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POVERTY ERADICATION -preliminary words
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Summit's Declaration and Programme of Action
"Poverty Eradication: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies"
The World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen from 6
to 12 March 1995
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
OVERVIEW
POVERTY ERADICATION: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies.
I. A NEW FOCUS OF DEVELOPMENT
II. POLICY PRIORITIES
i. Creating an enabling environment for people-centered development
ii. Empowering all people for self-reliance
iii. Promoting broad-based and equitable growth
iv. Enhancing household food security
v. Improving access to basic infrastructure and social services
vi. Promoting job creation and sustainable livelihoods
vii. Ensuring equitable access to credit and productive assets
viii. Expanding social protection for vulnerable people
ix. Promoting gender equity and the full participation of women in
society
x. Preserving, maintaining and regenerating the natural resource
base
III. PRIORITY ACTIONS
IV. EXTERNAL SUPPORT
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ANNEX 1
Manila Declaration and Agenda for Action on Social Development in
the ESCAP Region
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ANNEX 2
Global targets on priority human needs
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ANNEX 3
References to debt relief, 20/20 initiative and ODA targets in the
Copenhagen documents
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WORLD ALLIANCE OF CITIES AGAINST POVERTY
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POVERTY ERRADICATION -preliminary words
"At its core, development must be about improvement of human well
being; removal of hunger, disease and ignorance; and productive
employment for all. Its first goal must be to end poverty and
satisfy the priority needs of all people in a way that can be
productively sustained over future generations."
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
United Nations Secretary-General
An Agenda for Development, February 1995
"Within the sustainable human development framework, we must give
top priority to the eradication of poverty. Of our four goals, it
is listed first for a reason. Let us make it clear that UNDP is the
UN's anti-poverty organization -- a world partnership against
poverty."
James Gustave Speth
Administrator
April 1995
Over the past 30 years, developing countries have made remarkable
progress in raising average incomes, reducing infant mortality,
increasing life expectancy and boosting adult literacy. The 1994
Human Deve- lopment Report, produced for UNDP by an independent
team of development consultants, notes that while about 73 per cent
of the world's population was ranked as having low human
development in 1960, by 1990 that figure had shrunk to 35 per cent.
But despite these achievements, poverty remains a paramount
challenge for national governments, as well as for the
international development community. In all developing regions
except East Asia, the number of poor people has been rising since
the 1980s. Today, more than one out of five people around the world
are living in conditions of extreme poverty, on little more than
US$1.00 a day.
Failure to diminish poverty has become a threat to all countries,
rich and poor. As Mahbub ul Haq, Special Adviser to the UNDP
Administrator and architect of the Human Development Report has put
it, "Poverty is no longer contained within national boundaries. It
has become globalized. It travels across borders, without a
passport, in the form of drugs, diseases, pollution, migration,
terrorism and political instability."
Poverty's complex nature
Poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon resulting
from deeply imbedded structural imbalances in all realms of human
existence the state, the economy, society, culture and the
environment. More often than not, people in poverty are
malnourished and have inadequate shelter. With little or no access
to basic social services, they do not enjoy good health and are
poorly educated.
But poverty entails far more than lack of income sufficient to
cover subsistence needs. Deprived of equitable access to markets
and institutions, people in poverty suffer from marginalization and
social exclusion. Poverty also reflects the lack of political clout
among those whom it affects -- a power gap that keeps people living
in poverty isolated, vulnerable and unable to lift themselves out
of their situation.
Securing a decent livelihood for people living in poverty requires
attacking the many interrelated forces that conspire to keep them
in a state of deprivation. Above all, it requires expanding
people's access to participation in decision-making and to
knowledge, training and markets and other productive resources for
income generation such as land, technology, credit and information.
UNDP's new approach
Improving the living standards of people in developing countries,
especially the most deprived groups, has always been a main goal of
UNDP technical cooperation. Projects focusing on rural development,
credit, micro-enterprise promotion and basic needs have
traditionally enabled many to better their lives. In the 1990s,
poverty alleviation has become a top UNDP priority, featured in the
vast majority of the fifth cycle (1992-1996) country programmes and
continuing to grow in importance.
The programmes UNDP supports build national capacities and
facilitate countries' own efforts for overcoming poverty. First
and foremost they aim to assist governments and organizations of
civil society in developing economic and social policies and
programmes that benefit people living in poverty. People-centred,
they address the whole range of factors contributing to poverty,
seeking to increase food security; improve the availability and
quality of shelter and basic services; generate opportunities for
employment and sustainable livelihoods; empower women and men
through access to assets and productive resources such as land,
credit, technology, training and markets; and enable people to
participate in the political forces that shape their lives.
Emphasis is on:
multi-sectoral approaches, in line with the growing acceptance of
poverty as a multi-dimensional problem. The focus is on activities
that link relief to development, seeking to improve people's
capacity for self-reliance by expanding their access to
decision-making, markets and services. Integrated area-based
programmes are already having a positive impact in Central American
nations, Sudan and Cambodia.
strengthening national abilities for data-gathering and analysis
of poverty indicators (as a first step for effective policy
design), and for conducting poverty assessment studies and
developing comprehensive, country-wide macro-level anti-poverty
strategies. This is being done in countries including Burkina Faso,
The Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines and
Zimbabwe.
community participation. Bottom-up planning is encouraged by
involving target groups in all stages of programmes they themselves
identify, by support for the decentralization of authority, and by
strengthening the links between grassroots communities and local
government agencies. UNDP-supported small-grants programmes such as
Partners in Development, Local Initiative Facility for Urban
Environment and Africa 2000 encourage local decision-making,
strengthen the institutional capacity of community groups and NGOs
and promote networking between them and government agencies.
ensuring sustainability. Moving away from earlier emphasis on the
direct provision of services to poor communities, UNDP is improving
the abilities of public sector and local institutions to provide
such services on a sustained basis. A deliberate effort is made to
widen the range of development partners by involving both
government institutions and organizations of civil society in
policy dialogue and programme execution.
regional actions, ranging from policy advocacy on major issues
such as the effects of structural adjustment on people living in
poverty, to region-wide consensus-building for poverty eradication
and human development, and to the exchange and dissemination of
information on innovative approaches to poverty alleviation.
strengthening cooperation with other UN organizations, to ensure
coordinated approaches and a sharing of resources for poverty
reduction programmes.
sustainable livelihoods. UNDP has expanded its concern with jobs
and income to include the broader concepts of sustainable
livelihoods and people's empowerment. People, not goods, must be at
the centre of all development efforts. The ultimate goal of
development is not merely to raise average incomes, but to enlarge
people's choices and opportunities to lead creative and productive
lives through freely chosen employment and freedom from want. This
implies development that ensures sustainable use of natural
resources; that addresses the special needs and utilizes the
untapped potentials of women; that recognizes the need for people
living in poverty to participate in governance and decisions that
affect their lives; and that shows concern for basic human rights,
legal protection and public safety while respecting cultural
diversity and human dignity.
This message is at the heart of UNDP's policy dialogue with
governments that request assistance in identifying the root causes
of poverty, formulating national anti-poverty strategies and
programmes and integrating them into overall economic and social
policy and planning. UNDP also helps interested countries mobilize
technical and financial resources for such programmes and promotes
the exchange of their experiences.
Support for national efforts
A regional project on critical poverty in Latin America and the
Caribbean UNDP launched in 1986 helped to place poverty high on the
region's development agenda. It analyzed the impact of debt and
adjustment on living conditions; developed methodologies for
measuring poverty and its changes over time; compiled and updated
detailed information on poverty trends; and proposed a number of
policy options to deal selectively with differ-ent categories of
people living in poverty. Building upon this initiative, UNDP and
the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) are further analyzing
poverty alleviation and social development programmes and their
relationship to economic development. A February 1993 Social Forum
brought together minsters of finance, planning, social affairs and
other sectors with a wide range of civil society representatives to
discuss experiences to-date. The meeting's report, Social Reform
and Poverty: Towards a Comprehensive Agenda for Development,
resulted in the IDB Governing Board's approving new targets for
social sector lending and setting the stage for joint UNDP-IDB
social development programming.
In Sri Lanka the Janasaviya Trust Fund (JTF), one of the country's
most prominent NGO support organizations, is a key instrument of
the government's anti-poverty strategy. An $87 million project
funded by the World Bank, the government and Germany aims to build
the capacity of the JTF to support NGO partner organizations as
they deliver credit, training and other services to people living
in poverty, and to enable the NGOs themselves to operate more
efficiently. UNDP funds technical assistance for the project,
supplementing this with support for an Employment and Poverty
Policy Unit in Sri Lanka's Ministry of Policy Planning and
Implementation.
In just six years, Mongolia's Poverty Alleviation Programme aims to
reduce the number of people living in poverty from 26.5 per cent to
10 per cent or less. Its focus is on policy management and
institutional strengthening; economic growth and employment
promotion; protection of human capital (for example, through better
access to health care and education); improving living conditions
for women and rural residents and strengthening the social safety
net.
Area Development Schemes (ADS), based on a participatory and
environmentally sustainable approach to the eradication of poverty
are being carried out in five drought-prone rural areas of Sudan.
Developed with several other UN agencies, the schemes have
benefitted about half a million people in 2000 of the country's
poorest villages. Participants have been mobilized, organised and
trained to select, implement and manage activities through Village
Development Committees, over 30 per cent of whose members are
women. Credit comes from revolving funds jointly financed by the
communities and UNDP. Fields covered include agriculture,
afforestation, water supply, handicrafts, small-scale industry, and
other income generating pursuits. A share of profits is used to
meet community health and education needs. The programme offers
useful lessons in how to move from relief to development.
In Malawi UNDP, with other UN partners, succeeded in building
strong commitment to poverty alleviation within the new government.
This was achieved through a UNDP-supported analysis of the national
poverty situation that included proposals for redressing negative
social sector trends. The entire UNDP country programme is now
devoted to poverty alleviation, which has become a key national
development objective.
A statistical study in Indonesia covered social conditions in 27
provinces where more than 35 million people live in poverty. The
data it provided on the nature and incidence of poverty, and levels
and trends in social development over two decades, is being used by
the government to develop a comprehensive programme for poverty
elimination.
With UNDP's facilitation and support, District Development
Committees in Nepal are enabling rural people living in poverty to
set their own development agenda. For example, employment
generating activities targeted to women are now linked to the rural
credit initiatives of commercial banks, while local communities
ensure that small grants from the Global Environment Facility
protect and regenerate the local environment.
In Mozambique a recently approved pilot project focusing on the
transition from reconstruction to sustainable rural development
will be implemented in nine communities in three provinces. It will
assist these communities in preparing and implementing small-scale
projects that respond to community-identified priorities by
promoting village organization and providing technical and
financial assistance to a district Micro-Projects Fund. This is
expected to lead to sustainable income-earning activities.
Social Summit follow-up
Poverty was one of the main themes of the World Summit for Social
Development (WSSD) (Copenhagen, March 1995). (The others were the
related issues of employment and social integration.) In
cooperation with its development partners, UNDP contributed to
preparations for the Summit by:
bringing additional depth to the debate on the Summit's three
themes through collaborative research and the funding of
publications on employment, social exclusion, poverty and
sustainable livelihoods, human security and innovative financing
mechanisms;
sponsoring and participating in a variety of fora where poverty
and the other WSSD issues were discussed, including a Mayors'
Colloquium and meetings of the Overseas Development Council, the
Business Council and the UN Development Studies Programme;
assisting in disseminating information and broadening the
participative involvement of the general public in discussion of
WSSD themes through use of electronic communication networks such
as INTERNET;
supporting national NGO participation in preparations for the
Summit; and
contributing to governments' efforts to focus concretely on issues
central to the Summit through assistance to their operational
programmes in related areas.
The Summit's Declaration and Programme of Action present a unique
opportunity not only for reinforcing the importance of poverty
elimination and social development within countries' overall
development efforts, but for increasing the effectiveness of the
support they receive from the UN development system in these areas.
The Programme of Action calls upon UNDP specifically "to undertake
efforts to support the implementation of social development
programmes, taking into account specific needs of countries in
transition." It also states that UNDP "should organize United
Nations system efforts towards capacity-building at the local,
national and regional levels and support the coordinated
implementation of social development programmes through its network
of field offices."
As part of its strategy for implementing the Copenhagen Programme
of Action, UNDP is now helping countries broaden their thinking and
operational approaches to issues of poverty by giving more emphasis
to the relationship between poverty and equity. Recognizing that
countries' policies and programmes must be diverse and
cross-sectoral and that no single UN agency can cover the
corresponding support requirements UNDP is working to:
facilitate better coordination among UN development system
partners, among other things, by working closely with them to
develop a unified inter-agency approach to follow-up on the Social
Summit and on the other major UN conferences of the mid-1990s
(e.g., on population and development, women and shelter). UNDP is
uniquely qualified for this coordinating role thanks to its broad
development mandate, cooperation with 175 programme countries and
territories and focus on capacity-building. In addition, UNDP
Resident Representatives normally also serve as Resident
Coordinators of UN operational assistance for development in their
countries of assignment, and the UN Secretary General has requested
the UNDP Administrator to assist him in improving overall
coordination of UN operational activities for development;
support specific operational activities across a broad range of
issues affecting poverty. Here, based on its extensive operational
experience and years of collaboration with virtually all of the UN
development agencies, UNDP engages in policy dialogue with
governments, and assists them in developing integrated,
multi-sectoral approaches to poverty elimination. These start with
the empowerment of people and the creation of an enabling
environment through sound governance in partnership with civil
society.
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Summit's Declaration and Programme of Action
"Poverty Eradication: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies"
PREFACE
The World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen from 6
to 12 March 1995, represents a landmark achievement for
people-centered sustainable development. Three core themes were
addressed at the Summit: the eradication of poverty, the expansion
of productive employment and the reduction of unemployment, and the
promotion of social integration.
The Social Summit was the culmination of a series of global
conferences and summits on social issues sponsored by the United
Nations. Together, these conferences and summits have helped define
the critical components of a new development agenda for the coming
decades, one that places people and societies at the centre of the
policy-making process. The commitments and recommendations
contained in the WSSD Declaration and Programme of Action were
endorsed by the Heads of State and senior leaders of over 180
countries. Hundreds of NGOs and organizations of civil society also
participated and helped shape the Copenhagen agreements.
In fact, the Copenhagen agreements represent the largest
international consensus ever achieved on key social development
priorities at such a high political level. The challenge for all
development actors now is to implement the principles and
recommendations agreed upon at Copenhagen. In particular,
governments committed themselves to the goal of eradicating poverty
"as an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of
humankind", by ensuring that "people living in poverty have access
to productive resources, including credit, land, education and
training, technology, knowledge and information, and to public
services". They pledged, furthermore, to "formulate or strengthen,
as a matter of urgency, and preferably by the year 1996, the
International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, national
policies and strategies geared to substantially reducing overall
poverty in the shortest time possible, to reducing inequalities,
and to eradicating absolute poverty by a target date to be
specified by each country in its national context, [and] to ensure
that national budgets and policies are oriented, as necessary, to
meeting basic needs, reducing inequalities and targeting poverty,
as a strategic objective."
The critical importance of poverty eradication for people-centered
sustainable development has also been recognized by the UN General
Assembly, which proclaimed 1996 the International Year for the
Eradication of Poverty. The IYEP will serve as the starting point
of the first UN decade on this theme. Its major objective is to
enhance awareness among States, policy makers and international
public opinion of the root causes and the complex and
multidimensional nature of poverty, and promote the exchange of
information and experiences on effective strategies to fight it.
The main activities for the observance of the Year will be
undertaken at all levels, with assistance from the UN system to
foster an increased understanding of the fact that poverty
eradication is fundamental to reinforcing peace and achieving
sustainable development.
Governments, in partnership with civil society, will have the
primary responsibility for the promotion of social development in
their countries. At the same time, the WSSD documents recognized
the critical role of the UN system in assisting developing
countries to achieve these goals. The Programme of Action gave UNDP
a specific mandate to organize UN system efforts towards
capacity-building at the local, national and regional levels, and
to support the coordinated implementation of social development
programmes through its network of country offices.
To meet this challenge, UNDP is reorienting its programming
activities to target poverty as its priority concern. At its June
1995 annual meeting, our Executive Board decided to make poverty
eradication UNDP's overriding priority. This means that all UNDP
activities in the future will be geared towards, and be measured
against, the ultimate goal of poverty eradication. UNDP's other
major programming areas --gender equity, the promotion of jobs and
sustainable livelihoods, environmental preservation and
regeneration, and governance--, which together define UNDP's
sustainable human development framework, will increasingly come
under the fold of poverty eradication, which therefore becomes Job
One for us. At the same time, efforts are being made to strengthen
coordination in the delivery of technical assistance by the UN
system, as mandated by the UN General Assembly. Current efforts are
underway to set up a small number of Inter-Agency Tasks Forces, at
both headquarters and country levels, in order to galvanize the UN
system around key goals and objectives emerging from the main UN
conferences of the last five years, and to rationalize and
strengthen our follow-up mechanisms in support of the priority
objectives established at those conferences.
Against this background, I am pleased to present the document
"Poverty Eradication: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies" as
a contribution from UNDP to the policy dialogue on development
alternatives and priorities for the coming years. The challenge to
eliminate poverty belongs not to developing countries alone, but to
the world community as a whole. Partnerships among governments, the
private sector and civil society, with the active support of the
international development community, are needed to address the
structural causes of poverty and inequality in the world. It is my
hope that UNDP can play a critical facilitating role in building
such partnerships for sustainable people-centered development.
James Gustave Speth
Administrator United Nations Development Programme
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present document is intended to help UNDP country offices
initiate a policy dialogue with our country partners to identify
key policy areas and priority actions for the implementation, at
the local and national levels, of the WSSD commitments and
recommendations relating to the eradication of poverty. The paper
does not cover the three core themes of the Social Summit, but
rather concentrates on the first theme, poverty eradication, which
is the main subject of Commitment 2 and Chapter II of the WSSD
documents. While recognizing the interdependence among all three
core themes of the Summit, we think that the challenge to eradicate
poverty is of such magnitude as to deserve special treatment.
Besides, a focus on poverty issues is in line with the primacy
given to poverty eradication among the main focus areas of UNDP
support to capacity- building in our programming activities.
The document draws on the experience of UNDP in the design and
implementation of poverty eradication strategies and programmes. A
first draft of the paper was circulated informally during the
Social Summit, and comments received have been incorporated into
subsequent revisions. The paper will be followed by more detailed
analyses of UNDP experience in implementing programmes in some of
the areas relevant to poverty eradication.
The paper has been prepared by the Social Development and Poverty
Elimination Division, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support
(SEPED/BPPS), with inputs from other Bureaux and Units. Special
thanks are due to the Resident Representatives and staffs of the
country offices that have provided the authors with information on
national and inter-country policies and programmes for poverty
eradication.
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OVERVIEW
The development record of the past fifty years has been mixed.
Today's poverty attests to the failure of past development policies
to provide everyone with an opportunity to live a long, decent and
productive life. The time has come to revisit development thinking
and give people --men and women, young and old, wealthy and poor--
a chance to achieve their full potential and live dignified lives.
For this reason, the Social Summit represents a landmark
achievement for people- centered sustainable development. The
Summit produced a compelling endorsement of the need to create an
enabling environment for increased equity and empowering of people
through sound governance, participation and capacity development at
all levels. It also stressed the need to integrate economic and
social policies in national and international policy planning;
underlined the interdependence of economic growth, increased equity
and the reduction of unemployment; emphasized that poverty
eradication, employment creation, social integration, environmental
preservation, peace and security, democratic governance and respect
for pluralism and human rights, are supportive and mutually
reinforcing dimensions of development; and recognized the
interdependence between national and international actions, between
North and South, between men and women, and among the public,
private and voluntary sectors in the development process.
People-centered sustainable development is to be achieved through
the adoption of an integrated and multi-sectoral agenda aimed at
the eradication of poverty, the promotion of productive and
remunerative employment for all, and the achievement of social
integration. Policies focussed on people-centered sustainable
development must address issues of economic inequity and gender
discrimination. The distribution of capital and resources within
and between countries is a highly complex and contradictory process
through which specific groups of people benefit more than others.
It is important to note that this is also a gendered process.
Governments, in partnership with civil society, pledged to
"formulate or strengthen, as a matter of urgency, and preferably by
the year 1996, the International Year for the Eradication of
Poverty, national policies and strategies geared to substantially
reducing overall poverty in the shortest time possible, to reducing
inequalities, and to eradicating absolute poverty by a target date
to be specified by each country in its national context". Success
in meeting this goal will largely depend on the mobilization of
political will, shifts in individual and public thinking around
issues of poverty, including the gendered dimensions of poverty,
and the strengthening of existing policy and institutional
capacities in developing countries. This will enable governments,
through a participatory process, to design and implement effective
long-term strategies for the eradication of poverty and the pursuit
of people-centered sustainable development.
Some of the underlying principles endorsed in Copenhagen are:
- Poverty and human suffering are avoidable. Preventing and
eliminating them must be a top priority for development policy.
- Poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon. Its
elimination requires an integrated, inter-sectoral and
multi-faceted approach.
- The root causes of poverty and inequality must be addressed.
- The elimination of poverty is mainly a political problem. A
strong and sustained political commitment to empower people is
necessary.
- The elimination of poverty is primarily the responsibility of
governments. They must provide an enabling environment for
people's empowerment at all levels.
- The specific gendered dimensions of poverty must be addressed.
- Synergies between economic growth and poverty reduction must be
fully exploited.
- Poverty reduction requires substantial new and additional
resources for human development.
The critical innovation of the Copenhagen agreements is that, for
the first time, several dimensions of social development endorsed
by previous world conferences are brought together into a coherent
and integrated framework that recognizes the multi- dimensional
nature of poverty and calls for an inter-sectoral and holistic
approach to people-centered sustainable development. Each country
must decide on its own mix and sequencing of policy interventions,
based on a national poverty profile and differences in existing
institutional capacity. WSSD recognizes these differences and
provides ample room for country specificity and adaptation.
Nevertheless, a number of successful anti- poverty interventions
supported by UNDP suggest clear policy priorities:
- Creating an enabling environment for people-centered development.
- Empowering all people for self-reliance.
- Promoting broad-based and equitable growth.
- Enhancing household food security.
- Improving access to basic infrastructure and social services.
- Promoting job creation and sustainable livelihoods.
- Ensuring equitable access to credit and productive assets.
- Expanding social protection for vulnerable people.
- Promoting gender equity and the full participation of women in
development.
- Preserving, maintaining and regenerating the natural resource
base.
The responsibility for designing and implementing the Social Summit
commitment to eradicate poverty lies chiefly at the national level.
Priority actions will have to be defined, costed and placed within
a reasonable time frame for national implementation. Experience
with successful programmes can help guide the design and
implementation of national poverty eradication strategies. Priority
actions include:
- National poverty mapping and assessments, with rigorous attention
to the gendered dimensions of poverty.
- Setting national goals and targets for poverty elimination, with
the participation of government, the private sector and
community-based organizations.
- Capacity assessment and development.
- Review of national policies and budgets.
- Social mobilization, participation and partnerships.
- Decentralization of decision-making.
- Policy and institutional reform and coordination.
- Integration of social development goals into overall planning.
- Mobilizing resources for social development.
- Aid coordination.
Donor countries, the Bretton Woods institutions and the UN system
should work with developing countries through a partnership that
respects the national sovereignty and development priorities of
each country. Developing countries will need substantial technical
and financial assistance to strengthen their capacities for
carrying out social science research, designing and implementing
anti-poverty strategies, and monitoring the achievement of the
Summit goal to eradicate absolute poverty and reduce overall
poverty substantially. No single UN agency can meet the entire
challenge by itself. With its broad cross-sectoral mandate and its
network of 133 country offices, UNDP can play an important role in
the follow-up and implementation of this commitment, by assisting
in the mobilization of resources and facilitating coordination
among donors, particularly in support of capacity-building in
developing countries. Some of the areas for potential UNDP
assistance include:
- Develop a unified inter-agency approach to WSSD implementation,
focusing on joint programming exercises, rationalizing and
strengthening follow-up mechanisms for the delivery of UN system
development assistance, and consolidating multi-conference
reporting requirements.
- Focus on upstream, high-leverage interventions, utilizing a
systemic and inter- sectoral approach to build national capacities
for policy development and programme implementation.
- Promote, in its operational activities, the creation of an
enabling environment for the empowerment of everyone through
participation, capacity development and increased access to
productive assets and opportunities.
- Promote sound, transparent and accountable governance, through
the strengthening of public administration and the establishment of
an independent, fair and effective system of justice.
- Support the formulation of macroeconomic and sectoral policies
that will encourage broad-based and equitable economic growth that
is supportive of social objectives, including an equitable
distribution of the benefits of growth.
- Encourage and assist governments to develop national poverty
eradication strategies, preferably by 1996, the International Year
for the Eradication of Poverty, and to integrate these strategies
into national development plans.
- Concentrate on the enabling, sustainable livelihood and household
income aspects of anti-poverty strategies, leaving other UN
partners to take the lead in supporting the provision of basic
social services for all.
- Improve dialogue and coordination among government ministries,
the private sector and agencies responsible for economic and social
policy.
- Assist in the compilation of data on poverty, with specific
attention to its gendered dimensions, and in setting up information
systems that can be used in programme design, monitoring and
evaluation.
- Build government capacity in the application of gender analysis
and planning techniques to all policies, programmes and projects,
including the use of gender- disaggregated statistics.
- Encourage the devolution of decision-making and the
decentralization of public institutions and services, to foster the
development of community-based approaches to planning for poverty
elimination.
- Strengthen the role of civil society institutions and
organizations, promoting networking between them and better
dialogue with governments.
- Help improve systems of consultation among all national actors.
- Build the capacity of governments, national research
institutions, and civil society organizations in the use of
participatory methodologies for policy and strategy development,
programme design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
- Work with UN and country specialists to construct and implement
appropriate action plans and policies to more fully address the
gender specific aspects of poverty.
- Develop pilot projects at the grassroots level and promote the
transfer and replication of successful participatory methodologies
for poverty reduction.
Ultimately, achieving the Social Summit's commitment to poverty
eradication will depend on the mobilization of massive and
coordinated efforts from all development actors. The challenge to
eliminate poverty belongs not only to the developing world, but to
the entire development community. Failure to act now will result in
staggering costs at a later stage.
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POVERTY ERADICATION: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies.
- What kind of government would you like for your country? - Any
government that would make poor people happy. Just imagine!
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, El olor de la guayaba
The development record of the past 50 years has been mixed. While
some countries have surged ahead, attaining levels of prosperity
which were unthinkable a half century ago, many are still mired in
poverty and underdevelopment. And even though some progress has
been achieved in human well-being in almost every developing
country, literally billions of people remain in a dire situation of
deprivation and hopelessness. According to the 1995 Human
Development Report, women constitute 70 per cent of the people
living in poverty world-wide despite the fact that they make the
largest contribution to global wealth.
Today's widespread poverty attests to the failure of past
development policies to achieve the most basic aim of development:
to provide everyone with an opportunity to live a long, decent and
productive life. This failure has stemmed from a number of
assumptions about the nature of the development process. One of
these assumptions was that poverty resulted from underdevelopment.
What was needed to overcome poverty, therefore, was to lay the
grounds for rapid and sustained economic growth in developing
countries. The results of such growth, it was assumed, would sooner
or later trickle down to everyone. This expectation was reinforced
by the view that people in poverty are incapable of saving money
and do not respond to economic incentives the way other people do.
By implication, growth strategies had to focus on those sectors of
the economy which were presumed to be the most dynamic: the cities,
industry and capital-intensive activities. By contrast, the
countryside, agriculture and labour-intensive activities were
deemed to be sluggish sectors. Rather than contributing to economic
growth, they were widely regarded as hindrances to development.
Additionally, growth strategies were often gender biased and served
to further disenfranchise women from the development process. These
assumptions have had negative effects in many developing countries
and on the lives of their citizens. Not only did the assumptions
neglect the relative factor endowments of most developing
countries, they implied that there were trade-offs between economic
growth and poverty reduction. The time has come to question these
assumptions, to revisit development thinking, turn development
priorities around and give people --men and women, young and old,
wealthy and poor-- a chance to live long, productive, decent and
dignified lives.
It is against this background that the World Summit for Social
Development, held in Copenhagen from 6-12 March 1995, represents a
landmark achievement for people- centered sustainable development
or what UNDP calls sustainable human development. For the first
time in history, Heads of State and Government adopted a
Declaration and Programme of Action which place the needs and
aspirations of people at the centre of the development process.
People-centered sustainable development is to be achieved through
the adoption of an integrated and multi-sectoral agenda aimed at
the eradication of poverty, the promotion of productive and
remunerative employment for all, and the achievement of social
integration. In particular, governments committed themselves to the
goal of eradicating poverty "as an ethical, social, political and
economic imperative of humankind", by ensuring that "people living
in poverty have access to productive resources, including credit,
land, education and training, technology, knowledge and
information, and to public services". Furthermore, they pledged to
"formulate or strengthen, as a matter of urgency, and preferably by
the year 1996, the International Year for the Eradication of
Poverty, national policies and strategies geared to substantially
reducing overall poverty in the shortest time possible, to reducing
inequalities, and to eradicating absolute poverty by a target date
to be specified by each country in its national context, [and] to
ensure that national budgets and policies are oriented, as
necessary, to meeting basic needs, reducing inequalities and
targeting poverty, as a strategic objective".
Success in meeting the WSSD commitment to eradicate absolute
poverty and substantially reduce overall poverty in the shortest
time possible will largely depend on the mobilization of political
will, shifts in individual and public thinking around issues of
poverty, including the gendered dimensions of poverty, and the
strengthening of existing policy and institutional capacities in
developing countries. While WSSD recognizes the primacy of national
responsibility for social development, the challenge ahead is such
that it will also require the mobilization of external resources
from donors and development agencies in support of country-driven
priorities. In this context, the Programme of Action calls upon
UNDP to "organize United Nations system efforts towards capacity-
building at the local, national and regional levels [and] support
the coordinated implementation of social development programmes
through its network of country offices".
This paper seeks to assist UNDP country offices and their partners
in this endeavour. The purpose of the paper is twofold: (a) to
assist our country offices and partner institutions in identifying
key policy areas and priority actions for the implementation of the
WSSD commitments and recommendations relating to the eradication of
poverty; and (b) to initiate a process of policy dialogue and
advocacy for the implementation of those commitments and
recommendations at the national level. Part I reviews some of the
basic tenets of the new development paradigm endorsed in
Copenhagen. Part II presents the key components of an integrated
and inter-sectoral strategy for poverty eradication. Part III
outlines some of the priority actions and means for implementation,
paying specialattention to some critical steps that may be required
for the successful development of national anti-poverty strategies.
And finally, the paper suggests some of the areas in which external
support may be required to achieve the goals embraced by WSSD.
------------------------------------------------
I. A NEW FOCUS OF DEVELOPMENT
A human-centered vision of development has emerged in recent years.
This new vision places the needs and aspirations of people at the
centre of the development process. It recognizes that economic
growth that does not translate into an improvement in the standards
of living for everyone is socially, politically, economically and
environmentally unsustainable.
Leaders of government and civil society, in both North and South,
have articulated their support for this new vision of
people-centered sustainable development. In the Dhaka Declaration
of April 1993, leaders of the seven countries of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) committed themselves
unequivocally to the eradication of poverty in South Asia,
preferably by the year 2002, through a strategy focusing on human
development, social mobilization and empowerment of people living
in poverty (Box 1). A few months later, the planning ministers of
the South Pacific region stated that economic growth alone cannot
meet the growing needs of the Pacific people, and pledged to take
prompt and effective action to ensure that the benefits of economic
growth are equally distributed so as to empower all people to enjoy
a productive and satisfying life in accordance with their
aspirations (Box 3). These commitments were reaffirmed in Manila in
October 1994, when ministers and senior planners of Asia and the
Pacific recognized that "notwithstanding economic growth [and]
structural adjustments in recent years, theregion's fundamental
social objectives remain to be fully achieved". Therefore, they
expressed "a firm commitment to accord priority to social
development through the provision of adequate resources and the
formulation and implementation of effective policies, sound
measures and appropriate programmes in the context of development
plans, including the adoption of a series of specific and
time-bound goals" for the attainment of social development [Annex
1].
In January 1994, a high-level meeting of African ministers
responsible for human development stated that development can be
sustainable only if it is people-centered. The African leaders
pledged to create an enabling environment for people's empowerment,
investing in and building up people's capacities for self-reliance.
The meeting's declaration also called for an urgent reduction of
military spending and an increase in social spending to 30% of
total public expenditures (Box 2). And, in December 1994, political
leaders, senior planners, and business and civil society
representatives of the Latin American and Caribbean region met in
Santiago de Chile and adopted a declaration which recognized that
success in fighting poverty cannot be accomplished without the
active involvement of those living in poverty. They also stressed
that poverty in the region has structural causes, and that its
eradication requires the adoption of targeted policies along with
a more equitable distribution of income (Box 4).
Several common themes have emerged over time, providing the
background against which the WSSD Declaration and Programme of
Action were elaborated. These common themes were synthesized in a
recent statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations:
"at its core, development must be about improvement of human
well-being; removal of hunger, disease and ignorance; and
productive employment for all. Its first goal must be to end
poverty and satisfy the priority needs of all people in a way that
can be productively sustained over future generations".
Many of these issues have been addressed in great detail in a
number of policy documents and fora, including previous world
conferences sponsored by the United Nations: the 1990 Jomtien
Conference on Education For All, the 1990 New York Summit for
Children, the 1992 Rio Summit on Environment and Development, the
1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights, the 1994 Barbados
Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island
Developing States, and the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and
Development. The commitments, principles and recommendations of
these global conferences form a continuum in the progressive
elaboration and refinement of the new paradigm of people-centered
sustainable development [Annex 2].
The centrality of the World Summit for Social Development lies not
in its originality, but rather in the fact that it integrates these
common threads into a coherent, comprehensive, inter-sectoral and
holistic approach to social development. The WSSD Programme of
Action stresses the need to integrate economic and social policies
in national and international policy planning; underlines the
interdependencies among economic growth, increased equity and the
reduction of unemployment; sees poverty eradication, gender equity,
employment creation, environmental preservation, democratic
governance and respect for pluralism and human rights as supportive
and mutually reinforcing dimensions of development; and recognizes
the interdependencies between national and international actions,
between North and South, between men and women, and among the
public, private and voluntary sectors in the development process.
Most importantly, WSSD produced a compelling endorsement of the
need to create an enabling environment for increased equity and
empowerment of all people through sound governance, participation
and capacity development at all levels. And it did so at the
highest political level, launching a new era of international
cooperation based on a spirit of partnership and a renewed
commitment to social development.
Some of the underlying principles endorsed in Copenhagen are:
- Poverty and human suffering are avoidable. Preventing and
eliminating them must be a top priority for development policy.
Poverty has become so structural and embedded that many believe it
is not possible to prevent or eradicate it. But poverty is
avoidable, as long as the appropriate policies and strategies are
put in place. Being poor is not a static condition and does not
reflect some inherently negative feature of a person or a
household. Rather, poverty refers to a situation which denotes what
people do, how, and for whom. It represents a social phenomenon,
since a person or a household is poor in relation to a certain norm
--a bundle of commodities, a set of capabilities, or a minimum
standard of well-being-- that is socially determined. Worldwide,
women are disproportionately represented among the poor. According
to the 1995 Human Development Report, 70 per cent of the 1.3
billion people living in poverty today are women. Policies and
strategies must seek to ameliorate the conditions in which all
people live by supporting the activities in which they are engaged,
enabling them to earn a decent livelihood, and to participate fully
in the social, political, economic, cultural and spiritual life of
their community. Properly supported and given the right incentives
and opportunities, people can use their ingenuity and
resourcefulness to lift themselves out of poverty.
The social nature of poverty implies that those living in poverty
are not the only ones affected by it. The entire society suffers
too. There are several reasons for this. First, the larger
community is deprived of the creative energies and potentials of
those who are disadvantaged. Second, poverty and inequality often
result in social instability, disease, population growth, migration
and environmental degradation. In turn, these factors tend to
reinforce the privations of those who are caught in a spiralling
cycle of impoverishment and marginalisation. Sooner or later,
everyone is affected by anyone's suffering. Therefore, poverty
should not be narrowly regarded as a social problem, to be tackled
by social policies alone. Instead, it should be viewed more broadly
as a critical development challenge. Its solution requires the
mobilization of social energy and a strong commitment of all
political, economic and social forces.
- Poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon. Its
elimination requires an integrated, inter-sectoral and
multi-pronged approach.
Poverty is not simply a matter of incomes that are too low to meet
basic subsistence needs. It is, above all, a symptom of imbedded
structural imbalances, which manifest themselves in all realms of
human existence. As such, poverty is highly correlated with social
exclusion, marginalisation, vulnerability, powerlessness,
isolation, and other economic, political, social and cultural
dimensions of deprivation. This is clearly illuminated when
addressing the feminization of poverty. In addition to low incomes,
poverty is reflected in malnutrition, poor health, low literacy
levels and inadequate housing and living conditions. It partially
results from limited or no access to basic infrastructure and
services, and is further compounded by people's --most often
women's-- lack of access to land, credit, technology and
institutions, and to other productive assets and resources needed
to ensure sustainable livelihoods (Box 5).
Poverty is also compounded by a lack of access to research and
extension services, to training, markets and market information.
And, more often than not, people in poverty are deprived of legal
rights and of political clout to make their collective voice heard.
The existence of a power differential is both a cause and a
consequence of the income gap separating the haves from the
have-nots. This power differential helps to keep people in poverty
invisible, isolated, marginalised, and vulnerable.
- The root causes of poverty and inequality must be addressed.
Because poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional problem,
eliminating it requires going beyond welfare and compensation, and
dealing instead with the many forces that conspire to keep people
in a situation of deprivation. This calls for a broad policy agenda
aimed at promoting empowerment for all people through increased
organization and participation in decision-making. This broad
agenda must solicit the participation of poor women, reduce social
inequalities and attack the root causes of poverty and social
exclusion, removing the structural barriers that prevent people
from escaping poverty. The agenda includes expanding the coverage
of basic social services and ensuring adequate shelter, food
security, and access to land, credit, technology, training and
markets. Such an agenda must also seek to protect people living in
poverty during periods of economic distress, and promote employment
opportunities and sustainable livelihoods for all.
The attainment of these goals must be supported by measures aimed
at the protection and regeneration of the natural resource base;
the promotion of sound governance and participation; a social
fabric which ensures gender equity and basic human rights for all
people, including the right to development, and adequate protection
for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, in particular children,
the elderly and the disabled, indigenous people and ethnic
minorities; and, above all, a macro-policy environment which places
a premium on poor people's initiatives. Strategies and policies
need to be put in place that integrate pro-poor interventions
across sectors. Only in this way can sectoral interventions become
complementary and mutually reinforcing in support of the ultimate
goal of eliminating poverty.
- The elimination of poverty is mainly a political problem. A
strong and sustained political commitment to empower people is
necessary.
Unlike poverty alleviation, which is mainly concerned with
cushioning low-income and vulnerable people from the effects of a
sudden deterioration in their standards of living, the elimination
of poverty poses such a formidable challenge as to require a
sustained commitment of all social and political actors at the
national level. What is needed is the mobilization of all national
forces, including governments, opposition parties, the private
sector, trade unions and cooperatives, research and policy
institutes, voluntary and non- governmental organizations, advocacy
groups, and people's organizations, around common social
development objectives.
The availability of financial resources has not been the major
impediment to the elimination of poverty. Rather, it is the lack of
political will which has blocked progress. Therefore, governments
and civil society must garner the political will to make poverty
eradication the central aim of development policy. Moreover,
mobilizing people as a political force is needed to redress the
structural socio-economic and political imbalances that lie at the
root of poverty and inequality. People in poverty must be able to
participate in shaping the decisions which most affect their lives.
Empowering people to define their own priorities, articulate their
needs, and enter into coalitions around commonly defined goals,
will greatly contribute to closing the power gap which keeps them
poor and isolated.
- The elimination of poverty is primarily the responsibility of
governments. They must create an enabling environment for people's
empowerment at all levels.
"Social progress, states the WSSD Programme of Action, will not be
realized simply through the free interaction of market forces.
Public policies are necessary to correct market failures [and]
complement market mechanisms". Governments, therefore, must take
the lead in the fight against poverty, in full consultation and
partnership with civil society. No matter how much is done to
promote grassroots initiatives, little progress will be made in
reducing poverty if macro-economic and social policies do not
provide a favourable environment for human-centered development
through increased access to markets and institutions. National
policies, therefore, must seek to enable all peopleliving in
poverty to have access to social services, skills and knowledge,
credit and technology, jobs, sustainable livelihoods, land and
natural resources, information, and legal rights.
A precondition for an "enabling policy environment" is a
development strategy that fosters people's participation in the
decisions that affect their lives. People's participation is
greatly facilitated by full transparency and accountability in all
public and private institutions. Therefore, improved systems of
governance are a crucial ingredient of poverty reduction. Sound
governance and people's participation in that governance are
predicated upon the existence of a stable and predictable legal
framework that respects basic human rights. They are also
predicated on a social fabric which promotes equal opportunity and
protects fundamental freedoms, public safety, pluralism and
cultural diversity. While every individual must be involved in the
fight against poverty, governments must ultimately be held
accountable for meeting people's needs.
- The specific gendered dimensions of poverty must be addressed.
According to the 1995 Human Development Report, women represent 70
per cent of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty today. The
persistence and growth in the feminization of poverty is partially
a result of institutional gender discrimination in all societies.
The causes of poverty in general, and for women in particular, are
partially a result of "structurally reproduced distributional
inequalities".
In general, the experiences of women in poverty are profoundly
different from those of men because: i. they most often have
limited access to scarce and valued resources; ii. they bear the
burdens of the deterioration of economic and social systems; and
iii. they are least likely to escape lives of poverty because of
the intergenerational transfer of poverty along gendered lines. For
this reason, "merely targeting women, without considering the
broader social relations in which they live, is unlikely either to
change their lives or to achieve intended goals". Strategies to
eliminate poverty must therefore be informed by analysis of the
political economy of gender and class.
Measures must be taken to assist in the documentation of the lives
of poor women and the formulation of policies that will address
their specific needs. Analyses of, and actions to eradicate, the
gendered dimensions of poverty must be country-specific and located
within a specific historico-political context (Box 5). Injustices
and obstacles that women face must be eliminated and their
participation in the construction and implementation of policies
must be strengthened and encouraged. The participation of poor
women in policy development will ensure that their interests will
influence the trajectory of people- centered development.
Additionally, the eradication of poverty cannot be accomplished
through anti-poverty programmes alone. It requires democratic
participation and changes in economic structures in order to ensure
access for all women to productive resources.
- Synergies between economic growth and poverty reduction must be
fully exploited.
Economic growth facilitates the reduction of poverty, but it is not
a sufficient condition for it (Box 3). For example, economic growth
has not generally been beneficial to women. The growth in
employment opportunities in urban settings (specifically related to
export industries) has usually been under conditions of low wages,
occupational hazards and poor working conditions. Growth may even
increase inequalities if it is narrowly based. A highly skewed
pattern of growth makes a country highly vulnerable to unexpected
shocks. Whether economic growth depends heavily on exports or on a
limited domestic market, the mere threat of capital flight or a
fall in commodity prices will place structural limits to sustained
growth. To this must be added the social and political instability
that social injustice breeds. As a result, economic growth that
does not translate into social progress for all is unsustainable
and, ultimately, self-defeating.
The relationship between economic growth and poverty must not be
seen, therefore, as a matter of trade-offs. The fastest growing
developing countries are the ones that have made a concerted effort
to reduce domestic inequalities (Box 9). While the reduction of
poverty was greatly aided by sustained economic growth, the latter
would have been impossible in the absence of a dynamic domestic
market and a relatively equitable social structure. Under the right
circumstances, people living in poverty are just as likely to
contribute to broad-based economic growth as they are to benefit
from it. Labour, the main asset of people in poverty, is abundant
in most developing countries. This means that a development
strategy that employs poor people at liveable wages is bound to
reduce poverty while also providing strong foundations for economic
growth. Poverty eradication, in short, must be seen both as an end
in itself and as a means for sustained growth. Rather than
designing social policies in isolation, developing countries must
integrate social concerns into overall policy-making, to ensure
that the twin goals of economic growth and poverty reduction become
mutually supportive.
- Poverty reduction requires substantial new and additional
resources for human development.
Social development priorities must receive adequate funding,
particularly during periods of economic reform and adjustment.
Particular attention must be paid to the economies in transition.
Providing adequate financing for social development requires the
mobilization of local savings and funds from new sources. National
budgets will have to be adjusted to reduce unproductive
expenditures and increase financial allocations to social
programmes. In turn, social spending must be reviewed so that
expenditures are allocated mostly toward activities that benefit
all people living in poverty. In addition, the international donor
community must provide a steady and predictable flow of resources
to developing countries. Besides fulfilling the target of 0.7 per
cent of gross national product for official development assistance,
donor countries must provide expanded access to markets for
developing-country exports. They also need to explore innovative
mechanisms for financing social programmes, including through the
reduction or cancellation of debts, particularly for the least
developed countries.
In implementing the WSSD Programme of Action, all development
actors will have to commit themselves and marshall the required
resources to eradicate absolute poverty and reduce overall poverty
in the shortest time possible. Specifically, the Programme of
Action urges governments to "establish, within each national
context, strategies and affordable time-bound goals and targets" to
achieve those objectives and to elaborate "the measurements,
criteria and indicators for determining the extent and distribution
of absolute poverty [and] develop a precise definition and
assessment of absolute poverty, preferably by 1996". Furthermore,
governments should "integrate goals and targets for combating
poverty into overall economic and social policies and planning at
the local [and] national levels". For the development community,
the challenges ahead are to assist in the formulation of policies
that will address poverty in its many dimensions and build
institutional capacities, in and out of government, for designing
and implementing poverty-reducing policies; define realistic
targets for poverty reduction; set up effective monitoring
mechanisms; and mobilize resources, both nationally and
internationally, for poverty reduction and social development.
--------------------------------------------------------------
II. POLICY PRIORITIES
Countries differ greatly in the incidence, intensity, geographical
distribution and gender, sectoral and occupational composition of
poverty. There are several categories of people in poverty in any
country, and the extent to which they suffer from one or another
form of deprivation varies widely. This great variance has
important implications for poverty reduction policies. First, it
implies that no blanket recipe is available. What is effective in
one country may not be so in another. And second, the heterogeneity
of poverty calls for highly selective and discriminatory policy
interventions that are tailored to the particular circumstances of
each country. Each country must decide on its own mix and
sequencing of policy interventions, based on the national poverty
profile and differences in existing institutional capacity.
WSSD recognizes these differences and provides ample room for
country specificity and adaptation. The critical innovation of the
Copenhagen agreements is that, for the first time, several
dimensions of social development endorsed by previous world
conferences are brought together into a coherent and integrated
framework that recognizes the multi-dimensional nature of poverty
and calls for an inter-sectoral and holistic approach to
people-centered sustainable development. Equally important, WSSD
emphasizes the centrality of people's empowerment through
organization, participation and capacity-building, as well as the
need for an enabling environment that promotes non- discriminatory
and equitable access to productive assets and opportunities --to
skills and knowledge, credit, employment and sustainable
livelihoods, land and natural resources, linkages to national and
international markets and information systems, legal rights,
institutions and public services.
The Summit agreements must be viewed as a common plank, from which
countries will draw selectively those elements that best suit their
own situation. Nevertheless, a number of successful anti-poverty
interventions supported by UNDP suggest some outstanding priorities
for policy:
i. Creating an enabling environment for people-centered development
Poverty and inequality, as was noted above, are a reflection of
deeply embedded differences in the distribution of power and
resources in society. These structural differences prevent certain
groups from participating fully in the economic, political, social,
cultural and spiritual life of their community. Reducing these gaps
requires empowering all people to gain better access to resources
and opportunities, so that they can exercise their citizenship
rights to the fullest extent possible. This calls for an enabling
policy environment in which resources and opportunities are
equitably distributed and all people have a chance to participate
in shaping the decisions that affect their lives.
Promoting an enabling environment depends on a set of inter-related
and mutually reinforcing policy actions in several domains --the
polity, the economy, society, the household, culture and the
environment-- that aim to attack the root causes of poverty and
inequality and to remove the structural barriers limiting people's
choices. The existence of a transparent and accountable system of
governance and public administration is an indispensable foundation
of people's empowerment. This calls for an efficient and responsive
public sector, respect for pluralism, gender equity and human
rights, and a stable, non- discriminatory and predictable legal
framework which gives people access to an independent, fair and
effective system of justice. The transparency and accountability of
the budgetary process, as well as the existence of a fair and
effective system of taxation, are critical ingredients of sound
governance.
Furthermore, the creation of an enabling environment requires a
systematic effort at capacity building and institutional
development, and a shift in traditional thinking regarding issues
of gender and poverty. The agencies responsible for the planning
andimplementation of social policies must be granted the status,
resources and information needed to ensure that economic policies
are supportive of social objectives, and that all political, legal,
economic, social and cultural factors that sustain inequality are
removed.
ii. Empowering all people for self-reliance
Measures to fight poverty are bound to lead to dependency and
stigmatization if those affected are not empowered through greater
access to assets, resources and opportunities. Such measures are
also bound to be short-lived and inadequate if the policy
environment is not supportive of broad-based, non-discriminatory
and equitable development. This is why the empowerment of all
people and the need for an enabling environment figure so
prominently in the Copenhagen agreements.
The promotion of empowerment is predicated upon the increased
organization and participation of all people in decision-making,
the mobilization of social energy, and the development of
capacities at all levels in society, especially among the poor and
vulnerable groups. Decentralizing public institutions and services
to a level that facilitates local participation is, therefore, a
critical component of an enabling environment (Box 6). It is
important to note that strategies developed to promote the
empowerment of poor women must be informed by analysis of gender
discrimination.
To promote an equitable distribution of income and wealth, people
in poverty must also be granted greater access to productive
assets, skills, technology and markets. Nevertheless, there are
certain goods and services the provision of which cannot be left
entirely to the market. For example, the latter cannot be relied
upon for the provision of affordable housing, low-cost credit or
primary health care, which people in poverty may not be able to
afford on their own. In those cases, it is the responsibility of
the state to ensure that these goods and services are available to
those who need them at a fair cost. The state, therefore, may be
called upon to intervene in markets to ensure that social
objectives are met. More generally, as was noted above, public
action may be needed to counteract market failure and ensure that
markets function in a transparent and predictable way. This may
call for some degree of regulation of private-sector activities, as
long as such regulation does not stifle private initiative.
Expanding access to knowledge and information is a particularly
effective mechanism for reducing barriers to entry into markets. In
all cases, the ultimate objective of public policies should be to
promote fair competition by increasing the access of poor people to
markets and institutions.
iii. Promoting broad-based and equitable growth
In the short run, some poverty may be reduced by reallocating
budget expenditures towards the social sectors, especially towards
those services such as nutrition, primary health care or basic
sanitation that benefit poor households most. In the long run,
however, the elimination of poverty cannot occur in the absence of
sustained economic growth. The relationships between economic
growth and social progress are very complex. As the Human
Development Reports show, countries at the same level of
development, as measured by GNP per capita, may have remarkably
different records in terms of caring for their people. At the same
time, high levels of human development have been achieved in some
cases by countries with very low GNP per capita. Nevertheless,
there is substantial evidence that economic growth does reduce
poverty (although inequality may increase if the incomes of the
wealthy rise faster than the incomes of the poor), while economic
crisis and deterioration tend to hurt poor people
disproportionately. Additionally, women most often assume the
burden of economic crisis. This means that any strategy for poverty
eradication must give top priority to economic growth with equity.
Policies must not be based on issues of allocative efficiency
alone, but rather pay attention to economic and gender equity and
distributive considerations as well.
Effective policy-making must take account of a country's relative
factor endowments, and try to exploit them in a dynamic way.
Labour, for example, is in abundant supply in most poor countries.
In these countries, a strategy of labour-intensive growth that
promotes the development of small-scale agriculture, small and
micro-enterprises and the informal sector is likely to make good
economic and social sense (Box 9). In many countries, however,
economic policies have tended to discriminate against the rural
sector, despite the fact that the bulk of the population,
especially those in poverty, live in rural areas. As a result of
this policy bias, not only have millions of rural households been
condemned to utter destitution, but also countries that were
food-sufficient have become dependent on food aid. And where male
migration has left the rural population predominantly female, urban
policy biases also contribute to the relative disadvantage of poor
rural women. Removing the biases against agriculture must rank as
a high priority in countries with potential for strong agricultural
sectors. For economic growth to be poverty-reducing, it must be
broad-based, equitable and inclusive. It must seek to empower poor
people for self-reliance. This will unleash the productive
potential of people living in poverty and enhance their
contribution to the growth process.
A country's factor endowments are not static. Governments must
therefore be willing to invest heavily in human resource
development, to upgrade the skills and productivity of the local
population. In this way, developing countries might be able to
compete in export markets more effectively. Nevertheless,
export-led growth has in many cases failed to make a positive
contribution to job creation because of a lack of inter-sectoral
linkages with the rest of the economy. For growth to have a
salutary effect on employment, countries will need to strengthen
the backward and forward linkages among sectors, such as between
farm and off-farm activities in the rural sector, and between the
latter and industry through the local processing of raw materials.
Small-scale and micro-enterprises can also benefit from export
promotion, if linkages to markets abroad are strengthened through
horizontal and vertical integration. For example, the establishment
of industrial districts and of clusters of small-scale firms and
producers' associations have helped certain labour-intensive
industries in India and Brazil gain a foothold in the export
market. In Taiwan, family-run enterprises have benefitted from
sub-contracting arrangements with large firms, which have given the
former access to these firms' technical know-how, technology and
market distribution channels. Despite these possible benefits,
governments must advocate for fair and adequate wages for women
involved in the agricultural sector. Historically, women have been
paid less than men for their work within agricultural and
industrial communities.
If properly designed, economic policies can contribute to growth as
well as equity. There is a pressing need in developing countries
for strengthening institutions and processes to ensure effective
coordination of macroeconomic, sectoral and social policies. In
particular, structural adjustment programmes should be designed in
such a way as to minimize their social costs --which are typically
transferred to households and women-- and to increase the share of
benefits accruing to poor and vulnerable people. Structural
adjustment must encourage economic growth based on the production
of goods and services by poor people. Investment in the social
sectors must be protected from budget reductions, while the
liberalization of markets and the removal of subsidies on items
consumed by people living in poverty need to be closely monitored
to prevent hurting them disproportionately during adjustment. As
stated above, the state has a responsibility to intervene in
markets to prevent or counteract market failure, complement market
mechanisms, and harmonize economic and social development
objectives. Broad-based and equitable development policy must
expand incentives for all people in poverty and remove obstacles
that limit their access to opportunities and resources, so that
they can contribute their productive capabilities and potential to
the growth process.
iv. Enhancing household food security
Greater household food security is essential for breaking the
vicious circle of poverty and malnutrition. In rural areas, this
requires measures to promote subsistence farming and to raise the
returns farmers receive on marketed crops. This includes, inter
alia, a policy environment that promotes increased food production.
Such an environment should provide adequate land tenure and tenancy
arrangements, appropriate pricing and incentive policies for rural
producers --both women and men--, and strong linkages between farm
and non-farm activities. It should also provide better
infrastructure, especially feeder roads and small-scale irrigation;
improved access to credit, inputs, research and extension services
and agricultural marketing; appropriate technologies; and support
for the production of traditional crops, and for smallholder
cooperatives and producers' associations (Box 7). Measures to
enhance household food security must reflect knowledge of, and
address institutional discrimination women face, in their attempts
to gain access to land, credit, education and technology.
In urban areas, household food security depends chiefly on the
availability of stable and remunerative employment for all
able-bodied family members. Also, supplementary nutrition
programmes and subsidies on basic foodstuffs could be targeted to
the poorest households to provide critical relief to the needy. In
all cases, women must have equal access to all services and
technologies. Where necessary, women should be given specific forms
of support to make up for their relative disadvantage.
v. Improving access to basic infrastructure and social services
Governments should devote a larger share of public expenditures to
the social sectors, particularly health (including reproductive
health care and family planning services), education, shelter, and
water and sanitation. These investments must be protected from
across-the-board budget cuts, especially during implementation of
structural adjustment policies. At the same time, the composition
of social-sector spending must change by increasing allocations to
services that are in greater demand among poor households. This
implies more spending on basic education, especially non-formal
education with a special emphasis on women and girls; nutrition
programmes and primary health care; low-cost, affordable housing;
energy and public transportation; and basic water and sanitation
facilities. Given budget constraints, leakage of benefits to the
wealthy must be avoided through better targeting of services to the
needy. Nevertheless, selective programmes can be very regressive if
they are part of an overall strategy of dismantling universal
policies with broad coverage. Therefore, targeted programmes should
be additive in nature, and not used as substitutes for programmes
which have had significant progressive impact.
Financial constraints have forced many countries to introduce
cost-recovery measures such as user fees or local contributions, to
recoup part of the costs of providing basic services to poor
people. A number of social funds have devised innovative
cost-sharing arrangements to recover these costs. In Sri Lanka, the
Janasaviya Trust Fund covers 100 per cent of the maintenance costs
of community projects during the first year after completion,
declining to 60 per cent the second year and 40 per cent in the
third and final year. In Zambia, proposals prepared by community
groups are reviewed by provincial planning units, which control the
budget for recurrent costs, before being submitted to the Social
Recovery Fund for approval. Honduras' Social Investment Fund
requires a combination of local, third-party and/or government
cost-sharing as part of its project selection criteria. Minimum
expected contributions range from five per cent for beneficiaries
to ten per cent for sponsoring NGOs, municipalities and line
ministries. And Guatemala's cost-sharing arrangements serve both as
a targeting mechanism and a source of revenues for recurrent costs.
Counterpart requirements vary from five per cent to twenty per
cent, depending on the priority of the project and the poverty
level of the requesting community. Social assistance projects
receive top priority, followed by infrastructure and credit or
income-generating activities. In turn, the lower the ability to
pay, the lower the local contributions.
Many of these arrangements have helped to relieve pressure from
government budgets, while keeping facilities running. However, most
cost-recovery measures tend to be costly for the communities and
may limit their access to the services provided. Evidence from a
number of countries shows conclusively that people's access to
primary health care and education has been impaired by the
introduction of user charges accompanying structural adjustment.
Instead of asking poor people to shoulder the burden of adjustment,
governments must explore the possibility of cross-subsidizing basic
social services with public revenues raised through fair and
progressive taxation. Whenever possible, public investment policies
should make special provisions to cover for the running as well as
the fixed costs of the basic services consumed by people living in
poverty.
vi. Promoting job creation and sustainable livelihoods
The WSSD Declaration states the commitment of governments to
"enabling all men and women to attain secure and sustainable
livelihoods through freely chosen productive employment and work...
[by] improv[ing] access to land, credit, information,
infrastructure and other productive resources for small and
micro-enterprises, including those in the informal sector,...
explor[ing] innovative options for employment creation... [and]
pay[ing] particular attention to women's access to employment and
the protection of their position in the labour market".
National policies must promote entrepreneurship among people living
in poverty, focusing on training, skills creation and
productivity-enhancing programmes. Attention must be given to the
gender specific needs of women and measures must be taken to ensure
that they are sufficiently and fairly compensated. This will assist
all people to gain increased access to income and markets. In
addition to encouraging the growth of jobs in the formal sector,
policies and programmes must also encourage the expansion of "non-
formal" sources of livelihood. Examples of these types of
livelihoods are household work, self-employment, smallholder
agriculture, informal sector activities, and small-scale and
micro-enterprises and cooperatives. Employment creation and the
promotion of self- reliance are a major objective of Zimbabwe's
Poverty Alleviation Action Plan. The national programme seeks to
increase the well-being of local communities by decentralizing
development activities to the community level, encouraging informal
sector and micro-enterprise development, and supporting the
implementation of sustainable livelihood initiatives in selected
disadvantaged areas, with a focus on women, youth and vulnerable
groups (Box 12).
Critical to the livelihoods of peasant families in rural areas are
agricultural diversification and greater access to productive land
through land redistribution and land improvement programmes.
Equally important are adequate pricing policies which remove biases
against the rural sector; expanding the domestic market for goods
in which the rural sector enjoys a comparative advantage; upgrading
and improving access to basic infrastructure and social services;
transferring and adapting appropriate, environmentally sound
technologies; and providing greater access to credit, inputs and
extension services on reasonable terms. Special measures are also
needed to reduce the drudgery in work usually done by women and
increase their access to credit and technology, and to buffer rural
households against contingencies such as droughts, natural
disasters, food shortages or indebtedness.
In urban areas, promoting income opportunities and livelihoods
requires extensive support for self-employment and micro-enterprise
development. In particular, governments must remove regulatory and
administrative obstacles to informal sector activities and ensure
fair competition and the smooth functioning of markets by reducing
barriers to market entry. On-the-job training, apprenticeships, and
youth employment programmes should become a priority among
policy-makers. Pro-poor lending schemes, low-cost technologies, and
access to knowledge and market information for micro- and
small-scale producers also deserve urgent attention.
vii. Ensuring equitable access to credit and productive assets
Countries must expand access by small producers to credit on
reasonable terms, giving particular attention to the availability
of such services to women. To do this, countries should review the
legal and institutional obstacles to this access, and support the
mobilization of local savings and the development of financial
networks catering to micro- entrepreneurs, small farmers, the
self-employed and other low-income workers. Extensive support must
be given to existing formal and informal community networks, such
as money shops, community banks, revolving funds and other
community-based micro-credit schemes. Governments should also
provide incentives to formal banking institutions to deliver credit
and related services to people living in poverty. In Sudan, a UNDP-
supported rural development programme is strengthening the capacity
of grass-roots organizations to plan and manage their own
development. The programme has developed a community-based system
of rural credit, which relies on a traditional village fund known
as sanduq. Community-managed, the sanduqs receive seed money from
the programme to initiate local revolving funds used to finance
small-scale industry and collective self-help initiatives (Box 6).
Apart from encouraging the mobilization of local savings and
greater access to credit, making it possible for people to own or
have equitable rights to land is of paramount importance for the
bulk of people who live in poverty in rural areas. The growing
trend of landlessness, especially among rural women, must be
stopped. This requires improving land-management and
soil-conservation techniques; regulating tenancy arrangements;
adjudicating land disputes; and protecting the traditional rights
to land and common property resources of agro-pastoralists,
fishermen, and nomadic and indigenous people. The speculative use
of productive land must be discouraged, by taxing unexploited land
where appropriate, without jeopardizing the environmental
sustainability of fragile eco- systems. Measures should also be
established to ensure that rural producers --both women and men--
have easier access to appropriate technologies and know-how, new
seeds and crop varieties, and low-cost, environmentally sound
inputs.
viii. Expanding social protection for vulnerable people
In most developing countries, formal social protection systems are
seriously under- funded, ooften do not address the specific needs
of women, and have a very limited coverage. Vulnerable groups and
people living in poverty are forced to rely on informal support
networks such as friends, the extended family or a village fund.
However, some of these informal support systems are being eroded by
the combined impact of many complex forces, including
commercialization, migration to cities, and the breakdown of
traditional forms of social organization based on solidarity. Most
often, women assume the burden of these informal social formations.
The problem is becoming particularly acute in countries in
transition, where poverty and unemployment are rising at an
alarming rate and social protection systems are still not well
developed (Boxes 10 and 11).
Therefore, national strategies must seek to strengthen economic and
social safety nets for the unemployed, the poor and the
disenfranchised. Strategies to achieve this can include expanding
the coverage of social protection systems, protecting them from the
erosion of benefits due to inflation, and strengthening family
support and other traditional systems of social protection where
appropriate. In particular, vulnerable people should receive
adequate social protection during periods of economic crisis,
famines, natural disasters, civil violence, or the death or
departure of a family bread- winner, including through such means
as food-subsidy, food-for-work and guaranteed employment
programmes.
As a rule, social protection programmes must be designed to avoid
stigmatization, address the specific needs of women and men, and
enable all recipients to become self- sufficient as fully and
quickly as possible. The most effective means for protecting
vulnerable and disenfranchised people is to eliminate exclusion and
improve the status of the elderly, the disabled, children and the
single parent in society, and to respect the cultural diversity and
human rights of migrants, refugees, internally displaced and
indigenous people. Social protection programmes can create the
environment where everyone will be given the opportunity to
participate fully in all social, economic, cultural and political
activities of the community. The success of social protection
programmes is partially dependent on the participation of
organizations and individual advocates of people living in poverty.
ix. Promoting gender equity and the full participation of women in
society
Women suffer in particular from the historical and contemporary
effects of gender discrimination, poverty, environmental
degradation, economic crisis, lack of access to opportunities for
sustainable livelihoods and poor governance. At the same time, they
are under-represented at all levels of decision-making. Yet there
is evidence that, when women participate in decision-making, policy
priorities shift to become more balanced and greater emphasis is
placed on social development. Improving women's status in society
can, therefore, have a powerful positive impact on the well-being
of households in the present and future generations. In addition to
basic social services, national policies must seek to expand
women's access to independent cash income, markets and resources,
especially land, credit and information (Box 5). All legal and
cultural barriers to the full participation of women in society
must be removed, giving women the right to own land and productive
resources, to borrow money and to inherit property on an equitable
and non-discriminatory basis.
Policy-makers should also give special attention to women's and
girls' education because female literacy helps reduce fertility
rates, improve family health and nutrition, and raise household
earnings. Quality and affordable reproductive health care, which
enables women to choose freely the number and spacing of their
children, must also be promoted as part of social development
policy. Besides, policies should avoid the tendency to treat
households as a homogeneous unit. They should recognize the
existence of power differentials within households. Massive
gender-sensitization campaigns will be needed to raise public
awareness about the specific challenges faced by women in poor
households, about discrimination against women in labour and factor
markets, and about single-parent families and violence against
women. The specific needs of women in poverty, as well as the
problems associated with women's life cycle, such as motherhood and
widowhood, must also receive explicit attention from policy-makers.
x. Preserving, maintaining and regenerating the natural resource
base
National environmental policies must be linked with
poverty-elimination efforts because of the circular relationship
between the two. In rural areas, governments must encourage
environmentally sound farming techniques, which can preserve the
eco-system, promote food security, and sustain livelihoods.
Improving small farmers' access to land, protecting the traditional
knowledge and practices of nomadic and indigenous people, and
promoting the traditional rights of agro-pastoralists to common
property resources can all contribute significantly to more
sustainable methods of cultivation and grazing. In disaster-prone
areas, rural development strategies must seek to strengthen
institutional systems. These systems should focus on disaster
prevention and management and relief schemes to make these areas
more resilient to droughts and floods.
In cities, basic infrastructure and sanitation, waste treatment and
control of chemical pollutants must be priorities for preventing a
deterioration of the living conditions of poor people. Rapid
population growth, which puts pressure on land and encourages
migration to over-crowded cities, must be addressed jointly with
poverty-elimination and sustainable-development issues.
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III. PRIORITY ACTIONS
The responsibility for designing and implementing the agreements
reached at Copenhagen lies chiefly at the national level.
Governments, in partnership with all national political and social
actors and with the support of the international donor community,
should identify concrete actions to eradicate all types of poverty,
particularly rural and extreme poverty. Once objectives are set,
they can be translated into discrete, time-bound targets. Priority
actions will have to be defined, costed and placed in a reasonable
time frame for implementation. Effective monitoring systems will
also need to be established, to assess the effectiveness of
poverty-reduction strategies and monitor the achievement of goals
and targets.
Experience with successful programmes can help guide implementation
of the strategies. The following are some suggestions stemming from
this experience, although each country will need to adapt the
operational strategies to its own situation:
i. Poverty measurement and mapping
The design of poverty eradication strategies requires a careful
identification of the target population and an assessment and
ranking of their priority needs. A poverty mapping is, therefore,
a useful starting point for policy design. Many of the successful
examples of strategy development cited in the text boxes started
with a comprehensive poverty assessment. Sudan's Area Development
Schemes, for instance, started with a baseline survey of the five
pilot project areas, which provided critical inputs for identifying
and prioritizing local needs (Box 6). Likewise, Indonesia requested
UNDP support to carry out a socio-economic baseline study in 300
rural villages, in order to assess local conditions and target
assistance more effectively (Box 9). A similar study, conducted in
Malawi in 1993, found that low agricultural productivity, existing
patterns of land ownership, poor access by smallholders to farm
inputs, research and marketing, and low non-farm incomes combined
with poor education and health, rapid population growth, and weak
institutional structures to explain poverty in the country (Box 7).
The measurement of poverty involves two distinct steps. First, one
needs to identify who the people in poverty are and where they are
located. Usually this requires specifying a set of minimum "basic
needs", and regarding the inability to fulfill these needs as a
test of poverty. Alternatively, poverty may be defined as the
relationship of a person to a set of "capabilities", the
satisfaction of which enables people to function effectively.
Regardless of how poverty is defined, the identification exercise
should allow policy- makers to respond to why certain groups, and
not others, suffer from a specific privation. Once poor households
have been identified, the next step involves their aggregation into
an overall measure. This measure will determine the extent and
depth of poverty, both in the country as a whole and for specific
regions and groups of people. Such measures must be sensitive to
income and gender disparities within and among poor households
themselves. They should not be lumped together and treated as an
undifferentiated mass of people lying below the poverty line, as
this would lead to gross distortions and a lack of focus in policy
choice. Income and power differentials within households must be
given explicit consideration.
National poverty assessments must clearly identify groups living in
poverty, analyze their composition and distribution, determine the
causes of their poverty, and predict how various policy
interventions will affect them. For this, the information must be
disaggregated by age, gender, disability, ethnic origin, religion
and geographic location, so that all possible disparities are
revealed. The mapping exercise must be participatory and must
provide critical micro-level information to policy-makers,
incorporating people's own perceptions of their situation, needs
and priorities, including an evaluation of people's livelihood
systems and coping strategies as is being done in Guinea (Box 14).
Zimbabwe's poverty assessment was produced by a team of
twenty-eight community-based researchers from sixteen districts
around the country, all of whom had experienced poverty at some
time. The report incorporated community views on poverty, poverty
alleviation and wealth creation, collected through a process of
participatory research and writing. The result was a comprehensive
analysis of poverty in Zimbabwe, which included district-level
information on the distribution of poverty among socio-economic
groups, their differential access to safety nets and the labour
market, and the constraints they face to achieve a sustainable
livelihood (Box 12). Participatory assessments, like the one
supported by the World Bank in Zambia, can help to obtain such
micro-level information as needed to guide implementation
strategies. Community-based assessments can also serve targeting,
monitoring and evaluation purposes.
The success of the poverty measurement and mapping process is
critically dependent upon the whole exercise being led by national
consultants and institutions. This increases awareness of the
problems and local ownership of the results. Nevertheless, many
countries will need technical support to strengthen their research
and statistical capabilities, and to set up reliable information
systems for programme design and evaluation. The UN system and
other donors are well suited to provide such support,which by no
means should substitute for a locally-driven exercise. In Mongolia,
the national poverty assessment, prepared by the Government with
the support of UN agency experts, laid the foundations for the
country's Poverty Alleviation Programme. The study revealed a sharp
increase in poverty since 1989. Women, children, old and disabled
people, and the unemployed were among the worst affected (Box 11).
In Mexico, a similar study done by the JCGP agencies revealed the
existence of extreme regional disparities in the distribution of
poverty, which affected indigenous peoples, migrant workers and
agricultural smallholders disproportionately (Box 13).
A number of UN agencies are involved in either the measurement of,
or reporting on, poverty. Some agencies are also involved in data
collection. IFAD, UNICEF, ECLAC, ILO and the World Bank, among
others, regularly issue studies and reports containing poverty
statistics for a large number of countries. The World Bank's Living
Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS), ILO's employment and labour
market surveys, FAO's agricultural surveys, and UNICEF's and WHO's
work on health and nutrition monitoring are a few examples of the
type of information that is available to track social progress.
Presently, the most comprehensive compilation of poverty statistics
is contained in the Social Indicators of Development published by
the World Bank. Also, the annual Human Development Report
commissioned by UNDP analyzes and updates a number of social
indicators, including the human development index. At the
inter-agency level, measurement of poverty is undertaken by a Task
Force of the UN Statistical Commission. The Commission is seeking
to harmonize data collection and reporting mechanisms, and to
enhance the quality and comparability of poverty data.
ii. Setting national goals and targets for poverty elimination
Governments are expected to take appropriate measures to implement
and monitor the achievement of Commitment 2 of the Copenhagen
Declaration. They will need to develop national policies and
strategies to substantially reduce overall poverty and inequalities
in the shortest time possible, and integrate those policies and
strategies into national development plans. The policies and
strategies should be developed as a matter of urgency, preferably
by 1996. They will address the structural causes of poverty,
seeking to ensure that people living in poverty have adequate
access to public services and productive resources, including
credit, land, education and training. The strategies, furthermore,
will include specific time-bound commitments to eradicate absolute
poverty by a target date to be specified by each country in its
national context.
Country strategies must be based on an integrated and
multi-sectoral approach to social development along the lines
recommended earlier in this text. Only in this way can the root
causes of poverty be addressed. Such an approach puts the
satisfaction of priority human needs, the promotion of
entrepreneurship and remunerative employment, and the protection
and full integration of disadvantaged and vulnerable people at the
centre of the policy agenda. Within this overall framework, policy
and strategy development must be country-specific and nationally
driven. In particular, the definition of specific goals and targets
must be entirely left to the individual countries. This enhances
ownership by national actors, and ensures that the strategies and
goals conform to country priorities and capacities. Governments, in
partnership with civil society, will decide on the appropriate mix
and sequencing of policy interventions, based on the country's
institutional capacity and poverty profile.
The first task, therefore, involves the setting of broad objectives
and goals that can be broken down into specific actions for
implementation. The Government of Zimbabwe, for instance, has set
the goal of reversing deteriorating social conditions in the
country, by giving special emphasis to employment creation and
broadening the scope, coverage and impact of social programmes. To
this end, a series of discrete programmes will be introduced for
the implementation of labour-intensive public works, the expansion
of social safety nets, the development of the micro-enterprise and
informal sector, and the promotion of sustainable livelihood
initiatives targeted at women, youth and vulnerable groups (Box
12). Malawi, in turn, aims to improve its social indicators by
strengthening social-service delivery systems, expanding access to
education and health, raising agricultural productivity, and
stabilizing population growth (Box 7). Indonesia, where previous
policies of broad-based economic growth have reduced the incidence
of poverty substantially, plans to target its interventions
narrowly to the remaining poverty pockets, which are mainly located
in isolated and remote rural villages (Box 9).
Once goals and discrete actions have been specified, they must be
prioritized, costed and placed within a realistic time frame for
implementation. Defining time-bound targets is one of the most
critical components of strategy formulation. As with goals, target-
setting is a country prerogative. To be meaningful, targets must be
technically sound, realistic and adapted to national circumstances.
They must also be backed by a strong political consensus. Targets
can, in fact, help galvanize public opinion and political will. And
they constitute a yardstick against which progress may be assessed.
At a minimum, the national targets should take into account those
that have already been endorsed at the international level during
past United Nations conferences, especially regarding the provision
of social services and the protection of basic political, economic
and social rights. To these may be added targets for people's
empowerment through participation in decision-making, for the
expansion of income and employment opportunities, and for improved
access to productive resources and assets.
The key test of a country's political will is the inclusion of the
time-bound goals and targets in its national development policies
and plans --including, where appropriate, in the law--, and the
establishment of appropriate institutional arrangements for the
follow- up, implementation and monitoring of policies and
programmes. As part of its current development plan, the Government
of the Philippines set for itself the target of reducing poverty
from 41 per cent to 30 per cent between 1991 and 1998. This
reduction is to be achieved through the adoption of a broad-based,
labour-intensive, export-led growth strategy with a strong
anti-poverty thrust, coupled with targeted social programmes for
the hard-core poor (Box 14). At the regional level, the Manila
Declaration of October 1994 established a series of time-bound
goals for the promotion of social development in Asia and the
Pacific, including the commitment to eradicate absolute poverty by
the year 2010. The goals and targets specified in earlier
international agreements will be reviewed and adapted to the
circumstances of each individual country. For this purpose, the
Governments of the ESCAP region called upon the UN system to assist
in the early implementation of these commitments at the country
level [Annex 1].
iii. Capacity assessment and development
The existence of severe institutional gaps is a major obstacle to
poverty elimination in many developing countries. Government
agencies have limited capacity to design and implement
poverty-sensitive programmes. Current administrative structures and
delivery mechanisms are insufficient; incentive systems are often
inappropriate; and social organizations are under-funded and
overwhelmed, and therefore unable to exert demands on the state or
provide alternative models of social-service provision. The project
modality of many development agencies has proven incapable of
remedying these problems. Instead of dealing with discrete
projects, what is needed is a focus on institutions. As a
conference of African ministers stated in early 1994, a major drive
towards institutional capacity- building is needed to redress
existing policy and institutional weaknesses in the region. This
drive should aim to rebuild and rehabilitate African institutions,
both inside and outside the public sector (Box 2).
Institution and capacity building through civil service reform,
training, strategic planning, and human resources management and
development is increasingly seen as critical for the success of
policy reforms. Most UN and donor agencies have stepped up their
efforts to strengthen the capacity of local institutions to manage
the development process. In Honduras, a UNDP umbrella project is
contributing to the modernization of the state through public
sector reform and decentralization (B |