Lecture 5: Poverty

Question 1

Poverty relief

Answer 1

addresses the poor’s survival needs and immediate problems.

Short term gain

Question 2

Poverty reduction

Answer 2

is the process by which the causes of deprivation and inequality, and root causes of poverty and addressed.

adopt a multi-level poverty reduction strategy with multiple stakeholders.

Question 3

Examples of poverty reduction

Answer 3

Technical and financial aid provided for development

Food security initiatives

Social welfare programs

Strengthening educational and occupational opportunities

Access to vaccinations and medications

Supporting local businesses

Question 4

Strategies of poverty reduction

Answer 4

-Collaboration between rich and poor countries
• Well-governed, politically organized developing countries get far too little help/donor aid

-Identify poor nations priorities for research/development
• Translating ideas and policies into practice

-Learn what the country needs in foreign assistance
• Promoting a bottom-up approach (determining what they actually need then going out and getting X amount of money)

-Education as a driver for economic growth
• Improving educational and employment opportunities

-Realistic portrait of what poor countries can pay for
• Dropping user fees, pro-poor spending
-Poor countries should adopt a poverty reduction strategy

Question 5

Poverty and long-term sustainable change

Answer 5

-harmonization of aid (or multilateral aid)
o refers to the idea that various aid agencies should pool their moneys at a reputable organization then they delicate the funds on the ground
o helps to make things more transparent

-decentralization of investments
o aid should be distributed across numerous cities villages regions in a particular country or poor nation
o poor nations themselves should have a say in this
o allowing benefit of aid to expand outside of big cities

-operational cost
o donors won’t take into consideration operational and repair and maintenance costs that are required for long term success

-capacity-building
o training everyone on every level to build capacity
-improving information technologies and transmission

• enable poor countries to response to climate changes
• reduce barriers to global trade
• strategies to monitor and evaluate aid flow/use

Question 6

PRSP

Answer 6

• poverty reduction strategy papers
• successful plans to fight poverty require country ownership and broad-based support from the public in order to succeed.
• Contains as assessment of poverty and describes the macroeconomic, structural and social polices and programs that a country will pursue over several years to promote growth and reduce poverty as well as external financing needs and the associated sources of financing

Question 7

Five core principals of the PRSP

Answer 7

1. Country driven: promoting national ownership of strategies through broad-based participation of civil society
2. Result-oriented: focusing on outcomes that will benefit the poor
3. Comprehensive: recognizing the multidimensional nature of poverty
4. Partnership oriented: involving coordinated participation of development partners
5. Long-term perspective for poverty reduction