Abstract

The existence of extreme poverty in several developing countries is a critical challenge that needs to be addressed urgently because of its adverse implications on human wellbeing. Its manifestations include lack of adequate food and nutrition, lack of access to adequate shelter, lack of access to safe drinking water, low literacy rates, high infant and maternal mortality, high rates of unemployment, and a feeling of vulnerability and disempowerement. Poverty reduction can be attained by stimulating economic growth to increase incomes and expand employment opportunities for the poor; undertaking economic and institutional reforms to enhance efficiency and improve the utilization of resources; prioritizing the basic needs of the poor in national development policies; promoting microfinance programs to remove constraints to innovation, entrepreneurship, and small scale business; developing and improving marketing systems to improve production; providing incentives to the private sector; and, implementing affirmative actions such as targeted cash transfers to ensure that the social and economic benefits of poverty reduction initiatives reach the demographics that might otherwise be excluded.

Highlights

  • Poverty is a serious economic and social problem that afflicts a large proportion of the world’s population and manifests itself in diverse forms such as lack of income and productive assets to ensure sustainable livelihoods, chronic hunger and malnutrition, homelessness, lack of durable goods, disease, lack of access to clean water, lack of education, low life expectancy, social exclusion and discrimination, high levels of unemployment, high rate of infant and maternal mortality, and lack of participation in decision making [1–3]

  • Poverty exists in all countries, extreme poverty is more widespread in the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia [8, 10]

  • The goal of poverty reduction can be achieved through sound policies that address the root causes of poverty, promote inclusive economic growth, prioritize the basic needs of the poor, and provide economic opportunities that empower the poor and enable them to improve their standards of living [6, 8, 64]

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Summary

Introduction

Poverty is a serious economic and social problem that afflicts a large proportion of the world’s population and manifests itself in diverse forms such as lack of income and productive assets to ensure sustainable livelihoods, chronic hunger and malnutrition, homelessness, lack of durable goods, disease, lack of access to clean water, lack of education, low life expectancy, social exclusion and discrimination, high levels of unemployment, high rate of infant and maternal mortality, and lack of participation in decision making [1–3]. The poverty rate in Africa decreased from 54% in 1990 to 41% in 2015 but the number of the poor increased from 278 million in 1990 to 413 million in 2015 This constitutes a compelling case for robust well-thought out policies that stimulate economic growth and produce outcomes that are inclusive and sustainable and address other dimensions of well-being such as education, health and gender equality [1, 8, 12, 14–20]. The World Bank [1, 32, 33], Acemoglu and Robinson [34], and Beegle and Christiaensen [12] argue that in much of Sub-Saharan Africa where agriculture is the main occupation, low agricultural productivity is a primary cause of poverty I present some case studies to demonstrate how these measures have been successfully applied in various developing countries

Some definitions and statistics
Poverty alleviation strategies
Economic and institutional reforms
Promoting microfinance institutions and programs
Improving the marketing systems
Cash/income transfer programs
Selected case studies on poverty reduction in developing countries
Sub-Saharan Africa
Latin America
Findings
Conclusions and policy implications
Full Text
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