Von Basic Needs zu MDGs. Vier Jahrzehnte Armutsbekämpfung in Wissenschaft und Praxis und kein bisschen weiter

Abstract

Abstract 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.