A Qualitative Analysis of Chronic Poverty and Poverty Reduction Strategies in the Solomon Islands

Evaluating (Chronic) Poverty Reduction Strategies in the Philippines

This article examines how the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Decent Work agenda integration into poverty reduction strategies has provided the wherewithal for closer cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It begins by discussing multilateral approaches to poverty reduction and identifying criticisms of structural adjustment programmes and the policy prescriptions of the Washington Consensus as key prompts for closer cooperation with the ILO. The article examines the development of the ILO and identifies the role that successive Director Generals have played in repositioning it as a key player in multilateral approaches to poverty reduction. The complex nature of cooperation between the ILO and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) is acknowledged and discussed. While the Washington Consensus has not been abandoned, analytical shifts within the IFIs, including greater acknowledgment of the role labour market institutions can make in sustainable growth and development, have prompted closer integration between employment and social policies and international macroeconomic policy strategies.At the heart of this engagement lies the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda and the demand for greater policy coherence among multilateral organizations in poverty reduction. The integration of Decent Work into IFI Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) is identified as a key platform for these activities. The article describes the ILO strategy for integrating Decent Work into the PRSP process and examines the criticisms this strategy has attracted. In highlighting the importance of worker voice in the national delivery of poverty reduction strategies, the article concludes by promoting the need for representative bodies to have the necessary organization and skills to engage with and implement poverty reduction strategies. For Decent Work and poverty reduction to succeed, this need is of both a national and international concern. Such challenges loom large in future engagement between the ILO and the IFIs.

This study applies the fixed effect model to investigate determinants of consumption expenditure and the MNL model to identify determinants of chronic and transient poverty in urban Ethiopia using panel data. Descriptive results show that while a large number of households frequently moved in and out of poverty between the panel periods, many did not move far above the poverty line and remained vulnerable to falling back into poverty. The Spells approach decomposition indicates that around 7 % of the households appeared to be trapped in chronic poverty while 61 % were affected by transient poverty. Fixed effect estimations confirmed that family size, dependency ratio, and head’s completion of secondary and tertiary schooling impacted consumption expenditures significantly. MNL’s results reveal that completion of secondary and tertiary schooling by the head and remittances significantly reduced both chronic and transient poverty. Family size, dependency ratio, and female headed and casual employment activities significantly aggravated both poverty categories. Policies that aim at reducing family size, dependency ratio, and improving access to education will exert a positive effect on consumption expenditure and in reducing poverty. Because demographic, human capital, and socioeconomic characteristics are important determinants of poverty categories, poverty reduction strategies and targeting will be more effective if these households’ characteristics are taken into consideration while supporting the poor to tackle poverty.

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) represent the World Bankand the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) most recent initiative for reducing theplight of the poor. This paper examines whether the PRSPs for Liberia, Afghanistanand Haiti follow World Bank guidance on health. The health data, analysisand strategy content of the three PRSPs are assessed with respect to the 'Health,Nutrition and Population' chapter of the World Bank's PRSP Sourcebook. This guidancestates that PRSPs should include: health data on the poor and a clear analysisshowing the determinants of ill health and pro-poor health strategies. Unfortunately,none of the PRSPs analysed comply with the guidance and, consequently,do not adequately portray the health situation within their countries. Thus health isnot given a high priority in the PRSP process and is seemingly low on the agendaof both poor country governments and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs).If the situation for the world's poorest people is to improve, health and the right tohealth need to be promoted within PRSPs.

On the Links between Violent Conflict and Chronic Poverty: How Much Do We Really Know?

Although much has been written on civil society participation in the formula- tion and monitoring of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), very little system- atic and scientifi c evidence exists on the kind of organizations that participate and the elements that explain their involvement in these processes. This article considers one country case, Honduras, for which survey data were gathered from 101 civil society organizations (CSOs) in 2006. This study examines the characteristics these organiza- tions display which explain (non)participation in the next participatory round of the PRSPs. The fi ndings challenge some of the by now widely accepted ideas relating to the kinds of organizations involved in PRSP processes. The idea that predominantly urban- based, highly professional, well-funded, donor-bred-and-fed nongovernmental organiza- tions participate is too blunt. The Honduran case shows that the players in participative processes are more diversifi ed than much of the current literature on PRSPs suggests. CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION UNDER THE NEW AID APPROACH: RATIONALE AND STATE OF THE ART The World Bank launched the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) in 1999, and it soon became the linchpin of a new aid approach. The principles of this new aid approach emphasize the importance of recipient ownership over national development strategies, pro-poor results, and civil society involvement in draft- ing and monitoring poverty reduction strategies. The production of such a PRSP gave access to debt relief, concessional assistance from the international fi nancial institutions (IFIs), and more aid from the larger donor community. Moreover, the PRSP was promoted as a medium- and long-term national economic and social policy planning instrument (Lazarus 2008). The new aid approach indicates a de- sire to move away from donor-driven development to give more room to home- grown, government-led, and nationally owned poverty reduction strategies. One of the most remarkable issues in the PRSP was the participation condi- tionality. Governments had to consult civil society during the formulation of the fi rst PRSP draft, and participation had to become institutionalized through

This paper argues that Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) can be understood as a technology of ‘social control’, which seeks to shape domestic political space. Despite widespread recognition that the World Bank and the IMF continue to impose orthodox policy conditions on debt relief and loans to African countries, many suggest the requirement in PRSPs for civil society ‘participation’ introduces a progressive element that could, in time, subvert the logic of coercion. In contrast, this paper suggests that it is precisely through participation that international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and bilateral donors are working with the IFIs** to secure ever more intimate supervision of African political communities. Thus, if the answer to Hanlon's (1991) rhetorical question ‘who calls the shots?’ under structural adjustment was ‘the IFIs’, the answer under PRSPs is ‘an uneasy coalition of NGOs, donors and the IFIs’. These groups share an agenda of securing consent to liberal systems of political and economic management. Through the PRSP and related processes they divide the labour required to manufacture consent, seeking to build ‘reform coalitions’ by transforming the objectives and nature of states, bureaucracies, social and political movements and, at their most ambitious, populations. In the process they imperil African sovereignty, self-determination and hopes for substantive democracy. ** Editor's Note: International financial institutions (IFIs) are public banks, using taxpayer money to invest in countries outside their borders, often in the name of fostering economic development, at home or abroad. Many of these IFIs are also large backers of fossil fuel projects around the world. They include both multilateral and bilateral development banks and export credit agencies.

The study focuses on the chronic or long-term poverty of the Russian population in the 2010s. To estimate the chronic poverty, Eurostat modified definition is applied. The level and factors of chronic poverty are estimated at the balanced panel data of the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey subject to sample attrition effect. The main factors of falling into a long-term poverty trap are the presence of children, unemployment, living in rural areas, and frequent alcohol consumption. The risk of chronic poverty is lower if family members have tried to start their own business. The presence of retirement age persons in the family and children growing up reduce the risk of poverty. Extreme poverty, with all other things being equal, makes it harder for families to escape from chronic poverty. The main factors of chronic poverty severity are similar to those of chronic poverty. Some differences in the effects on chronic and transitory components of poverty severity are identified. It is noted that the increase in the coverage of the chronic poor with multiple deprivations by the conditional cash transfer program with the extended period of support and the increased assistance granted to these persons could contribute to the chronic poverty reduction.

FOR MANY YEARS, poverty in urban areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean has been identified by spatial area (e.g. settlement, neighbourhood, inner city) as often as it has been referred to by social group (e.g. low-income women, the homeless). This has perhaps given inadequate recognition to poverty differentiation within urban poor groups or, to put it another way, it has contributed to an assumption that the poor share similar characteristics and face the same difficulties. The focus on chronic poverty that has been of growing interest in recent years is particularly relevant to our understanding of urban poverty because it recognizes differences within “the poor”. Chronic poverty is a concept that takes into account the length of time that an individual or household experiences poverty, as well as the depth of poverty. Conceptually, it challenges us to differentiate between those who are poor at any specific point in time and those who are poor over a long period of time, and between the always (chronically) poor and those for whom poverty is transitory. While in the work of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, the suggested period for “chronic poverty” is five years, it should be recognized that such specificity is somewhat arbitrary, and other definitions have also been used. As illustrated in recent papers, this often reflects the periods for which data are available. For example, Kedir and McKay use three surveys (1994, 1995, 1997) in their analysis of urban Ethiopia, and suggest that the chronically poor are those who are poor in all three surveys over a four-year period. While much of the analysis has been on incomes and the period of time without adequate income, the concept can also be applied to inadequate access to basic services such as water and education. While, conceptually, the addition of a time dimension is easy to understand, methodological approaches vary. Kedir (in this volume) explores a number of different methodologies for the study of chronic urban poverty in Ethiopia. He argues that in analyzing quantitative income and expenditure data, the use of precise differentiated price indices is significant, with different price indices producing different movements in poverty trends. (For example, in one case, an apparent reduction in poverty became an increase through the use of a different aggregate price measurement.) Hence, the use of a single set of prices, or even the use of different prices for urban and rural areas, may produce misleading indications of relative levels of poverty and the permanence (or not) of poverty. However, while such details matter with respect to specific estimates, the significance of the concept lies in the questions it raises for the analysis of poverty and poverty reduction. A consideration of the length of time that individuals and households have incomes that fall below the poverty line (by poverty line, we mean an income level that is established as necessary to

This article examines poverty dynamics in the Russian Federation from 1994 through the financial crisis in the late 1990s and into the more recent economic recovery. The severity of poverty in the Russian Federation is found to stem largely from transient, rather than chronic, spells of economic hardship. Exposure to transient poverty is strongly influenced by household levels of workforce participation, educational assets and physical assets, as well as by local economic conditions. Workforce participation and physical assets also mitigate exposure to chronic poverty. The importance of these determinants of transient and chronic poverty appears to change in the pre-crisis and post-crisis periods. But the severity of chronic poverty does not increase, suggesting that the combined movement towards a market economy and the financial crisis did not generate a new underclass of chronically poor households.

Work in the field of international development is increasingly geared towards reducing poverty, one of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations dating from the year 2000. In existence since 1999, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) initiative is integrated into this framework. The governments of the poorer developing countries are required to draft PRSPs. This is to be done in consultation with civil society. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank play an advisory role in this context. The papers are to present a coherent national analysis of poverty that takes macro-economic issues into account (Kublbock, 2001). Poverty reduction is thus one of the main objectives of all IMF and World Bank programmes. The World Bank and all other influential international players have incorporated the Education for All campaign into the PRSP initiative. This plan is thus part of poverty reduction strategies. The inclusion of the goals of the Dakar Conference (2000) in the poverty reduction strategies of international organizations opens up new prospects that reach beyond education alone. It is becoming increasingly clear that, while isolated solutions for promoting education may make sense as pilot projects, co-operation as a whole must be placed in an overall framework (Bergmann, 2002). This is true today more than ever before. As part of a refocusing of its sectoral support, the European Commission has taken the important step of placing increased emphasis on the connection between basic education and vocational training. Education and training are given a key role in the fight against poverty (European Commission, 2002a). Emphasis is placed on education for girls and education in rural areas, since the situation there is particularly critical. Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) must offer young people occupational alternatives in the formal and informal sectors (European Commission, 2002b). The 2015 Action Programme of the German Government (Germany. Federal Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development—FMECD, 2001) also features a coherent approach to reducing poverty. Poverty reduction has now become the overriding aim of German development co-operation efforts. Activities for

Poverty is no longer a problem of income alone. Healthy poverty and capacity poverty have become key factors affecting the poverty reduction effectiveness. Based on “double cut-offs” multidimensional poverty identification method of Alkire and Foster (J Public Econ 95(7–8): 476–487, 2011), this paper proposes a “triple cut-offs” identification method of multidimensional poverty reduction effectiveness, and construct the chronic multidimensional poverty reduction index combined with chronic thinking of Foster (in: Addison T, Hulme D, Kanbur R (eds) Poverty dynamics: interdisciplinary perspectives. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 59–76, 2009). And this index can comprehensively and systematically measure the China’s multidimensional poverty reduction effectiveness in terms of both poverty alleviation and poverty returning. In this paper, we find that China's chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation index is greater than the country’s chronic poverty returning index, and the chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation/returning index in rural and western regions is greater than that in its cities and other regions in China. The chronic poverty alleviation of per capita net income and medical insurance have contributed a lot to the overall chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation of China’s rural residents, while poverty returning caused by health and housing difficulties has contributed a lot (48.14%) to the chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation of the country’s urban residents. These findings can provide more targeted guidance for poverty governance.

Dynamic poverty analysis distinguishes two kind of poverty: chronic and transient poverty. Chronic poverty is long term poverty while transient poverty is short term poverty. Theoretically, these two kind of poverty need different policy. Chronic poverty needs human capital development whereas transient poverty needs social safety net. This study aims to estimate chronic and transient poverty in East Java and to analyze its determinants. This research used Component Approach to estimate chronic and transient poverty. Tobit regression was employed to analyze its determinants. This study utilized Survei Sosial Ekonomi Nasional (Social Economic National Survey of Indonesia) year 2008 and year 2010. The result of this study indicates that poverty in East Java is largely comprised of chronic poverty. Chronic component of poverty is 76 percent and transient component of poverty is 24 percent. The high chronic component of poverty is found in regency of, Malang, Kediri, Sumenep, and Pasuruan. The regression result indicates that chronic and transient poverty are influenced by education of household head, gender of household head, access to credit and health insurance ownership. 
 JEL Classification: C01, I32, I38, J24,

The Politics of Staying Poor in Uganda

From Basic Needs to MDGs – Four Decades of Poverty Reduction Debates and No Progress to be Seen. MDGs and Poverty Reduction Strategies are new international efforts aimed towards the eradication of mass poverty. Some developmentalists are pleased to see the issue of poverty back on the agenda after a long period in which the neoliberal stability paradigm dominated the development debate. However, the new poverty debate does not address the root causes of mass poverty, nor is it related to the lessons learnt from perviously unsuccessful poverty reduction policies and strategies. Describing the manifold approaches during the past four decades, and the reasons for their nonacceptance or failure, the article argues that poverty cannot be reduced on a global scale, by local or national efforts within poor countries, as long as global economic trends tend to exclude a considerable share of the global labour-force. Furthermore, as long as the poor continue to have weak political voices within their countries, global poverty can not be reduced by pro-poor regulations of global economic relations. Successful poverty reduction requires a multi-level and multi-dimensional approach, one in which employment generating global trade regimes, social investment spending and political empowerment of the poor, through grass-root level interventions, would work to supplement one another.