around the world.
• Poverty and Sex Trafficking: Qualitative Systematic Review The proposed research question is to learn how the phenomenon of poverty is connected to sex trafficking. To investigate the relationship between the phenomenon of poverty and sex trafficking.
• Political Economy: Relationship Between Poverty, Inequality, and Nationalism The prevalence of nationalism leads to changes in the education system, as the government tries to justify the superiority of the country by altering the curriculum.
• End of Extreme Poverty Importantly, the ability to remain the owners of a substantial amount of accumulated wealth is the primary motivation for such individuals.
• Poverty and Inequality in the US Despite the progress of civilization and the establishment of democratic values, in the modern United States, such problems as poverty and inequality persist, which is a significant social gap.
• The Problem of Poverty in the United States The problem of increasing poverty is one of the major political issues in the United States, which became especially agile after the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the difficult economic situation all over […]
• Poverty and Unemployment Due to Increased Taxation The government on its side defended the move while trying to justify the new measures’ benefits, a move that would still not benefit the country.
• Poverty as a Global Social Problem For example, the research shows that Kibera is the largest slum in the country, and this is where many people move to settle after losing hope of getting employed in towns.
• Researching the Problem of Poverty However, the rich people and the rich countries reduce poverty to some extent by providing jobs and markets to the poor, but the help is too little compared to the benefits they get thus accelerating […]
• Poverty, Social Class, and Intersectionality I prefer the structural approach to the issue as I believe the created structures are responsible for the existence of diverse types of oppression.
• Wealth and Poverty: The Christian Teaching on Wealth and Poverty To illustrate the gap between the world’s richest and the world’s poorest, a recent UN publication reported that the wealth of the three richest persons in the world is greater than the combined wealth of […]
• Guns Do Not Kill, Poverty Does It is widely accepted that stricter gun control policies are instrumental in alleviating the problem, as they are supposed to reduce the rate of firearm-related deaths, limiting gun access to individuals at-risk of participating in […]
• Poverty’s Effects on Delinquency The economic status of people determines their social class and the manner in which they get their basic needs. Seeing these things and the kind of life rich people lead motivates the poor to commit […]
• The Criminalization of Poverty in Canada In this regard, with a special focus on Canada, the objective of this essay is to investigate how public policy has transformed alongside the public perception of social welfare reform.
• The Issue of Vicious Circle of Poverty in Brazil The persistence of poverty, regardless of the many shocks that every state receives in the normal course of its survival, raises the feeling that underdevelopment is a condition of equilibrium and that there are pressures […]
• Community Health Needs: Poverty Generally, the higher the level of poverty, the worse the diet, and hence the higher the chances of developing diabetes. Consequently, a considerable disparity in the prevalence of diabetes occurs between communities with high levels […]
• “Poverty, Race, and the Contexts of Achievement” by Maryah Stella Fram et al. The article “Poverty, race, and the contexts of achievement: examining the educational experience of children in the U.S. Multilevel models were then applied in the analyses of how children varied in their reading scores depending […]
• Couple Aims to Fight Poverty, One Village at a Time People are not afraid to risk their own financial savings, their investments, and even life’s safety to help the chosen community and improve the conditions this community has to live under.
• Microeconomic Perspective on Poverty Evolution in Pakistan The periodic spike in poverty levels, notwithstanding economic growth, implies incongruous policy functionality in relation to drivers of poverty and the subsequent failure to improve the indicators.
• The Impact of Poverty on Children Under the Age of 11 The strengths of the Marxist views on poverty are in the structural approach to the problem. Overall, the Marxist theory offers a radical solution to the problem of child poverty.
• Poverty Policy Recommendations Different leaders have considered several policies and initiatives in the past to tackle the problem of poverty and empower more people to lead better lives.
• Poverty Reduction and Natural Assets Therefore, the most efficient way to increase the efficiency of agriculture and reduce its environmental impacts is ensuring the overall economic growth in the relevant region.
• Corporate Social Responsibility & Poverty Alleviation Researchers state that “preventing and managing the negative impacts of the core business on the poor” are essential indicators of the social responsibility of the company.
• Children in Poverty in Kampong Ayer, Brunei Part of the reason is likely malnutrition that results from the eating or consumption patterns of the families and also dependency on the children to help out with the family or house chores.
• Health, Poverty, and Social Equity: Indigenous Peoples of Canada Another problem that much of northern Canada’s Indigenous Peoples face is the availability of healthcare services and people’s inability to access medical help.
• The Problem of Childhood Poverty Unequal income distribution, adult poverty, government policies that exclude children and premature pregnancy are some of the items from the long list of childhood poverty causes. Before discussing the causes and effects of childhood poverty, […]
• Individualistic Concepts and Structural Views on Poverty in American Society The concepts presented in the book Poverty and power help to better understand the content of the article and the reasons for such a different attitude of people to the same problem.
• Poor Kids: The Impact of Poverty on Youth Nevertheless, the environment of constant limitations shapes the minds of children, their dreams and the paths they pursue in life, and, most importantly, what they make of themselves.
• Poverty: Causes and Effects on the Population and Country Thesis: There are a great number of factors and issues that lead a certain part of the population to live in poverty and the input that such great numbers of people could provide, would be […]
• The Internet and Poverty in Society The information that can be found on the web is a very useful resource but at the same time it is important to consider several things with the treatment and examination of the presented information.
• Poverty in Africa: Impact of the Economy Growth Rate Thus, a conclusion can be made that economic growth in Africa will result in the social stability of the local population.
• Poverty and Disrespect in “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody Life was not fair to a little Anne the chapters about her childhood are alike to a chain of unfortunate events that happened to her and her relatives.
• Vietnam’s Economic Growth and Poverty & Inequality A significant part of the population was active in employment, and this means that the numerous income-generating activities improved the economy of this country.
• Poverty and Disasters in the United States Focusing on the precaution measures and the drilling techniques that will help survive in case of a natural disaster is one of the most common tools for securing the population.
• Intro to Sociology: Poverty It is challenging to pinpoint the actual and not mythological reasons for the presence of poverty in America. The former can be summed up as a “culture of poverty”, which suggests that the poor see […]
• The Notion of “Poverty” Is a Key Word of a Modern Society As far as the countries of the Third World are deprived of these possibilities, their development is hampered and the problem of poverty has become a chronic disease of the society.
• The Problem of Poverty in Africa The major aim of the study is to identify the causes of poverty and propose best strategies that can help Africans come out of poverty.
• Poverty Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Countries: The Role of NGOs The position of research and statistics in undertaking social-counting work is not queried. It is after the research method is used in other tribulations of the charity that gaps emerge between management and research.
• The Effects of Poverty Within Criminal Justice The approach used in this study is deductive since the reasoning in the study proceeds from the general principle regarding the fact that poverty has a role to play in the administering of fairness in […]
• The Poverty Rates in the USA Poverty in the U. Officially the rate of poverty was at14.3%.
• Poverty in America: A Paradox Many people especially the young people living in other countries and more so in developed countries wish to immigrate to America instead of working hard to achieve the dream of better opportunities.
• Values and Ethics: Poverty in Canada The case study1 has indicated for instance, that the number of people living in poverty in 2003 is at 4. A group of individuals would therefore be granted the mandate to lead the others in […]
• War and Poverty Connection in Developing Countries The scholars claim that conflict and war in most nations have been found to exacerbate the rate of poverty in the affected nations.
• Poverty in United States. Facts and Causes Schwartz carried out a research which showed that in the United States, about 13-17|% of the individuals live below the federal poverty line at any one single time and poverty is one of the main […]
• Cultures and Prejudice: Poverty Factors For instance, if the two cultures had in the past interacted in a negative way, the poor culture directs all the blame to the well up culture.
• Poverty and Criminal Behavoiur Relation The level of accuracy that the data collected holds cannot be 100%; there is a level of error that affects the reliability of the data collected.
• Urban Relationship Between Poverty and Crime The areas with high poverty level in the US urban areas have the highest cases of crime but this is inadequate to justify that poverty is the cause of crime.
• The End of Poverty Possibility He presents the difficulty as in inability of each poor country to get to the base rung of the ranking of economic progress if the rank is achieved; a country can drag itself up towards […]
• Poverty, Suburban Public School Violence and Solution
• Social and Economic Policy Program: Globalization, Growth, and Poverty
• Is Poverty From Developing Countries Imagined?
• How Gender and Race Structure Poverty and Inequality Connected?
• Poverty by Anarchism and Marxism Approaches
• Colonial Economy of America: Poverty, Slavery and Rich Plantations
• Poverty as a Great Social Problem and Its Causes
• Environmental Deterioration and Poverty in Kenya
• Management Issues: The Poverty Business
• Marginalization and Poverty of Rural Women
• Pockets of Poverty Mar the Great Promise of Canada
• Poverty. “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis
• The Underclass Poverty and Associated Social Problems
• Child Poverty in Toronto, Ontario
• Children’s Brain Function Affected by Poverty
• Poverty Issue in America Review
• Microeconomics. Poverty in America
• Poverty and Inequality in Modern World
• Poverty and Its Effects on Females
• Poverty and Its Effects on Women
• Poverty of America: Economic Assumptions
• Poverty as a General Problem
• Feminization of Poverty – A Grave Social Concern
• Global Poverty Dimensions and Alleviating Approaches
• Poverty Level in any Country
• Theories of Fertility. Economics Aspect and Poverty.
• The Cultural Construction of Poverty
• Poverty in the US: Causes and Measures
• Poverty Rates Issue in Alberta Analysis
• “Old Age Poverty” Study by Kwan & Walsh
• Phenomena of Poverty Review
• Development Economics: Poverty Traps in Africa
• Healthcare Development. Poverty in the 1800s
• Social Problem of Poverty in the United States
• Poverty and Hip-Hop: Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy”
• Globalization Issues and Impact on Poverty and Free Trade
• Anthropology: Culture of Poverty
• Poverty, Stratification and Gender Discrimination
• Teen Pregnancy Can Lead to Suicide and Poverty
• Poverty Around the World
• Poverty in Los Angeles
• “Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty” by Brady
• Poverty in the US: Essentials of Sociology
• Econometrics: Poverty, Unemployment, Household Income
• Religious Quotes on Poverty and Their Interpretations
• Poverty and Inequality in “Rich and Poor” by Peter Singer
• The Relation Between Poverty and Justice
• Canada and the Imposition of Poverty
• Poverty and Politics in “The Bottom Billion” by Collier
• The Impact of Poverty in African American Communities
• “Poverty and Joy: The Franciscan Tradition” by Short
• International Financial Institutions’ Poverty Reduction Strategy
• Social Study: Mamelodi Residents Living in Poverty
• Video Volunteers’ Interventions Against Poverty
• Poverty in American Single-Parent Families
• Single-Mother Poverty and Policies in the United States
• Poverty and Its Aspects in Historical Documents
• Poverty and Its Relative Definitions
• Poverty in America: An Ethical Dilemma
• Child Poverty and Academic Achievement Association
• Poverty as a Factor of Terrorist Recruitment
• Poverty Solution as a Political Issue in Australia
• Poverty: An Echo of Capitalism
• Poverty, Inequality and Social Policy Understanding
• Breastfeeding Impact on Canadian Poverty Gaps
• Urban and Suburban Poverty in the United States
• Inequality and Poverty Relationship
• Poverty and Child Health in the US and the UK
• Poverty Impact on Life Perception
• Energy Poverty Elimination in Developing Countries
• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty
• Vietnamese Poverty and Productivity Increase
• Global Health Governance and Poverty
• Poverty Rates Among Whites and Blacks Americans
• Culture of Poverty in the “Park Avenue” Documentary
• Poverty in the US
• Poor Economics and Global Poverty
• Poverty as a Cause of the Sudanese Civil War
• “Halving Global Poverty” by Besley and Burges
• Do Poverty Traps Exist? Assessing the Evidence
• Poverty Reasons in Ancient Times and Nowadays
• American War on Poverty Throughout US History
• Poverty and Challenges in Finding Solutions
• Children and Poverty in “Born into Brothels” Documentary
• Poverty and Social Welfare in the United States
• Poverty in “A Theology of Liberation” by Gutierrez
• Poverty Reduction Among American Single Mothers
• The Relationship Between Poverty and Education
• Divorce Outcomes: Poverty and Instability
• African Poverty at the Millennium: Causes and Challenges
• Poverty Effect on Children
• Poverty and Education: School Funding Reinforces Inequality
• Global Poverty and the Endeavors of Addressing It
• Global Poverty Reduction: Economic Policy Recommendation
• Global Conflict and Poverty Crisis
• Poverty in the Novel “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk
• The Rise of Poverty in the US
• Profit From Organizing Tours to Poverty Areas
• Detroit Poverty and “Focus Hope” Organization
• Poverty Controversy in the USA
• Poverty as the Deprivation of Capabilities
• Suburbanisation of Poverty in the USA
• The Solution to World Poverty by Peter Singer
• The Poverty Across the US Culture
• How Racial Segregation Contributes to Minority’s Poverty?
• Catholic Dealing With Poverty and Homelessness
• Human Capital and Poverty in Scottsdale
• Global Poverty Studies and Their Importance
• The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform
• Challenges of Social Integration: Poverty
• Globalization and the Issue of Poverty: Making the World a Better Place
• The Economic Effect of Issuing Food Stamps to Those in Poverty
• Business and Pollution Inequality in Poor States
• “Facing Poverty With a Rich Girl’s Habits” by Suki Kim
• What Should You Do? Poverty Issue
• Causes of Poverty Traps in an Economy, Its Results and Ways of Avoiding Them
• Millennium Development Goals – Energy and Poverty Solutions
• Sociological Indicators of Energy Poverty
• Energy and Poverty Solutions – Non-Traditional Cookstoves
• Energy and Poverty Solutions – World Bank
• How do Migration and Urbanization Bring About Urban Poverty in Developing Countries?
• Poverty and Domestic Violence
• The Rise of Extremist Groups, Disparity and Poverty
• Measuring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Australia
• Does Poverty Lead to Terrorism?
• “Urban and Rural Estimates of Poverty: Recent Advances in Spatial Microsimulation in Australia” by Tanton, R, Harding, A, and McNamara, J
• Importance of Foreign Aid in Poverty Reducing
• Hispanic Childhood Poverty in the United States
• How Poverty Affects Children Development?
• Why Is Poverty Important in Contemporary Security Studies?
• Millennium Development Goals in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Haiti, and Chad
• Development Is No Longer the Solution to Poverty
• Issues Underlying Global Poverty and Provision of Aid
• Films Comparison: “The Fields” by Roland Joffe and “Hotel Rwanda” by Terry George
• Poverty Prevalence in the United States
• Terrorism, Poverty and Financial Instability
• Global Poverty and Education
• Critical Analyses of the Climate of Fear Report From Southern Poverty Law Center
• How World Vision International Contributes to Poverty Reduction
• Global Poverty, Social Poverty and Education
• Global Poverty, Social Policy, and Education
• Poverty Reduction in Africa, Central America and Asia
• Does Parental Involvement and Poverty Affect Children’s Education and Their Overall Performance?
• African Poverty: To Aid, or Not to Aid
• Poverty Fighting in Saudi Arabia and in USA
• Technological Development in Trade and Its Impacts on Poverty
• Poverty and Development Into the 21st Century
• Social Dynamics: The Southern Poverty Law Centre
• Property, Urban Poverty and Spatial Marginalization
• Rural Poverty in Indonesia
• Is Poverty of Poor Countries in Anyway Due to Wealth of the Rich?
• Poverty and Gender Violence in Congo
• Correlation Between Poverty and Obesity
• Fight Poverty, Fight Illiteracy in Mississippi Initiative
• Civil War and Poverty: “The Bottom Billion” by Paul Collier
• Analytical Research: Poverty in Thailand: Peculiarities and Perspectives
• Poverty Indicators in Developing Countries
• Poverty, Homelessness and Discrimination in Australia: The Case of the Aboriginal
• Social Business Scope in Alleviating Poverty
• Africa’s Poverty: The Influence of Western States
• Susceptibility of Women and Aboriginal People to Poverty in Canada
• MDG Poverty Goals May Be Achieved, but Child Mortality Is Not Improving
• Microcredit: A Tool for Poverty Alleviation
• Impacts of Global Poverty Resistance
• Reducing Poverty: Unilever and Oxfam
• Poverty in the United States
• The Mothers Who Are Not Single: Striving to Avoid Poverty in Single-Parent Families
• Effect of Poverty on Children Cognitive and Learning Ability
• Sweatshops and Third World Poverty
• War on Poverty: Poverty Problem in US
• Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right and the UN Declaration of Human Rights
• War on Poverty in US
• The Causes of Poverty Concentration in the Modern World
• Poverty in Saudi Arabia
• Poverty as a Peculiarity of the Economical Development
• Capitalism and Poverty
• The Problems of Poverty in the Modern World
• Poverty Among Women and Aboriginals
• On (Not) Getting by in America: Economic Order and Poverty in the U.S.
• The Singer Solution to World Poverty
• Poverty and Inequality in Jacksonian America
• Poverty in America Rural and Urban Difference (Education)
• What Is the Relationship Between Race, Poverty and Prison?
• Poverty and Its Effects on Childhood Education
• Poverty in Russia During the Late Nineteenth Century
• Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty: Advantages of Microcredit
• Social Welfare Policy That Facilitates Reduction of Poverty and Inequality in the US
• Immigrant Status and Poverty: How Are They Linked?
• Effects of Poverty on Immigrant Children
• Poverty in Brazil
• The Problem of Immigrants Poverty in the US
• Why Poverty Rates are Higher Among Single Black Mothers
• Poverty and Its Impact on Global Health: Research Methodologies
• Poverty Concerns in Today’s Society
• Literature Study on the Modern Poverty Concerns
• Poverty and Wealth in “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara
• Peter Singer on Resolving the World Poverty
• Aspects of Global Poverty
• Concepts of Prenatal Drug Exposure vs. Poverty on Infants
• UN Summit in New York: Ending Global Poverty
• Why Has Poverty Increased in Zimbabwe?
• Should Private Donations Help Eliminate Child Poverty?
• Why Was Poverty Re-Discovered in Britain in the Late 1950s and Early 1960?
• Why Does Child Labour Persist With Declining Poverty?
• Why Are Child Poverty Rates Higher in Britain Than in Germany?
• What Are the Principles and Practices for Measuring Child Poverty in Rich Countries?
• Why Did Poverty Drop for the Elderly?
• What Is the Relationship Between Income Distribution and Poverty Reduction in the UK?
• What Are the Pros and Cons of Poverty in Latin America?
• Should Poverty Researchers Worry About Inequality?
• What Helps Households With Children in Leaving Poverty?
• What Is the Connection Between Poverty and Crime?
• Why Have Some Indian States Done Better Than Others at Reducing Rural Poverty?
• What Is the Relationship Between Lack of Education and Poverty?
• Why Are Child Poverty Rates So Persistently High in Spain?
• Trade Liberalisation and Poverty: What Are the Links?
• What Are Academic Programs Available for Youth in Poverty?
• What Are the Main Factors Contributing to the Rise in Poverty in Canada?
• Single-Mother Poverty: How Much Do Educational Differences in Single Motherhood Matter?
• What Are the Causes and Effects of Poverty in the United?
• Why Are Some Countries Poor?
• What Is the Link Between Globalization and Poverty?
• What Are the Factors That Influence Poverty Sociology?
• What Causes Poverty Within the United States Economy?
• What Is the Relationship Between Poverty and Obesity?
• Why Were Poverty Rates So High in the 1980s?
• With Exhaustible Resources, Can a Developing Country Escape From the Poverty Trap?
• Why Does Poverty Persist in Rural Ethiopia?
• Who Became Poor, Who Escaped Poverty, and Why?
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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

To End Poverty, What Works, What Doesn’t and Why: A Conversation with the Authors of ‘Poor Economics’

November 9, 2011 • 15 min read.

MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo approach global poverty much as a medical researcher might set about finding the treatment for a disease: They believe in conducting small, randomized trials to see what works, what doesn't and why. Their book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, explains this approach. Last week, the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs named it the best business book of 2011. Knowledge at Wharton spoke with Banerjee and Duflo at a conference in Goa, India, about their concepts and how they can help rescue millions from destitution.

• Public Policy

“Why would a man in Morocco who doesn’t have enough to eat buy a television? Why is it hard for children in poor areas to learn, even when they attend school? Why do the poorest people in the Indian state of Maharashtra spend seven percent of their food budget on sugar?” Such are the questions that MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo seek to investigate in their research, according to the website of their book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty .

What makes Banerjee’s and Duflo’s approach radical? The reason is that, unlike other economists who focus on macro issues such as aid, they approach poverty much as medical researchers might set about finding the treatment for a disease — by conducting clinical trials. Duflo, who delivered a TED talk on this theme in February 2010, explained that the effects of aid are often hard to measure, but it is “possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt — by testing solutions with randomized trials.” Their method involves putting social initiatives to the same rigorous scientific tests that medical researchers use for drugs. This takes the guesswork out of policy-making, according to Duflo, by showing “what works, what doesn’t work and why.” There are no miracle cures, but specific steps — such as providing food as an incentive for immunization or providing subsidized bed nets to reduce malaria — can end up having a massive impact on efforts to reduce poverty, the authors note.

Banerjee and Duflo never expected Poor Economics to make for good business. “We wonder how our book is a business book,” says Duflo. But the attention their book has received has now been capped by the 2011 Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award. Banerjee and Duflo were at a conference in Goa, India, last week. After their presentation, the authors sat down with Knowledge at Wharton to explain their concepts and how they can be used to end global poverty.

An edited version of the transcript follows.

Knowledge at Wharton: How does it feel to win the book award?

Esther Duflo: We are certainly happy but at the same time baffled. We wonder how our book [can be considered] a business book since it is about finding and thinking of ways to end global poverty. Nonetheless, we are happy that some businesses and businessmen are interested in our work.

Knowledge at Wharton: What, in your view, is the best way to tackle poverty?

Abhijit Banerjee: The central point of our book is that there isn’t a single answer, that the question itself is wrong. There is no single action that is going to solve the problem of poverty. There are perhaps a few hundred steps that we need to take, each of which will do something, as long as we take the right steps. There is no evidence that we could adopt one step that is far more important than the others. I think that the one-size-fits-all recipe for tackling poverty is an illusion. It is a convenient illusion, so that you can believe that you can solve the problem with a single step. But this does not seem to be supported by data.

Knowledge at Wharton: But surely of those hundreds of steps, there must be some crucial ones that come to mind when you talk of eliminating poverty?

Duflo: Yes, there are some crucial steps. I can’t say they are the most important but these, as we know today, are very effective. However, that is not to say that in the future there will not be other steps which would be even more effective.

According to our current state of knowledge, there is a zone of shadow where we are not sure exactly what to do. But there are some things we do know that work across sectors. Educating children, for example, is one of them — imparting quality education to them right from a young age. Similarly, there could be positive social and political impact of health care for the poor, which includes steps like better access to preventive health [and] finding ways to put iron, vitamins, etc., in the food that poor people consume, which we know will be good from a medical point of view. Giving an asset — like a cow — to extremely poor people, and then some help in taking care of that asset, also works. These, we feel, are some of the effective steps that can be taken in the initiative towards ending poverty.

Knowledge at Wharton: In your presentation at the Goa conference, you emphasized the quality of education, quality of curriculum, etc. In the case of the poor, where educating children is often seen as the only passport to escape poverty, does the quality of education matter?

Banerjee: Yes, that is absolutely crucial. If you don’t learn to read or acquire basic math skills by the time you are 13 or 14 — and there is a significant portion of students with this deficiency — then the entire effort is worthless. It is a crime that children should be subjected to such education. No one is talking to them, the whole class is going on and they do not understand a thing. There is nothing worse than this. I don’t believe we are giving children a decent chance to learn.

Duflo: [While] it is not good to say that no education is better than some education, an education that is so blatantly ignorant and irrelevant is a torture.

Knowledge at Wharton: How do you define poverty?

Banerjee: There is no one way to define poverty that is going to satisfy everyone. You have to make an arbitrary call as to what you think poverty is, and when you make that call, you should decide what you are trying to capture. If you are trying to capture a set of people who are so desperate that they need immediate help, that is one thing. If you want to say what is an unacceptable level of standard of living, and the country needs to somehow fix that problem, then that is a different thing. There is no definition that is independent of the question you have posed. If the policy question is, ‘How do I target emergency help?’, then that is one definition. It would be very different if you were to decide to set the target for, say, the next 15 years. Our poverty line for the desperately poor should be much lower than our goal that you will provide everyone at least ‘X’ after 15 years. It depends upon what policy question we are trying to answer.

Knowledge at Wharton: In India, poverty has always been a top-of-mind issue. Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for his work on poverty. C.K. Prahalad became famous for The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid . Would you agree that poverty in India is a lucrative opportunity area?

Duflo: At a basic level, there are lots of poor people, and so they are a market. There are some forms of social businesses that have done well in this regard, and they are there for us to see. A lot of people inspired by C.K. Prahalad say that you can make money while helping the poor. However, you have to be a little more careful. I am not saying that these opportunities don’t exist. Sometimes it is true that there is a market and someone can come and creatively tap it. But there are also lots of things that the poor need and the market is not able to provide them. It is a big mistake to think that markets will be able to do everything. This notion is misguided.

Knowledge at Wharton : The Indian Planning Commission has set the poverty line at 65 cents a day. You have different views on this and on what parameters poverty should be measured. Would you briefly explain that?

Banerjee: Let’s not use [the conversion to U.S. cents]; it is very misleading. Let’s say Rs. 32, and let’s be very clear about what that means. The problem with that conversion is that it doesn’t allow for differences in prices. The latest conversion between the rupee and dollar that allows for differences in prices is roughly Rs. 19 to a U.S. dollar. That is the right conversion, not Rs. 48 or Rs. 49 to a dollar [the current exchange rate]. This is what the World Bank uses in PPP [Purchasing Power Parity] estimates. So, under this conversion, Rs. 32 is $1.70. That’s the right number, not 65 cents a day. For any of these questions [about poverty], the market dollar rate is not relevant. You take a bus ride here, it costs Rs. 3. In the U.S., it would cost $2. You have to adjust for the fact that things are cheaper in India than in the U.S. If you don’t do that, you get a completely misleading number.

Duflo: We are not deeply interested in measuring poverty. Others do it. People in the World Bank do it, and they put in lots of effort at measuring poverty levels. India itself has a long tradition of doing that very well. At the end of the day, what is important is not to measure poverty as much as try to understand what to do about it. In some sense, it is a democratic debate in which all people should have something to say.

Knowledge at Wharton: The poor, you say, are more discerning customers than the rich because they have to make a little go a much longer way. But do the government, aid workers, companies, etc., make any effort to provide choice?

Banerjee: It’s a good question. I think lots of aid policy and, in general, the social policy ignores the free will of the poor. They are seen as sort of desperate — you give them this and they are going to take it. The poor, on the other hand, are trying to have a good life within the constraints they face. And if you tell them to have a particular kind of food every day just because it is healthy food — for instance, eat chickpeas everyday — they are not going to do it. So you have to dig out their reality as to how they want to live their lives. We often tell them to boil water for 20 minutes but we don’t take the reality of their lives [into consideration]. Twenty minutes is a lot of time for a woman who has to do so many things in the house. You have to think of what the priorities are. You tell them to do things and then wonder why they are not doing them. They are not doing them because you have not understood their lives very well. You have to give them choices and understand their choice behavior. If you really want to do something for them, you have to make it attractive enough for them to do it. You can’t think of the poor as machines.

Knowledge at Wharton: Is the problem of global poverty too huge to envision and address?

Duflo: We need to cut this huge problem into many problems, problems that can be dealt with one by one. Some people term it as one huge problem and then conclude that there is one big solution to it. Projected this way, people get depressed by the enormity of the problem. The right thing is to say that it is not one giant problem, but a series of issues that need to be addressed in numerous ways. This way, there will be incremental victories and progress towards ending poverty.

Knowledge at Wharton: You say that the three villains of efforts to eradicate poverty are ideology, ignorance and inertia. And the three problem interfaces are the expert, the aid worker and the local policy maker. In rural India, it is the local government and the aid worker who are regarded as the biggest hurdles. What is your experience of other countries?

Duflo: Essentially, there is not much aid coming to India, and hence you cannot blame the aid workers. India gets very little aid, and most of the money on anti-poverty programs is spent by the government. So, there is no large presence of aid workers in India, but there are many good NGOs [non-governmental organizations] in India who are doing excellent work. There is a lot of difference between the places where policies are being designed, say in New Delhi, and people in the field. These field workers are doing good work, and they have a much better sense of what is actually going on at the field level. Their knowledge is not necessarily being harnessed. There are countries — in Africa, for example — which receive lots of aid, but essentially face the same issues.

Knowledge at Wharton: Do anti-poverty campaigns receive enough money? Is there adequate funding for projects such as yours?

Banerjee: No. There is a lot more money that could be spent. And even within what is being spent, little money goes into supporting innovative programs that can be carefully tested, carefully identified and carefully implemented. Too much money and governmental resources are spent on programs that have not been tested. Rather than spending it carefully, too much is spent on [the] wrong programs. There is too little money going into anti-poverty programs that we would like to see.

Knowledge at Wharton: What has your Poverty Action Lab (the Abdul Latif Jamil Poverty Action Lab or J-PAL) accomplished so far?

Banerjee: In 2003, we founded the Poverty Action Lab to encourage and support research on a new way of doing economics, based on what we call randomized control trials. These give researchers, working with local partners, a chance to implement large-scale experiments designed to test their theories. As of 2010, J-PAL researchers had completed or were engaged in 240 experiments across 40 countries. A very large number of organizations, researchers and policy makers have embraced the idea of randomized trials. Many have come to share our basic premise — it is possible to make very significant progress against the biggest problems in the world through a set of small steps, each well thought-out, carefully tested and judiciously implemented.

Knowledge at Wharton: How do you think the Occupy protest movement, that started on Wall Street and has spread globally, will impact the ongoing debate on global poverty?

Duflo: At the moment, the Occupy Wall Street protest is very much in response to domestic issues in the U.S., to the increasing inequalities in the U.S. in the past 10 to 15 years, to inertia and to the inadequate response to the economic crisis in the U.S. Global poverty is not at the forefront of their consideration at this point in time. So I frankly don’t know whether or not this protest is going to have any impact on how to think about solving the problem of global poverty.

Banerjee: There is a general worry that it will lead to an irresponsible, populist backlash in policymaking in the West, like anti-trade and all that. It could turn into something like the Tea Party. And that will be bad. But right now, they are just reacting to what is the real problem in all the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries. In some of these countries, there is ballooning inequality, and there is very little official response to tackle this.

Knowledge at Wharton: Recent studies have shown that poverty has increased dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade, due in part to the economic downturn. In a world of continuing global financial uncertainty, what challenges do we face in fighting global poverty?

Banerjee: Slowing growth in the West is a huge problem for growing countries like India, China, Bangladesh and Pakistan, which rely on servicing these markets. They are all going to face some constraints on that account. It is also clear that there is a certain amount of policy attention or creativity that is now being directed to finding the equilibrium within [Western] economies. After all, we need talent from the whole world to think about ways of ending poverty.

Duflo: The crises in the end have to affect the lives of the very poor. The immediate impact of the global financial crisis was not as harsh on the very poor as on the middle classes of the rich countries. What is more worrisome is the inability to get out of the crisis in the past few years. That eventually will create additional challenges, particularly for the people in the developing world.

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Ending Poverty Through Education: The Challenge of Education for All

About the author, koïchiro matsuura.

From Vol. XLIV, No. 4, "The MDGs: Are We on Track?",  December 2007

T he world made a determined statement when it adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. These goals represent a common vision for dramatically reducing poverty by 2015 and provide clear objectives for significant improvement in the quality of people's lives. Learning and education are at the heart of all development and, consequently, of this global agenda. MDG 2 aims to ensure that children everywhere -- boys and girls -- will be able to complete a full course of good quality primary schooling. MDG 3 targets to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. Indeed, learning is implicit in all the MDGs: improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS simply cannot be achieved without empowering individuals with knowledge and skills to better their lives. In addition, MDG 8 calls for "more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction". The MDGs on education echo the Education for All (EFA) goals, also adopted in 2000. However, the EFA agenda is much broader, encompassing not only universal primary education and gender equality, but also early childhood education, quality lifelong learning and literacy. This holistic approach is vital to ensuring full enjoyment of the human right to education and achieving sustainable and equitable development. What progress have we made towards universal primary education? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 -- Education for All by 2015: Will we make it? -- presents an overall assessment of progress at the halfway point between 2000 and 2015. There is much encouraging news, including: • Between 1999 and 2005, the number of children entering primary school for the first time grew by 4 per cent, from 130 million to 135 million, with a jump of 36 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa -- a major achievement, given the strong demographic growth in the region. • Overall participation in primary schooling worldwide grew by 6.4 per cent, with the fastest growth in the two regions farthest from achieving the goal on education -- sub-Saharan Africa, and South and West Asia. • Looking at the net enrolment ratio, which measures the share of children of primary school age who are enrolled, more than half the countries of North America, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean have rates of over 90 per cent. Ratios are lower in the Arab States, Central Asia and South and West Asia, with lows of 33 per cent (Djibouti) and 68 per cent (Pakistan). The challenge is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than one third of countries have rates below 70 per cent. • The number of children out of school has dropped sharply, from 96 million in 1999 to around 72 million by 2005, with the biggest change in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, which continue to harbour the largest percentages of children not in school. South and West Asia has the highest share of girls out of school. The MDG on education specifies that both boys and girls should receive a full course of primary schooling. The gender parity goal set for 2005, however, has not been achieved by all. Still, many countries have made significant progress. In South and West Asia, one of the regions with the widest disparities, 93 girls for every 100 boys were in school in 2005 -- up from 82 in 1999. Yet, globally, 122 out of the 181 countries with data had not achieved gender parity in 2005. There is much more to be done, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, but there are strong trends in the right direction. This overall assessment indicates that progress in achieving universal primary education is positive. Countries where enrolments rose sharply generally increased their education spending as a share of gross national product. Public expenditure on education has climbed by over 5 per cent annually in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. Aid to basic education in low-income countries more than doubled between 2000 and 2004. Progress has been achieved through universal and targeted strategies. Some 14 countries have abolished primary school fees since 2000, a measure that has promoted enrolment of the most disadvantaged children. Several countries have established mechanisms to redistribute funds to poorer regions and target areas that are lagging in terms of access to education, and to offset economic barriers to schooling for poor households. Many countries, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India and Yemen, have introduced specific strategies to encourage girls' schooling, such as community sensitization campaigns, early childhood centres to release girls from caring for their siblings, free uniforms and learning materials. These strategies are working and reflect strong national commitment to achieving universal primary education. Enrolment, however, is only half the story; children need to stay in primary school and complete it. One way of measuring this is the survival rate to the last grade of primary education. Although data are not available for every country, globally the rate of survival to the last grade is 87 per cent. This masks wide regional variations, with medians of over 90 per cent all over the world, except in South and West Asia (79%) and sub-Saharan Africa (63%). Even then, some children drop out in the last grade and never complete primary education, with some countries showing a gap of 20 per cent between those who enter the last grade and those who complete it. One of the principal challenges is to improve the quality of learning and teaching. Cognitive skills, basic competencies and life-skills, as well as positive values and attitudes, are all essential for development at individual, community and national levels. In a world where the acquisition, use and sharing of knowledge are increasingly the key to poverty reduction and social development, the need for quality learning outcomes becomes a necessary essential condition for sharing in the benefits of growing prosperity. What children take away from school, and what youth and adults acquire in non-formal learning programmes, should enable them, as expressed in the four pillars of the 1996 Delors report, Learning: The Treasure Within, to learn to know, to do, to be and to live together. Governments are showing growing concern about the poor quality of education. An increasing number of developing countries are participating in international and regional learning assessments, and conducting their own. Evidence shows that up to 40 per cent of students do not reach minimum achievement standards in language and mathematics. Pupils from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds and those with access to books consistently perform better than those from poorer backgrounds with limited access to reading materials. Clear messages emerge from these studies. In primary education, quality learning depends, first and foremost, on the presence of enough properly trained teachers. But pupil/teacher ratios have increased in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia since 1999. Some 18 million new teachers are needed worldwide to reach universal primary education by 2015. Other factors have a clear influence on learning: a safe and healthy physical environment, including, among others, appropriate sanitation for girls; adequate learning and teaching materials; child-centred curricula; and sufficient hours of instruction (at least 800 hours a year). Initial learning through the mother tongue has a proven impact on literacy acquisition. Transparent and accountable school governance, among others, also affects the overall learning environment. What then are the prospects for achieving universal primary education and gender parity? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008 puts countries into two categories depending on their current net enrolment rate: 80 to 96 per cent, and less than 80 per cent. For each category, it then assesses whether current rates of progress are likely to enable each country to reach the goal by 2015. Noting that 63 countries worldwide have already achieved the goal and 54 countries cannot be included in the analysis due to lack of adequate data, the status is as follows: Out of the 95 countries unlikely to achieve gender parity by 2015, 14 will not achieve it in primary education and 52 will not attain it at the secondary level. A further 29 countries will fail to achieve parity in both primary and secondary education. The international community must focus on giving support to those countries that are currently not on track to meet the MDGs and the EFA goals, and to those that are making progress. On current trends, and if pledges are met, bilateral aid to basic education will likely reach $5 billion a year in 2010. This remains well below the $9 billion required to reach universal primary education alone; an additional $2 billion are needed to address the wider context of educational development. Ensuring that adults, particularly mothers, are literate has an impact on whether their children, especially their daughters, attend school. In today's knowledge-intensive societies, 774 million adults are illiterate -- one in four of them women. Early learning and pre-school programmes give children a much better chance to survive and succeed once they enter primary school, but such opportunities are few and far between across most of the developing world, except in Latin America and the Caribbean. Opportunities for quality secondary education and ongoing learning programmes provide motivation for students to achieve the highest possible level of education and view learning as a lifelong endeavour. The goals towards which we are striving are about the fundamental right to education that should enable every child and every adult to develop their potential to the full, so that they contribute actively to societal change and enjoy the benefits of development. The challenge now is to ensure that learning opportunities reach all children, youth and adults, regardless of their background. This requires inclusive policies to reach the most marginalized, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations -- the working children, those with disabilities, indigenous groups, linguistic minorities and populations affected by HIV/AIDS.

Globally, the world has set its sights on sustainable human development, the only prospect for reducing inequalities and improving the quality of life for present and future generations. In this perspective, Governments, donors and international agencies must continue working jointly towards achieving universal primary education and the broader MDG agenda with courage, determination and unswerving commitment. To find out more about the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, please visit ( www.efareport.unesco.org ).

The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

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How to reduce poverty and increase economic mobility

Subscribe to the center for economic security and opportunity newsletter, ron haskins ron haskins senior fellow emeritus - economic studies.

October 27, 2015

• 20 min read

I have been invited to talk with you about what this Subcommittee could do to reduce poverty and increase economic mobility. I begin with a brief word about the problem; namely, how difficult it has been reduce the poverty rate. This leads to an overview of one of the most successful government reforms to reduce poverty, the welfare reform law of 1996 and its impacts on work rates and poverty. I then turn to review of what this Subcommittee could do to replicate the success of welfare reform while avoiding its most important problem.

Are We Reducing Poverty and Increasing Economic Mobility?

Figure 1 shows the changes in poverty rates since 1959 for three important groups— all children, children in female-headed families, and the elderly. Trends in poverty among the elderly show something like the progress everyone hopes we can make in reducing poverty among all Americans. There was rapid progress in the early 1960s followed by a slower rate of decline but very few years in which the poverty rate increased. Poverty among the elderly today is 10 percent, much lower than the rate among children in the other two groups. The explanation for this pattern can be found in two words—Social Security. [1] Most of the elderly receive a monthly cash payment from the federal government that in most cases, including for the elderly who have few or no additional sources of income, is adequate to keep them out of poverty.

Progress among the other two groups is far less impressive, with an exception to be examined in more detail below. The poverty rate for all children under the official measure shows rapid progress in the 1960s, but little consistent progress since. The child poverty rate in 1960 was 14 percent. By 1980, it was over 21 percent. Worse, in no subsequent year has the child poverty rate reached the 14 percent achieved in 1969. The rate last year, the most recent available, was well over 20 percent. Changes over time in the poverty rate of children in female-headed families has been uneven, and has rarely been below 30 percent. But there was a major decline in the late 1990s that holds an important clue about reducing poverty. I examine this decline in more detail below. [2]

Official Poverty Rates for the Elderly, Female-Headed Households with Children and All Children, 1959-2014

Income Quintile of Children When They Grow Up Relative to Their Parents’ Income Quintile

Note: Numbers are adjusted for family size.

Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, “Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility Across Generations” (Washington: July 2012).

Figure 2 shows a standard measure of economic mobility; namely, the economic position of children compared to the economic position of their own parents based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics that started collecting data on 5,000 families in the 1960s. [3] Then, as the children of parents in the original sample grew up, they were followed as well, yielding data on family income for both the parents and their children. In Figure 2, the five bar graphs divide the parents into five parts (called “quintiles”) based on family income with an equal number of parents in each bar graph. Thus, the 20 percent of parents with the lowest income during their prime earning years are in the bar graph on the left and the 20 percent with the highest income are in the bar graph on the right; parents with income between these two groups are displayed in the middle three bar graphs. Notice that each bar graph is divided into five parts. Each of these five parts represents the income quintile the children of parents in that income quintile wound up in during their prime earning years.

Figure 2 provides an informative way to look at economic mobility across generations. If children wound up in an income quintile that was not correlated in any way with their parents’ income, each bar graph would have five equal parts, each containing 20 percent of the children of the parents represented in the bar graph. This pattern is close to the one found in the middle bar graph which shows that children from parents in the middle income quintile were almost equally likely to wind up in each of the five income quintiles.

But the other quintiles, especially the bottom and the top quintiles, show that where children wind up in the income distribution in their generation is greatly influenced by their parents’ income. Consider the bottom quintile. Adult children from the bottom quintile have a 43 percent chance of winding up in the bottom themselves and only 4 percent of them wind up in the top quintile. Now consider the top quintile. Here we see that adult children whose parents were in the top 20 percent were more likely than adult children in the other quintiles to wind up in or near the top. For example, whereas only 4 percent of the adult children of parents in the bottom quintile made it all the way to the top, 40 percent of adult children with parents in top quintile made it to the top. Equality of opportunity this is not. Several studies have shown that this pattern has not changed much over the generations. [4] We do not now have equality of economic opportunity in America, nor have we ever, although there are and have been many examples of individuals rising far above their parents’ income—and vice versa.

The conclusions are obvious, and almost everyone who studies poverty and economic mobility agrees: progress against poverty has been modest or nonexistent, depending on the group, and the nation has an unequal distribution of income that persists across generations. We have limited equality of educational and economic opportunity in America.

Why Are We Having Trouble Fighting Poverty and Increasing Mobility?

Why has it been so difficult to reduce poverty and increase economic mobility? We now spend around a trillion dollars a year on programs for poor and low-income families and individuals. [5] Until recently, spending increased almost every year. But as spending increased, the nation neither reduced poverty by much nor increased economic mobility. Why, despite all this spending, have we made so little progress?

Most analysts would agree that the dissolution of the two-parent family, little progress in improving the educational achievement of the poor relative to that of the more advantaged, and the decline of work among men are major factors in accounting for our lack of progress. [6] More specifically:

• An ever rising share of American children live in female-headed families, the family type in which children are five times as likely to be poor as children in married-couple families and in which their development is negatively affected. [7]
• In addition, until recent years, more and more children were born outside marriage, in most cases instantly creating the family form in which children are likely to be poor. [8]
• Although education levels have improved modestly, the education gap between kids from poor and rich families has increased substantially, making it difficult for children from poor families to close the income gap between themselves and children from rich families. [9]
• Although work rates among women, especially low-income and poorly educated women, have shown improvement, the work rate for men has declined over the last four decades and wages for men in the lower half of the wage distribution have been stagnant. [10]

A comprehensive strategy to fight poverty and increase mobility would attack these causes on three fronts by aiming to increase the share of children growing up in married-couple families, in part by delaying unplanned births; to increase the educational achievement and years of schooling completed among children from poor families; and to increase work rates among the poor. In this testimony, I confine my attention to increasing work rates, an important determinant of poverty and mobility that this Subcommittee could actually do something about. I begin with the example of welfare reform.

What to Do: An Example

In 1996 Congress passed and President Clinton signed one of the most sweeping pieces of welfare reform legislation ever passed by Congress.  [11]   A primary goal of the legislation was to help, encourage, and cajole mothers to work. The law did three things to try to increase work rates: it ended the legal entitlement to welfare payments, thereby clearing the way for cash benefits to be contingent on working or preparing to work; it placed a five-year time limit on receipt of cash welfare for most mothers; and it required states to place half their welfare caseload in programs designed to help recipients find work or prepare for work. After the welfare reform law was enacted, work rates among single mothers increased dramatically, the welfare rolls fell more than ever before, and child poverty rates declined to their lowest level ever among black children and among all children in female-headed families. These effects cannot be attributed exclusively to welfare reform. There is general agreement among researchers who study welfare that the growing economy of the second half of the 1990s and the maturing of a system of federal and state subsidies for low-income workers with children, which will be referred to here as the “work support system,” also played important roles in accounting for the dramatic increases in work and falling poverty rates. [12]

Effect of Earnings, Transfers, and Taxes on the Poverty Rate among Households Headed by Single Mothers, 1987-2013

In the early period from 1987 to 1993, the poverty rate among female-headed families with children based only on the mothers’ earnings was very high—well over 50 percent in every year and averaging 54.3 percent. Then the poverty rate based on earning plummeted for the next seven years, falling from 54.3 percent to 40.8 percent, the lowest it had ever been for female-headed families. This precipitous decline in poverty was caused mostly by much more work among single mothers, attributable in large part to welfare reform.

Now consider how work support programs impacted the poverty rate based on earnings only. Government transfer programs drove the poverty rate down from 54.3 to 41.7 percent in 1987-93, [14] a reduction of about 23 percent. But when the work rate was much higher in 2000, the poverty rate based exclusively on earnings was only 40.8 percent, 25 percent lower than the comparable rate in the 1987-1993 period. Even better, after single mothers received the package of work-based benefits, the 2000 poverty rate fell to 26.8 percent, a decline of 34 percent. [15]

In 2010, work declined and poverty rose, due to the Great Recession. Yet the combination of relatively high work rates in 2010 (relative to the 1987 to 1993 period) kept poverty lower than during the earlier period and the impact of government programs in percentage terms produced nearly twice as great a decline in poverty as in the earlier period (a reduction of 40.9 percent vs. 23.2 percent).

Finally, the figures for 2013 show that female heads are now increasing their earnings from work,  and the work-based safety net continues to reduce poverty a great deal (nearly 39 percent).

This analysis shows that the federal work support system achieves the goal of, as President Clinton put it so tersely, “making work pay.” [16]   The most important element of the work support system was the creation of the EITC program in 1975 and its expansion, almost always on a bipartisan basis, on several occasions since. The EITC provides working families that include children with nearly $60 billion each year, mostly in one-time cash payments. The passage of the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) as part of the Bush 2001 tax reforms, along with subsequent expansions of the ACTC, were also important and now provide working families that include children with around $30 billion each year. In addition, child care subsidies have been expanded on numerous occasions, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been modified to make it easier for working families to claim the benefit, the Medicaid program has been modified and extended (in part by creating the Child Health Insurance Program in 1997) to cover almost all children under 200 percent of poverty, and a number of other improvements have been made in the work-based safety net at both the federal and state levels. This system is available to all low-income working families with children and virtually guarantees that if parents work close to full time, they and their children can escape poverty.

What to Do: Two Ideas for the Nutrition Subcommittee

There are two actions this Subcommittee could take in the near future that would have an excellent chance of reducing poverty. The most important outcome of welfare reform was increased work rates by single mothers. Not only did the work rate of single mothers increase in the years after welfare reform, they have stayed higher than they were in the early 1990s and previously despite two recessions and the increased unemployment that comes with recessions. Given the importance of benefits from the work support system in fighting poverty, work becomes even more important because welfare recipients have to work to get benefits from the work support system. So work opens up two sources of income—earnings from the employment and benefits, especially tax credits, that can only be obtained if mothers work.

The food stamp program currently has modest work requirements, but they do not appear to be rigorously enforced. Last year Congress, at the instigation of the House Agriculture Committee, wisely provided $200 million over a period of years for the Department of Agriculture to sponsor ten pilot demonstration programs by states that are willing to explore innovative ways to encourage work among food stamp recipients. [17] An interesting parallel of this action is that the 1996 welfare reforms were preceded by more than 40 states conducting demonstration programs aimed at testing ideas about how to promote work, many of which were evaluated by high quality research designs. These demonstrations generally showed that mothers on welfare could work and that programs that helped them prepare for work and look for jobs increased work rates and reduced the welfare rolls. [18] By the time of the welfare reform debate of 1995-96, most members of Congress on both sides of the aisle realized that many mothers on welfare were capable of working and that good programs that helped them prepare for and find jobs could substantially increase their work rate and reduce the welfare rolls. It seems likely that the ongoing food stamp demonstration programs will provide solid ideas about how states can increase work rates among food stamp recipients, in this case both women and men. These results can be expected to provide the Subcommittee with ideas about how to write legislation that would encourage work among food stamp recipients.

An outcome of welfare reform that should be emphasized is that most mothers who found employment worked in low-wage, mostly unskilled jobs. Thus, their earnings were generally quite low. [19] Few states had effective programs that attempted to upgrade the skills of mothers. Even low-wage jobs provided a step toward self-sufficiency, but many analysts think that with training (especially training for jobs available in the local economy), these mothers could attain the skills that would lead to better jobs, higher earnings, and even lower poverty rates. There is now a large and growing literature on how skilled jobs that require a certificate, a license, or a two-year degree, often from a community college, can help young people from poor and low-income families qualify for good jobs with higher incomes. [20] According to the Department of Agriculture, the work demonstration pilots will test “a range of job-driven strategies, including intensive sector-based approaches and career pathways that prepare workers for specific occupations.” And because the pilots are being subjected to scientific evaluations, we can be confident that the findings will be reliable. These pilots, in other words, are very likely to provide the basis for legislation that will encourage or require states to establish programs that increase both work rates and earning among food stamp recipients.

A word of caution, based on the results of welfare reform, is in order. The share of families in poverty receiving welfare cash payments has declined as compared with the share receiving cash under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the cash welfare program that preceded the 1996 welfare reforms. In 1979, for every 100 families in poverty, 82 families received AFDC. By contrast, in 2013, for every 100 families in poverty, only 26 families received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the cash welfare program established by the welfare reform law of 1996. [21] Some observers have concluded that the increases in work and reductions in poverty achieved by welfare reform resulted from work requirements and time limits that forced too many mothers off TANF without jobs. But there is little evidence that harsh provisions are necessary to encourage able-bodied adults to work. Reasonable requirements, strongly enforced, and accompanied by the carrots for work provided by the work support system, may well be enough to encourage adults to work. And in any case, the Subcommittee will have the results from ten state food stamp pilot work programs to provide ideas about how food stamp recipients can be encouraged to work without resorting to harsh measures.

A second caution is that some people believe the goal of food stamp work requirements should be to get as many people as possible off food stamps. This goal, however, sharply conflicts with another goal of food stamps as a vital part of the work support system; namely, to supplement the earnings of low-wag

e workers and thereby both improve their economic standing and provide a strong work incentive. Just as many mothers who join the welfare rolls lack the skills and experience to fill the requirements of high wage jobs, so many recipients of food stamps are similarly qualified only for low-wage jobs. To both Congress and society, the goal of luring people into work and helping them improve their economic condition should be the most important goals. Some of these people will work their way into jobs that pay enough that they will no longer qualify for food stamps. But most people, including parents, who are on food stamps will not have the skills to command high wages. In these cases, food stamps will provide an incentive to continue working and will allow workers to boost their income.

Over the last four decades, Congress has constructed a work support system that not only makes work pay, but also provides substantial work incentive. The food stamp program is a vital element of that system. When the incentives of the work support system are combined with effective programs that encourage work, help people acquire skills, and help them find employment, many of the adults receiving food stamps today and in the future will join the workforce, increase their self-sufficiency, set an example for their children, and improve their economic condition. Moreover, the state food stamp work demonstrations now being implemented seem likely to serve as a beacon to help states implement and sustain programs of this type.

Note: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and should not be attributed to the staff, officers, or trustees of the Brookings Institution.

[1] Jonathan Gruber and Gary Engelhardt, “Social Security and the Evolution of Elderly Poverty,” in Public Policy and the Income Distribution, ed. Alan Auerback, David Card, and John Quigley (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 259-287.

[2] “Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014” (Washington: United States Census Bureau, September 2015).

[3] Pew Charitable Trusts, “Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility Across Generations” (Washington: July 2012).

[4] Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, Emmanuel Saez, and Nick Turner, “ Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility ,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings  104 (2014):141-147.

[5] “CRS Report: Welfare Spending the Largest Item in the Federal Budget,” accessed October 23, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1O4ZADy.

[6] Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill, Creating an Opportunity Society (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2009).

[7] David Ribar, “Why Marriage Matters for Child Wellbeing,” Future of Children, Policy Brief, Fall 2015.

[8] Ron Haskins, “The Family is Here to Stay—Or Not,” Future of Children 25(2) (Fall 2015): 129-153.

[9] Sean Reardon, “The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations,” in Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances , edited by Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), p. 91-116.

[10] Harry Holzer and Marek Hlavac, “A Very Uneven Road: US Labor Markets Since 2000,” US2010 series (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012).

[11] Ron Haskins, Work over Welfare: The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2006).

[12] Carolyn J. Heinrich and John Karl Scholz, ed., Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better: Forward-Looking Policies to Help Low-Income Families (New York: Russell Sage, 2011).

[13] Figures were adapted from Thomas Gabe, “Welfare, Work, and Poverty Status of Female-Headed Families with Children,” R41917 (Washington: Congressional Research Service, November 21, 2014), especially Figure 13, p. 33.

[14] Poverty rates in this section that take benefits into account are not the official federal poverty rate. They are based on the official poverty threshold (the amount of income that divides the poor and nonpoor) but add benefits that are mostly not included in calculating the official poverty rate.

[15] The bottom line in Figure 9 includes payments from programs enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, most (but not all) of which are now expired. Also included in the last line is income the mother receives from other household members.

[16] The combination of work support benefits does have work disincentives in the sense that some program benefits are reduced as earnings rise. In most cases, however, the combination of earnings and work support benefits yield higher total income than either earnings alone or welfare benefits alone. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the marginal tax rates on earnings for low-income working families can be as high as 60 percent. See Congressional Budget Office, “Effective Marginal Tax Rates for Low- and Moderate-Income Workers” (Washington: CBO, November 2012).

[17] Department of Agriculture, “2014 SNAP E & T Pilots,” accessed October 22, 2015, http://www.fns.usda.gov/2014-snap-e-t-pilots.

[18] Judith M. Gueron and Howard Rolston, Fighting for Reliable Evidence (New York: Russell Sage, 2013).

[19] Greg Acs and Pamela Loprest, “TANF Caseload Composition and Leavers Synthesis Report,” (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, March 28, 2007).

[20] Tamar Jacoby, “The Certification Revolution,” in Michael Petrilli, ed., Education for Upward Mobility (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); Sheila Maguire et al., “Tuning Into Local Labor Markets: Findings from the Sectoral Employment Impact Study” (Philadelphia: Public/Private Ventures, 2010).

[21] LaDonna Pavetti, “Testimony of LaDonna Pavetti, Ph.D., Vice President, Family Income Support Policy, Before the House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Human Resources” (Washington: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, April 30, 2015), http://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/LaDonna-Pavvetti-Testimony-043015-HR3.pdf

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Solutions to Poverty to Get Us To 2030

What would Zero Poverty look like for the world in 2030? Here are a few starting points.

Apr 24, 2022 | By: Angela Maya

If you believe, like we do at Concern, that we can end poverty, then the next question is: How? There’s no one simple process for achieving this goal, but that doesn’t make it impossible. Here are seven solutions to poverty that guide our work in 24 countries around the world.

Stand With Concern in the Fight for Zero Poverty

1. eliminating poverty through equity.

One of the main causes of poverty is inequality. The systemic barriers that lead to groups of people going without representation in their communities leaves them further behind in terms of resources and opportunity. In order for a community, or even a country, to alleviate poverty,  all  groups and identities must be involved in creating solutions.

One of the biggest inequalities we need to address is gender inequality. According to the  UN’s High-Level Panel for Women’s Economic Empowerment , women’s unpaid labor adds up to $10 trillion per year — 13% of the global GDP.  According to the Food and Agriculture Organization , women own less than 20% of agricultural land in parts of Africa and Asia, yet make up 60% of the agricultural workforce. As former FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said in 2016:

"Women are the backbone of our work in agriculture...when women have opportunities, the yields on their farms increase -- also their incomes. Natural resources are better managed. Nutrition is improved. And livelihoods are more secured."

One other important thing to note: By equality, we mean that every person must have an equality of  results  versus equality of resources. This may mean additional resources for the furthest behind, in order to ensure that they have all they need to succeed.

2. Reducing Poverty With Resilience

Poverty happens when a high amount of inequality meets a high amount of risk.

For instance, the  Democratic Republic of Congo  has suffered ongoing conflict since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960. This has left millions of Congolese vulnerable, either living in conflict zones or in displacement camps (or both). When another crisis hits, like the  DRC’s 2019 Ebola epidemic  or  2021’s Mount Nyiragongo eruption , people are much less able to cope because their resources have already been worn thin.

To offset this, we need to ensure that the most vulnerable people and communities are able to build  resilience . While the meaning of that phrase has changed in recent years, it means something very concrete in  humanitarian aid  and development. Resilience for us means working with communities to prepare for disasters — whether manmade or natural — in advance. It also means adapting to long-term changes (such as fighting climate change with  Climate Smart Agriculture  or creating programs to support the education, safety, and livelihoods of  refugees or IDPs ). These solutions to poverty help to offset the level of vulnerability communities may have in the face of risks — or even reduce the level of risk.

3. Commit to climate change solutions and climate justice

Resilience against climate change is especially important and deserves its own mention. According to the World Bank , climate change could force an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty over the next decade without any urgent action taken.

Concern maintains overall climate responses (such as Disaster Risk Reduction ), as well as specific programs (like Paribartan in India and Bangladesh , BRCiS in Somalia , and RAPID in Pakistan ). But one of the solutions to poverty that goes beyond any humanitarian mandate is a governmental commitment to climate justice, particularly on the parts of high-income countries whose carbon emissions are higher than those of the low-income countries hit hardest by climate change.

4. Eradicating poverty through education

According to UNESCO, if all students in low-income countries had just basic reading and writing skills (nothing else), an estimated 171 million people could escape extreme poverty. If all adults completed secondary education, we could cut the global poverty rate by more than half. Education develops skills and abilities, corrects some of the imbalances that come out of marginalization, and decreases both risk and vulnerability.

Some of the key areas of focus for making sure that education is truly for all involve breaking down the barriers to education : creating access to school in remote areas, supporting teachers in their work to deliver quality education , and making sure that education is available to children living in fragile contexts.

5. Halting poverty by ending hunger (and thirst)

Simply eating three meals a day and getting a healthy amount of calories and nutrients can go a long way to breaking the cycle of poverty . When a person doesn’t have enough to eat, they lack the strength and energy needed to work. Contaminated water can lead to debilitating illnesses.

What’s more, improving access to clean water can mean that those who live in rural communities. If you go back to our first point on inequality, you might be able to guess that water is a women's issue . Current estimates suggest that women and girls collectively spend 200 million hours every day walking long distances to fetch water.

Adequate healthcare options for all goes hand-in-hand with this solution, and represents a larger need for governments to offer the basic social protections and services to keep their citizens healthy, and give them affordable treatment options when they aren’t.

6. Poverty alleviation through peace

Ending all war — while ambitious — means that budgets allocated to cover the cost of conflict can be used to deliver public services. It also reduces risks faced by the most vulnerable communities, and ensures that goals towards equality and inclusion can be maintained.

We’ve seen this play out time and again: While estimates around data for the country vary, Syria 's poverty rate following the start of the Syrian crisis increased from approximately 12% in 2007 to 83% in 2019. Conversely, in Nepal, a decade-long civil war came to a close in 2006. This correlated with a sharp increase in gross national income (GNI) and gross domestic product (GDP) year-over-year.

Likewise, the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Cambodia in 1992 (following a deadly civil war and war with Vietnam) helped to forge stability within the country and grow its middle class: The country’s poverty rate dropped from 47.8% in 2007 to 13.5% by 2014.

7. Cash solves poverty

It may seem like the simplest of answers, but cash and microfinance are two of the best solutions to poverty.

One of the ways Cambodia’s transition from wartime to peace (including the repatriation of over 300,000 Cambodian refugees) was so smooth was thanks to the idea of buying on credit. Such an influx of returnees could place a strain on resources and create financial dire straits, microfinancing models introduced into the country helped to establish village savings and loans , insurance, and cash transfer services in communities that need them the most, allowing people to purchase the tools and services they need in order to become self-sufficient. Between 1998 and 2018, Cambodia’s economy grew by an average of 8% each year, and its middle class began to flourish.

While the traditional image of humanitarian aid may be crates of supplies like food, water, and tents, distributing cash has become more common. It’s cheaper and faster to get into a country (and can even be distributed by phone now). It also gives recipients the autonomy to make their own purchasing decisions, and supports local and national economies.

Sometimes, a small startup grant (even as small as $100) is all it takes to help a family living below the poverty line to launch a new business while keeping on top of their bills and keeping their children fed. The net effect is that they are able to lift themselves out of poverty in a sustainable manner, like Stawa James in Malawi .

It’s a small step — but one that promises a ripple effect of change.

Solutions to Poverty in Action

How Village Savings and Loans Associations Are Beating Poverty Around the World

Climate Smart Agriculture: Back to the basics to fight climate change and hunger

Cash transfers, explained: A solution that beats poverty and stereotypes

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How to Cope with the Issues on Poverty and Unemployment

Last Updated: April 19, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Alex Kwan and by wikiHow staff writer, Kira Jan . Alex Kwan is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and the CEO of Flex Tax and Consulting Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has also served as a Vice President for one of the top five Private Equity Firms. With over a decade of experience practicing public accounting, he specializes in client-centered accounting and consulting, R&D tax services, and the small business sector. There are 32 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 79,777 times.

Unemployment and poverty are linked, since a lack of income makes it hard for people to make ends meet. What can communities and governments do to reduce poverty and unemployment? Whether you’re a student or an activist, we’ve outlined the top strategies and policies recommended by experts to help you understand these complex economic issues. The solutions fall into three major buckets–helping people become more employable, creating more jobs, and supporting governmental programs to stop the cycle of poverty.

Promote education for everyone.

• Donate to scholarship funds. For instance, you can donate to the Children’s Scholarship Fund to support K-8 education in the U.S. at https://scholarshipfund.org/
• Support afterschool tutoring programs and mentorship programs that connect students with caring adults. [5] X Trustworthy Source PubMed Central Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Go to source Visit https://secure.givelively.org/donate/afterschool-alliance to donate.
• Give money to funds that pay for transport to and from school. Search online to find local and state funds that support kids near you.

Make job training more accessible.

• Governments can provide federally-funded or state-funded job training programs. These are often run by state workforce development commissions.

Create microfinance programs.

• New studies on the impacts of microfinance question whether it’s a solution that truly benefits the poor. While it may help empower female entrepreneurs living in poverty, microfinance can potentially worsen overall debt. [13] X Research source

Increase jobs in labor-intensive industries.

• Economists find that employing more people (rather than using machines) doesn’t result in the huge drop in productivity you might imagine. [15] X Research source

To address poverty and unemployment, education, job training, microfinance, and counseling must combine with policy transformation. Safety nets must cover all while infrastructure and hiring incentives create good jobs. Healthcare access and affordability need improving too. With coordination across sectors, cycles trapping people in poverty can end.

Invest in infrastructure.

• Beyond just providing jobs, infrastructure development makes the economy more connected. When there’s more infrastructure, it’s easier for people to travel around in order to buy or sell goods and services.
• For instance, to help alleviate poverty and unemployment in the rural Philippines, better access to roads and the internet could help farmers sell their goods. [17] X Research source

Reduce barriers to unemployment insurance.

• Some states specify that only people with a certain work history length can receive unemployment benefits, and adjusting work history requirements could more people eligible. [20] X Research source
• States also could consider eliminating waiting periods for people to receive their unemployment insurance benefits. Currently, 42 states require people to wait 1 week to receive benefits. [21] X Research source
• To receive unemployment benefits, you have to prove you lost your job through no fault of your own. States might consider changing what qualifies as an “acceptable” cause of unemployment. [22] X Research source

Create affordable housing.

• For example, one region might say you have to be 50% below the median income for an area while another region might say you qualify if your income is 80% below the median income.

Ensure access to clean water and sanitation.

• Communities can improve access to water by helping people create water safety plans for keeping water contaminant-free and building water filtration systems and wells. [27] X Trustworthy Source World Health Organization Health information and news provided by the World Health Organization Go to source
• Visit The Water Project ( https://thewaterproject.org/ ) or Charity Water ( https://www.charitywater.org/ ) to donate and support bringing clean water to those in need.

Improve access to healthcare.

• On the provider level, doctors have to understand that patients in poverty might face greater obstacles to getting treatment.
• Patients in poverty may find medications too expensive, may lack transportation to get to the doctor’s office, and may not have a work schedule that lets them easily see a doctor. [29] X Trustworthy Source American Academy of Family Physicians Organization devoted to improving the health of patients, families, and communities Go to source

Offer counseling services to support families in poverty.

• Connect families in need to a Federally Qualified Health Center if they can’t afford to pay for psychological services. [32] X Research source

Increase access to financial services.

• For instance, creating free digital banking services can make it easy for people to access accounts. [34] X Research source
• In the U.S., predatory financial services, like high-cost mortgage firms, have historically targeted Black and Latino communities. Today, these communities are 30-86% more likely to be financially “underwater” as a result of high-cost mortgages. [35] X Research source

Support single-mother households.

• Support single mothers in your community by donating kids’ clothes and toys and contributing staples like canned goods to your local food bank. [37] X Research source
• If you know a single mother, offer to babysit, or carpool to school if you have kids of your own.
• In 2013, federal benefits reduced the poverty rate among single mothers by half.

Improve fairness in criminal justice systems.

• Incarceration negatively impacts communities of color more than white communities.
• Visit The Sentencing Project ( https://www.sentencingproject.org/actions/ ) to take action and connect with state and local partners working towards legal reform.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://en.unesco.org/news/world-poverty-could-be-cut-half-if-all-adults-completed-secondary-education
• ↑ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/education/
• ↑ https://educateachild.org/explore/barriers-to-education
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/
• ↑ Alex Kwan. Certified Public Accountant. Expert Interview. 23 April 2021.
• ↑ https://prospect.org/special-report/education-cure-poverty/
• ↑ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2018/02/22/447115/better-training-better-jobs/
• ↑ https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/august-2015/microfinance-good-poor
• ↑ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716640865
• ↑ https://www.un.org/development/desa/socialperspectiveondevelopment/issues/employment-and-decent-work.html
• ↑ https://ideas.repec.org/a/sls/ipmsls/v28y20154.html
• ↑ https://www.brookings.edu/research/expanding-opportunity-through-infrastructure-jobs/
• ↑ https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/02/06/na020620the-philippines-a-good-time-to-expand-the-infrastructure-push
• ↑ https://www.cbpp.org/research/introduction-to-unemployment-insurance
• ↑ https://www.urban.org/research/publication/how-does-unemployment-affect-family-arrangements-children
• ↑ https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/cares-act-measures-strengthening-unemployment-insurance-should-continue
• ↑ https://www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/coronavirus-booker-introduces-bill-to-get-unemployment-assistance-immediately-to-laid-off-workers
• ↑ https://www.wpr.org/evers-aims-increase-unemployment-benefits-lower-barriers
• ↑ https://archives.hud.gov/local/nv/goodstories/2006-04-06glos.cfm
• ↑ https://www.hud.gov/topics/rental_assistance/phprog
• ↑ https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1087682
• ↑ https://thewaterproject.org/why-water/poverty
• ↑ https://www.who.int/westernpacific/activities/improving-access-to-safe-water-sanitation-and-hygiene
• ↑ https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/health/brief/poverty-health
• ↑ https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/poverty-health.html
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525587/
• ↑ https://www.hrsa.gov/opa/eligibility-and-registration/health-centers/fqhc/index.html
• ↑ https://www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/BreakingTheCycle_0.pdf
• ↑ https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/financialinclusion/overview#2
• ↑ https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/renewing-communities-and-providing-opportunities-through-innovative-solutions-to-poverty/
• ↑ https://parents-together.org/11-realistic-ways-to-support-single-parents-during-the-covid-19-crisis/
• ↑ https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/incarceration-and-poverty-in-the-united-states/

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Poverty Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on poverty essay.

“Poverty is the worst form of violence”. – Mahatma Gandhi.

How Poverty is Measured?

For measuring poverty United nations have devised two measures of poverty – Absolute & relative poverty.  Absolute poverty is used to measure poverty in developing countries like India. Relative poverty is used to measure poverty in developed countries like the USA. In absolute poverty, a line based on the minimum level of income has been created & is called a poverty line.  If per day income of a family is below this level, then it is poor or below the poverty line. If per day income of a family is above this level, then it is non-poor or above the poverty line. In India, the new poverty line is  Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Causes of Poverty

According to the Noble prize winner South African leader, Nelson Mandela – “Poverty is not natural, it is manmade”. The above statement is true as the causes of poverty are generally man-made. There are various causes of poverty but the most important is population. Rising population is putting the burden on the resources & budget of countries. Governments are finding difficult to provide food, shelter & employment to the rising population.

The other causes are- lack of education, war, natural disaster, lack of employment, lack of infrastructure, political instability, etc. For instance- lack of employment opportunities makes a person jobless & he is not able to earn enough to fulfill the basic necessities of his family & becomes poor. Lack of education compels a person for less paying jobs & it makes him poorer. Lack of infrastructure means there are no industries, banks, etc. in a country resulting in lack of employment opportunities. Natural disasters like flood, earthquake also contribute to poverty.

In some countries, especially African countries like Somalia, a long period of civil war has made poverty widespread. This is because all the resources & money is being spent in war instead of public welfare. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. are prone to natural disasters like cyclone, etc. These disasters occur every year causing poverty to rise.

Ill Effects of Poverty

Poverty affects the life of a poor family. A poor person is not able to take proper food & nutrition &his capacity to work reduces. Reduced capacity to work further reduces his income, making him poorer. Children from poor family never get proper schooling & proper nutrition. They have to work to support their family & this destroys their childhood. Some of them may also involve in crimes like theft, murder, robbery, etc. A poor person remains uneducated & is forced to live under unhygienic conditions in slums. There are no proper sanitation & drinking water facility in slums & he falls ill often &  his health deteriorates. A poor person generally dies an early death. So, all social evils are related to poverty.

Government Schemes to Remove Poverty

The government of India also took several measures to eradicate poverty from India. Some of them are – creating employment opportunities , controlling population, etc. In India, about 60% of the population is still dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Government has taken certain measures to promote agriculture in India. The government constructed certain dams & canals in our country to provide easy availability of water for irrigation. Government has also taken steps for the cheap availability of seeds & farming equipment to promote agriculture. Government is also promoting farming of cash crops like cotton, instead of food crops. In cities, the government is promoting industrialization to create more jobs. Government has also opened  ‘Ration shops’. Other measures include providing free & compulsory education for children up to 14 years of age, scholarship to deserving students from a poor background, providing subsidized houses to poor people, etc.

Poverty is a social evil, we can also contribute to control it. For example- we can simply donate old clothes to poor people, we can also sponsor the education of a poor child or we can utilize our free time by teaching poor students. Remember before wasting food, somebody is still sleeping hungry.

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How to Stop Poverty: Seven Effective Actions

How to Stop Poverty

• Create Awareness Social media has become an integral part of daily life, and now is the time to use it as a voice of social good. Sharing links on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms will allow people to learn more about global poverty and will increase the general consciousness of the issue.
• Take Action on Your Own There are a few simple ways we can help as individuals, such as funding a poor child’s education or by sponsoring a poor family and influencing others to do so. Raising money and donating it to a nonprofit can help as well.
• Donate Donations can help in so many ways. They do not always have to take the form of money. This can include donating books to a poor child or buying groceries for a poor family for a week to help fight hunger . Donating old clothes, furniture and toiletries can also help improve the well-being of the poor.
• Eliminate Gender Inequality With two-thirds of the world’s illiterate being female, the ratio of boys and girls should be made equal in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Girls that attend school are less likely to get married before age 18, thus decreasing child marriage rates by 64 percent worldwide. Similarly, literate women are less likely to spread diseases like HIV/AIDS due to a better knowledge of disease transmission, which helps to accelerate poverty reduction in the long run.
• Create Jobs Worldwide According to the International Labour Organization , 197 million people are without work worldwide. More employment options in a country mean more ways of how to stop poverty. To increase employment, non-literate people can be taught a few skills to make them employable.
• Increase Access to Proper Sanitation and Clean Water Access to clean water and sanitation directly affects health and education. Currently, 800 million people live without access to safe water and 2.5 billion live without adequate sanitation. Dirty bathrooms keep girls from attending schools, thus stopping them from receiving an education. Lack of clean water spreads diseases like diarrhea and cholera , which take the lives of more than one million children each year.
• Educate Everyone Education helps increase individual earnings for every member of a family. UNESCO points out that basic reading skills can lift 171 million people out of extreme poverty, ultimately reducing the world’s total poverty by 12 percent. UNESCO also mentions there are currently about one billion illiterate adults in the world.

Above are a few solutions about how to stop poverty, but first, it is important to understand the roots of the problems that cause poverty. Since different countries have different reasons for poverty, there will never be a single solution for all. However, these seven actions can do a lot to alleviate poverty anywhere.

– Shweta Roy

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7 Ways You Can Help Fight Poverty in Your Community

• CommonBond Communities
• October 5, 2022

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, 7.8 million people have fallen into poverty—the biggest jump in a single year since the government began tracking poverty 60 years ago. It’s easy to think about poverty as a national crisis that is bigger than you, but there are actually lots of things you can do to influence this systemic problem right in your own community. CommonBond works to help fight poverty through housing in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Iowa, and we’ve outlined some examples of how you can help fight poverty in your community .

How to Help Poverty Issues in Your Community

1. challenge ideas and assumptions.

Whether you have preconceived notions about poverty within your community, or as a concept in general, it’s important to challenge those assumptions so you aren’t unintentionally spreading harmful biases. One common misconception, for example, is that people experiencing homelessness choose not to work. This misconception is incredibly harmful because it negates the many uncontrollable and systemic conditions that can cause housing instability or poverty. In reality, there are many factors people have to deal with that make it hard to find employment, including loss of affordable housing , inequitable access to training and tools, and mental illness.

If you recognize this myth, be sure to challenge it. Want to go a step further with how to help the poor and fight poverty in your community? Learn about the specific poverty issues your town or city faces; this will educate you on matters and enable you to apply context and critical thinking while pushing back against assumptions and myths.

2. Create awareness/get informed

Poverty is in every community, so it’s important to know where the issues lie within your own. Get informed about the resources that are already available and those that are still needed. There are local groups doing this work that could use your help—you can then do your part in getting the word out and listening to these community experts about where you can be helpful in fighting poverty in your community. A great resource in Minneapolis, for example, is the Twin Cities Mutual Aid Map . This map shows a myriad of organizations and mutual aid efforts around the Twin Cities area that are accepting donations or other resources.

3.  Donate funds and time & find volunteer opportunities

One of the most straightforward ways to help fight poverty in your community is to donate funds to organizations whose mission it is to end these economic disparities. No amount of money is too small or too large. As these donations add up, organizations can put the funds toward fixing housing inequalities, education gaps, food insecurities and more.

Another helpful option is to p artner with local organizations that help the community by donating time. Whether it’s helping out in a food kitchen or working with children after school to get their homework done, there are ways that don’t require money that can still make an impact. We’ve created a volunteer list that you can join to support our work, whether you’re in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, or Iowa.

Fighting Poverty in Your Community is as Simple as Donating a Few Dollars.

Donate Today!      

4. Make kits or fundraise for those experiencing homelessness in your neighborhood

In addition to donating time, you can also reach out to local organizational leaders to see what specifically folks who are experiencing poverty in their communities need. To ensure your donations have the most impact, listen to these community experts. Be sure to donate items that are specifically being asked for, not just what you have in your pantry! Use that info to create meal kits or baskets full of food or house cleaning products that will keep people stocked up on essentials for a while, and give it to local organizations and community experts to distribute.

Another option is to hold fundraisers. How about fighting poverty in your community by throwing a pizza party where the proceeds go to local shelters or other organizations that provide critical services? Get bigger local businesses to donate services for a silent auction. Doing fundraisers like this can be a fun way to bring people together for an important cause.

5. Attend demonstrations or rallies to increase awareness

Another way to create and increase awareness and help fight poverty in your community is to attend events like demonstrations and rallies. These may be block parties or parades or any other kind of peaceful event that will grab the community’s attention and turn it toward fighting against systemic poverty. There are organizations that regularly hold events that both raise awareness, as well as stand in solidarity with those affected by poverty—and by joining their work, you may learn how to be a better advocate.

6. Create jobs

If you own a business or an organization in the community, look for areas you could use some help with. Many people living in poverty may not have had access to higher education or specialty certifications, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have skills to contribute. Identifying areas of opportunities within your business or organization, expanding your recruiting pool, and paying a living wage is one way to make a change to help neighbors living in poverty in your community.

DONATE TODAY!

7. Provide paid leave and paid sick days

If you’re a business owner within your community, offer paid leave and paid sick days. Although it’s an investment for you, taking a day off every now and then without pay can seriously hurt some of your employees, especially if they’re under the poverty line. Your employees are going to get sick from time to time—let them rest easy by offering paid sick leave. For staff who are earning under the area median income, consider offering stipends for childcare, or even consider an on-site childcare option to create an environment where working families don’t have to choose between income and childcare.

CommonBond Can Help

Poverty affects more people than you think, and as you now know, there are many ways to help fight poverty in your community. Serving your community by donating time or money is a valuable way to get involved. Our team at CommonBond wants to help you in your fight, whether you’re in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, or Iowa. Get in touch to learn more about how to help the poor and fight poverty in your community today!

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How to Reduce Poverty Essay – 8 Ways to Solve Poverty

How to reduce poverty essay: Simply, poverty means the inability to access basic human needs such as water, food, shelter, security, and so on. But in the modern economic world, human trafficking, prostitution, child soldiers are also concerned as the people who live in poverty situations . So, nowadays poverty is called as wide range of areas instead of the basic needs. In this essay, we will discuss how to reduce poverty (solution to poverty essay)

You may interested into read more

5 Major Effects of Poverty

How to reduce poverty essay/ Solution to poverty essay

• Invest more on the education
• Increase the access for clean water and sanitation
• Empower the gender equality
• Improve the infrastructure in rural areas.
• Create job opportunities
• Provide financial support.
• Provide technological assistance
• Correctly measure poverty and increase awareness of global poverty

1. How to reduce poverty: Correctly measure poverty and increase awareness of global poverty

As the initial step to reduce poverty, we should correctly measure poverty and increase awareness of global poverty. This will help countries to understand their poverty level, compare the poverty level with other countries and reduce the poverty level. Also, these measurements will helpful to global financial institutions identify the most help-needed countries that should be supported.

World Bank has measured global poverty as the number of people who live under $1.9 per day. The following graph shows the percentage of the world population who live less than $1.9 per day.

According to the above graph global poverty has been decreasing. In the year 1981, 42.7 percent of people in the world have suffered from poverty. In the year 2017, it has been reduced up to 9.3 percent of the world population.

Next, “Our World in Data” organization has measured and graphed the Gini Index of the counties as follows.

(Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2013)

According to the above graph, most South American and African countries show the higher Gini Index value which presents higher poverty and economic inequality. On the other hand, most of the European countries, North American countries and, Australia show the lower Gini Index value which shows lower income inequality and poverty.

Next solution to poverty is invest more on the education

2. How to reduce poverty: Invest more on the education

Children who receive an education are given the knowledge and life skills necessary to reach their greatest potential. We can assist children in obtaining a high-quality education through educating teachers, constructing new schools, and removing obstacles that prevent many children from doing so.As an example, we can say, the village banking system of FINCA (Foundation for International Community Assistance) provides quality education.

3.How to reduce poverty: Increase the access for clean water and sanitation

Health is directly impacted by access to clean water and sanitation. At the moment, 800 million people lack access to clean water, and 2.5 billion lack sufficient sanitation. Girls are prevented from attending school due to filthy bathrooms, which prevents them from gaining an education. More than one million children die each year from diseases like diarrhea and cholera, which spread when there is a lack of safe water. As an example, we can say, the village banking system of FINCA (Foundation for International Community Assistance) provides clean energy, safety managed sanitation facilities to the poverty groups. By offering these facilities, they wish to improve the standards of living of poverty groups.

Next solution to poverty is empower the gender equality

4. How to reduce poverty: Empower the gender equality

With women making up two-thirds of the world’s illiterate. Therefore, it is important to equalize the number of boys and girls in primary, intermediate, and higher education. Girls who attend school are less likely to marry before turning 18, resulting in a 64 percent reduction in child marriage rates globally. Similar to this, literate women are less likely to spread diseases like HIV/AIDS because they have a better understanding of how diseases are transmitted, which in the long run speeds up the elimination of poverty.

5. How to reduce poverty: Improve the infrastructure in rural areas.

By improving infrastructure in rural areas, we can increase the health, education, sanitary facilities. So, they will be helpful to reduce poverty. The World Bank conducts a special program to reduce poverty which is called Guangxi Poverty Reduction Program. Under this program, the world bank work to improve the rural road infrastructure and drinking water supply.

6. How to reduce poverty: Create job opportunities

If you own a business or an organization in the community, look for areas you could use some help with. The fact that many persons in poverty may not have had access to advanced education or specialized certificates does not imply that they lack the abilities necessary to contribute. One method to affect change to assist neighbors living in poverty in your community is to broaden your recruiting pool, identify areas of opportunity within your business or group, and offer a decent wage.

N7th solution to poverty is provide financial support

7. How to reduce poverty: Provide financial support.

We can provide different types of financial assistance to lower-income countries and groups of people who feel in the poverty. As examples for some financial funds we can say, the PRGF (Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility) is provided by International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under the PRGF program, IMF provides financial support to the developing countries and countries in transition. Also, FINCA provides essential financial services and provides financial assistance to lower-income families.

8. How to reduce poverty: Provide technological assistance

By providing technological assistance economic growth can be increased. Because technological improvements are one of the determinants of economic growth. So, many global financial institutions provide technological assistance to developing countries to enhance their technology. As examples, we can say World Bank helps small-scale farmers to develop their skills under the Guangxi Poverty Reduction Program. This will help to reduce rural poverty. Because most rural people engage in agricultural-related economic activities. FINCA also has introduced a new financial technology (FinTech) under the program of the “FINCA Forward”. Because of this program, people can enjoy new facilities such as mobile financing when they transact with the FINCA microfinance branches. IMF also helps countries to strengthen their policymaking capacity by providing advice on institutional organizations and providing training to the officials.

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Five Easy Ways Students Can Help Reduce Poverty

Almost 24.3 percent of people in Pakistan live below the international poverty line of $1.90 a day, and the situation doesn’t appear to be getting better with each passing day. Although there are a number reasons that are said to be the basis of abject poverty, a lack of education of generations after generations is one of the key reasons. Now, the question is, how we, as students, can help to reduce poverty?

Education has a direct impact on the fortunes of an individual. It provides greater knowledge and learning to students to afford better paying jobs that help them and their households escape the clutches of poverty. On the contrary, a mason’s son that isn’t offered any education would continue to be a mason, never really amassing the means to turn his fortunes around.

Sadly, those living in conditions of extreme poverty sometimes cannot even afford the most meagre costs associated with the most inexpensive of educations; like those offered at public schools. It is, therefore, the collective responsibility of the community at large to step up efforts to help people living in such conditions gather the means to earn better livelihoods. And helping impoverished households afford education for their children is a great first step.

Considering that students are a vital force of bringing about changes in a society, we list five easy ways students can help reduce poverty and change the fate of millions who are less fortunate than us. On International Day For Eradication of Poverty 2018, it’s time to think beyond our immediate selves.

Volunteer To Teach

One of the simplest ways in which youngsters that have the gift of knowledge can give back to the community is by volunteering to teach at various charity-based schools. Entities like SOS Schools, Door of Awareness etc are doing a great job to impart education to the less privileged and students who already have knowledge under their belts can join hands with them to help the less fortunate. Various other NGOs such as Ocean Welfare Organization and Azad Foundation are working for the education of street children in Pakistan. Students can step in as volunteers and provide street children some of the knowledge that they have amassed during their academic journeys.

Pitch In Money To Buy School Supplies For Poor 

More often than not, poor people lack the resources and financial means for educating their children and are often hard pressed to afford stuff like uniforms and stationery items. For them, education really is an unaffordable luxury. But a little effort from students can help someone afford that luxury. Friends at universities or colleges can get together and create a pool with their pocket monies dedicated to helping such households afford education and related expenses for their children. It is a common issue that poor people just cannot continue the education of their children for want of expensive books and other stationery items and helping them in this respect can ensure that children do not drop of schools over such issues.

Help Fund Someone’s Vocational Training

A university or college education is certainly a costly affair and possibly outside the budget of even the most financially gifted students. However, vocational courses cost much less and friends can pool in to help someone attain skills’ training at such an institution. The training (electrician, cook, mechanic, tailor) received by a sponsored student can up his chances of making a decent livelihood that is both well-paying and sustainable, compare to something like day labouring.

Come Together To Teach Unprivileged Children At Home

If you are still thinking about your budgetary constraints, you can always find a way to help the poor with education from within the comfort of your house. You and your friends can schedule some time to teach poor children from the neighbourhood who otherwise cannot afford education. You can also teach and educate people working at your house, like maids, servants, domestic help etc. If all else seems undoable, you can surely help the children of your helpers to understand the coursework they are taught at their individual schools.  

Gather Friends To Sponsor A Child’s Education 

Even greater would be if a group of friends collectively sponsors a child’s education. Say a fee of Rs 2,000 for a child divided among 10 friends would hardly dent the budget of those students. However, it could be the difference between a lifetime of poverty and a shot at a better life for someone in need.

Numerous NGO’s such as the Citizen’s Foundation organize donation drives for underprivileged children on a monthly basis. They sponsor their education and make them a responsible member of the society. You can either register yourself for such projects or can initiate individual efforts. You can collect money on a monthly basis from your friends and family and can support a child’s education at a local school or college.

Have more ideas about how students and young people can contribute to reduce poverty and making Pakistan a better place through education? Share your thoughts with us.

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5 ways businesses can help to alleviate poverty

Businesses can help alleviate poverty by enabling people to access the skills and capabilities to make a living. Image:  Pexels/Precious Vietnam

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Vivek soundararajan.

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• Businesses are sometimes accused of creating poverty, but they can also play a crucial role in helping to alleviate it.
• Our recent research shows there are five key drivers organizations can use to help tackle poverty around the world.
• Many of these concepts are already being deployed successfully in countries in Africa and Asia.

At least 1.1 billion people globally are currently experiencing poverty, many in low- and middle-income countries. Recent research suggests such deprivation is often caused by a significant lack of resources, opportunities and capabilities such as a lack of employment or property rights, few or no assets, social exclusion and inadequate skills for employment.

As such, for-profit businesses can – and should – play a central role in efforts to alleviate poverty. But it’s important to recognise that, even as these organizations are trying to alleviate poverty, they could also be aggravating it by preventing people from participating in markets – for example, when they pay unfair wages, hinder self-employment or perpetuate marginalization.

Our recent research delves into how organizations have been engaging with poverty over the last 40 years to determine how market-based economies can become fairer for all. There are five main drivers that for-profit organizations can use to help alleviate poverty.

1. Creating a digital identity

Under the Aadhaar scheme in India , people are given a unique 12-digit digital identity that is linked to their biometrics. They can use it to open bank accounts and receive digital payments, or to get access to government services, or even receive credit on more favorable terms. This is because the ID creates a digital audit trail, which can also help people who might be working in jobs in the informal economy .

By accepting and even supporting the development of this kind of proof of identity, organizations can help low- or no-income people to participate in markets such as financial services or to enter the labour force.

2. Preventing illegitimate work practices

While organizations can help to alleviate poverty, it is also sometimes important to shield impoverished populations from illegitimate or influential entities that might stop them from earning a living in certain industries.

For instance, a study of waste pickers in Colombia found that the power hegemony of elites such as private companies, local authorities and media negatively affected the waste pickers. They were barred from access to waste, offered empty promises by local authorities, and had their voices silenced by the media and private companies when they tried to speak out about this lack of market access.

In such instances, it’s important to provide less powerful people – whether they are workers or customers – with regulatory support using local or international frameworks or agreements. An example of this is the agreement between the global banana giant Chiquita and the Latin-American Coordination of Banana Workers Unions (COLSIBA), struck in 2001. This was a first-of-its-kind international framework agreement for the agriculture industry and it aims to ensure minimum labour standards, adherence to national laws and regulations, and continuous monitoring of the agreement's terms.

Another example is the Dindigul agreement signed in 2022 in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India. This saw worker-led unions, textile mills and multinational organizations agree to work to end gender-based harassment in factories. It focused on measures such as enabling collective action, adopting global standards and establishing protections against discrimination.

3. Providing collective safety nets

In sub-Saharan Africa, Ubuntu (sometimes translated as "humanity towards others") is a cultural characteristic that promotes community, creates solidarity among different groups and models humane leadership qualities. Organizations can work with community leaders to draw on such indigenous cultural values to overcome issues of corruption, violence and tribalism. This is important because societal inequalities and inter-group differences rooted in race or gender, for example, can stymie organizational poverty alleviation efforts.

Successful examples of this can be seen within the microfinance industry of some developing economies , where loans have been offered to self-help groups with great success. These self-help groups typically comprise women with strong social bonds, which instills elements of both peer support and peer-led discipline when it comes to the use and the repayment of these loans.

4. Thinking local

Similarly, organizations can integrate efforts to alleviate poverty into the local cultural fabric, using indigenous knowledge systems to help them to succeed. This could foster trust and reciprocity, mitigate information gaps and create more certainty for people engaging with these efforts.

Even when the benefits of a poverty alleviation scheme or intervention might be obvious, some communities might be less likely to participate if it is not sufficiently embedded within their local culture and ecosystems. For instance, even though the benefits of clean, efficient cookstoves are obvious, adoption has been poor in Guatemala because the use of these stoves goes against local social and cultural customs.

On the other hand, the tribal entrepreneurship efforts of Indian sustainable development group Shivganga Jhabua are based on forest-based produce and wood crafts. Similarly, the Beggars Corporation in the Indian city of Varanasi trains people who would otherwise be begging on the streets to become entrepreneurs and also provides support for them to sell their products and services. These entrepreneurs produce bags made of discarded locally-produced Banarasi silk patches, for example, or offer religious services linked to a local Hindu temple.

5. Creating partnerships

Collaborating with a range of stakeholders is vital, particularly when organizations lack the necessary capabilities for poverty alleviation. Government and civil society organizations can extend the reach of these initiatives, for example by enhancing local services or tailoring products to local needs. They might also help reduce programme costs by engaging closely with impoverished communities.

For example, organizations that receive support from India's Universal Service Obligation Fund – which provides affordable, quality mobile and digital services in remote areas – can access benefits such as cost recovery, subsidies and market exclusivity through government partnerships. Similarly, large multinationals like Danone, Essilor and Renault have partnered with governments, NGOs and social enterprises to form the Action Tank – a non-profit association that aims to tackle poverty in France.

Have you read?

How microlending for women can address the gender gap and help alleviate global poverty, why alleviating poverty and fighting climate change don't have to be mutually exclusive goals, bangladesh's leap from poverty to textile powerhouse offers lessons for countries in africa.

By understanding these drivers, businesses can help to create more successful ways to alleviate poverty, as management and entrepreneurs refine how they approach this crucial issue. It is only by fully recognising the role businesses play in both alleviating – but also aggravating – poverty that we can spark the important policy discussions and changes that will encourage a shift in how companies and governments think and act when trying to alleviate poverty.

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What is climate change mitigation and why is it urgent?

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• Climate change mitigation involves actions to reduce or prevent greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
• Mitigation efforts include transitioning to renewable energy sources, enhancing energy efficiency, adopting regenerative agricultural practices and protecting and restoring forests and critical ecosystems.
• Effective mitigation requires a whole-of-society approach and structural transformations to reduce emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
• International cooperation, for example through the Paris Agreement, is crucial in guiding and achieving global and national mitigation goals.
• Mitigation efforts face challenges such as the world's deep-rooted dependency on fossil fuels, the increased demand for new mineral resources and the difficulties in revamping our food systems.
• These challenges also offer opportunities to improve resilience and contribute to sustainable development.

What is climate change mitigation?

Climate change mitigation refers to any action taken by governments, businesses or people to reduce or prevent greenhouse gases, or to enhance carbon sinks that remove them from the atmosphere. These gases trap heat from the sun in our planet’s atmosphere, keeping it warm. 

Since the industrial era began, human activities have led to the release of dangerous levels of greenhouse gases, causing global warming and climate change. However, despite unequivocal research about the impact of our activities on the planet’s climate and growing awareness of the severe danger climate change poses to our societies, greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. If we can slow down the rise in greenhouse gases, we can slow down the pace of climate change and avoid its worst consequences.

Reducing greenhouse gases can be achieved by:

• Shifting away from fossil fuels : Fossil fuels are the biggest source of greenhouse gases, so transitioning to modern renewable energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power, and advancing sustainable modes of transportation, is crucial.
• Improving energy efficiency : Using less energy overall – in buildings, industries, public and private spaces, energy generation and transmission, and transportation – helps reduce emissions. This can be achieved by using thermal comfort standards, better insulation and energy efficient appliances, and by improving building design, energy transmission systems and vehicles.
• Changing agricultural practices : Certain farming methods release high amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, which are potent greenhouse gases. Regenerative agricultural practices – including enhancing soil health, reducing livestock-related emissions, direct seeding techniques and using cover crops – support mitigation, improve resilience and decrease the cost burden on farmers.
• The sustainable management and conservation of forests : Forests act as carbon sinks , absorbing carbon dioxide and reducing the overall concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Measures to reduce deforestation and forest degradation are key for climate mitigation and generate multiple additional benefits such as biodiversity conservation and improved water cycles.
• Restoring and conserving critical ecosystems : In addition to forests, ecosystems such as wetlands, peatlands, and grasslands, as well as coastal biomes such as mangrove forests, also contribute significantly to carbon sequestration, while supporting biodiversity and enhancing climate resilience.
• Creating a supportive environment : Investments, policies and regulations that encourage emission reductions, such as incentives, carbon pricing and limits on emissions from key sectors are crucial to driving climate change mitigation.

Photo: Stephane Bellerose/UNDP Mauritius

Photo: La Incre and Lizeth Jurado/PROAmazonia

What is the 1.5°C goal and why do we need to stick to it?

In 2015, 196 Parties to the UN Climate Convention in Paris adopted the Paris Agreement , a landmark international treaty, aimed at curbing global warming and addressing the effects of climate change. Its core ambition is to cap the rise in global average temperatures to well below 2°C above levels observed prior to the industrial era, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

The 1.5°C goal is extremely important, especially for vulnerable communities already experiencing severe climate change impacts. Limiting warming below 1.5°C will translate into less extreme weather events and sea level rise, less stress on food production and water access, less biodiversity and ecosystem loss, and a lower chance of irreversible climate consequences.

To limit global warming to the critical threshold of 1.5°C, it is imperative for the world to undertake significant mitigation action. This requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent before 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century.

What are the policy instruments that countries can use to drive mitigation?

Everyone has a role to play in climate change mitigation, from individuals adopting sustainable habits and advocating for change to governments implementing regulations, providing incentives and facilitating investments. The private sector, particularly those businesses and companies responsible for causing high emissions, should take a leading role in innovating, funding and driving climate change mitigation solutions. 

International collaboration and technology transfer is also crucial given the global nature and size of the challenge. As the main platform for international cooperation on climate action, the Paris Agreement has set forth a series of responsibilities and policy tools for its signatories. One of the primary instruments for achieving the goals of the treaty is Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) . These are the national climate pledges that each Party is required to develop and update every five years. NDCs articulate how each country will contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhance climate resilience.   While NDCs include short- to medium-term targets, long-term low emission development strategies (LT-LEDS) are policy tools under the Paris Agreement through which countries must show how they plan to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century. These strategies define a long-term vision that gives coherence and direction to shorter-term national climate targets.

Photo: Mucyo Serge/UNDP Rwanda

Photo: William Seal/UNDP Sudan

At the same time, the call for climate change mitigation has evolved into a call for reparative action, where high-income countries are urged to rectify past and ongoing contributions to the climate crisis. This approach reflects the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which advocates for climate justice, recognizing the unequal historical responsibility for the climate crisis, emphasizing that wealthier countries, having profited from high-emission activities, bear a greater obligation to lead in mitigating these impacts. This includes not only reducing their own emissions, but also supporting vulnerable countries in their transition to low-emission development pathways.

Another critical aspect is ensuring a just transition for workers and communities that depend on the fossil fuel industry and its many connected industries. This process must prioritize social equity and create alternative employment opportunities as part of the shift towards renewable energy and more sustainable practices.

For emerging economies, innovation and advancements in technology have now demonstrated that robust economic growth can be achieved with clean, sustainable energy sources. By integrating renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind and geothermal power into their growth strategies, these economies can reduce their emissions, enhance energy security and create new economic opportunities and jobs. This shift not only contributes to global mitigation efforts but also sets a precedent for sustainable development.

What are some of the challenges slowing down climate change mitigation efforts?

Mitigating climate change is fraught with complexities, including the global economy's deep-rooted dependency on fossil fuels and the accompanying challenge of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. This reliance – and the vested interests that have a stake in maintaining it – presents a significant barrier to transitioning to sustainable energy sources.

The shift towards decarbonization and renewable energy is driving increased demand for critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth metals. Since new mining projects can take up to 15 years to yield output, mineral supply chains could become a bottleneck for decarbonization efforts. In addition, these minerals are predominantly found in a few, mostly low-income countries, which could heighten supply chain vulnerabilities and geopolitical tensions.

Furthermore, due to the significant demand for these minerals and the urgency of the energy transition, the scaled-up investment in the sector has the potential to exacerbate environmental degradation, economic and governance risks, and social inequalities, affecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and workers. Addressing these concerns necessitates implementing social and environmental safeguards, embracing circular economy principles, and establishing and enforcing responsible policies and regulations .

Agriculture is currently the largest driver of deforestation worldwide. A transformation in our food systems to reverse the impact that agriculture has on forests and biodiversity is undoubtedly a complex challenge. But it is also an important opportunity. The latest IPCC report highlights that adaptation and mitigation options related to land, water and food offer the greatest potential in responding to the climate crisis. Shifting to regenerative agricultural practices will not only ensure a healthy, fair and stable food supply for the world’s population, but also help to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

Photo: UNDP India

Photo: Nino Zedginidze/UNDP Georgia

What are some examples of climate change mitigation?

In Mauritius , UNDP, with funding from the Green Climate Fund, has supported the government to install battery energy storage capacity that has enabled 50 MW of intermittent renewable energy to be connected to the grid, helping to avoid 81,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. 

In Indonesia , UNDP has been working with the government for over a decade to support sustainable palm oil production. In 2019, the country adopted a National Action Plan on Sustainable Palm Oil, which was collaboratively developed by government, industry and civil society representatives. The plan increased the adoption of practices to minimize the adverse social and environmental effects of palm oil production and to protect forests. Since 2015, 37 million tonnes of direct greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided and 824,000 hectares of land with high conservation value have been protected.

In Moldova and Paraguay , UNDP has helped set up Green City Labs that are helping build more sustainable cities. This is achieved by implementing urban land use and mobility planning, prioritizing energy efficiency in residential buildings, introducing low-carbon public transport, implementing resource-efficient waste management, and switching to renewable energy sources. 

UNDP has supported the governments of Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Indonesia to implement results-based payments through the REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) framework. These include payments for environmental services and community forest management programmes that channel international climate finance resources to local actors on the ground, specifically forest communities and Indigenous Peoples. 

UNDP is also supporting small island developing states like the Comoros to invest in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. Through the Africa Minigrids Program , solar minigrids will be installed in two priority communities, Grand Comore and Moheli, providing energy access through distributed renewable energy solutions to those hardest to reach.

And in South Africa , a UNDP initative to boost energy efficiency awareness among the general population and improve labelling standards has taken over commercial shopping malls.

What is UNDP’s role in supporting climate change mitigation?

UNDP aims to assist countries with their climate change mitigation efforts, guiding them towards sustainable, low-carbon and climate-resilient development. This support is in line with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to affordable and clean energy (SDG7), sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), and climate action (SDG13). Specifically, UNDP’s offer of support includes developing and improving legislation and policy, standards and regulations, capacity building, knowledge dissemination, and financial mobilization for countries to pilot and scale-up mitigation solutions such as renewable energy projects, energy efficiency initiatives and sustainable land-use practices. 

With financial support from the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund, UNDP has an active portfolio of 94 climate change mitigation projects in 69 countries. These initiatives are not only aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also at contributing to sustainable and resilient development pathways.

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