Poorest Members Of Society Research Articles

Financial services for the poor within the formal/informal nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper draws upon fieldwork undertaken across Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa to present a reflective overview of the use of financial services amongst the poorest members of society. It considers the role that access to a portfolio of financial products and services may have as a contributory factor in poverty alleviation, but also how inappropriate use of these mechanisms may exacerbate a descent into poverty. This work draws upon the notions of poverty pools and the rise of fall of low income households in and out of poverty, alongside the contributory nature of vicious cycles of economic and political poverty. Drawing on fieldwork experiences it presents a synopsis of the types of financial mechanisms commonly in use on the African continent, as well as examples of public, private and civil society partnerships that are producing services specifically tailored for those in extreme and absolute poverty.

Measuring the Impact of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Consumption Behavior with Propensity Scoring

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs are quickly replacing old welfare programs because they help the poorest members of society both on the short and long-term. On the short term, the extra discretionary income provided by these programs help participant families meet their pressing basic needs. On the long term, these cash transfers are conditional on participants engaging in health and education-related activities that directly benefit their children, as an attempt to extract the new generation from the vicious circle of poverty.The impact of CCT programs on their main goals (health, education and nutrition) has already been widely tested and documented. The main purpose of our current study is to assess the impact of a fully implemented program (Bolsa-Familia in Brazil) on consumption behavior. This is important for several reasons. First, CCT programs represent a substantial boost in participants' discretionary income, all funneled into consumption, resulting into a substantial additional demand for certain product categories. Second, critics of CCT programs claim that most of this discretionary income is squandered in superfluous consumption, pushing these poor households into new unsustainable lifestyle. Third, most tests of the impact of CCT programs are based on controlled experiments conducted either before or at the beginning of the program's full implementation. In contrast, our assessment is done after Bolsa Familia has been fully implemented, which required us to design a natural experiment combining propensity scoring with econometric modeling. Based on this natural experiment, we are able to quantify the effect of Bolsa Familia on its participants, and also the incremental demand for various product categories generated by this CCT program. Contrary to what detractors of the program claim, we find that most of the extra cash is devoted to essential goods (food, clothing, tec.) rather than superfluous consumption.

Safeguarding ecosystem services and livelihoods: Understanding the impact of conservation strategies on benefit flows to society

Society has always benefited from ecosystems through the provision of ecosystem services. To ensure a continuous flow of these benefits, different strategies aimed at safeguarding ecosystem services are proposed. In this paper we explore how biodiversity conservation measures, particularly protected areas, influence the flow of ecosystem services to different members of society. We highlight the impact of these measures on the poorer members of society because of their strong dependence on ecosystem services to sustain their livelihood. For the Democratic Republic of Congo we mapped five ecosystem services (food production, tourism, carbon, timber and fuel wood production) using spatial landscape indicators, within and outside protected areas, and identified their direct beneficiaries. This illustration was used to feed a round-table discussion on the impact of different conservation strategies on society, held with ecosystem services professionals during the 4th Ecosystem Service Partnership Conference in the Netherlands. The discussion highlighted the need for spatial methods to assess ecosystem service trade-offs, as well as the main challenges for conservation measures to contribute to both livelihood improvement and conservation gains. We argue that, ecosystem services maps can play a crucial role in understanding and managing the trade-offs in ecosystem service flows resulting from conservation strategies.

Free market capitalism, social accountability and equity in early human (child) development.

A University of Chicago Nobel Laureate in economics, RW Fogel, and a Dutch economist, JW Drukker, found that as the wealth of Western countries improved following the Industrial Revolution, life expectancy increased and the mean height of their populations improved (1,2). Since height is a product of genes and nutrition, they concluded that improved health was related to improved socioenvironments and better nutrition of children, not improvements in health care. Today, the health of populations in developed countries is a socioeconomic gradient. These health gradients (3) are linear, which means that whatever the socioeconomic factors influencing health today are, they affect everyone in society, including the wealthiest. The effect, however, is greatest on the poorest members of society. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s (CIAR) population health program led by Robert Evans (University of British Columbia [Vancouver, British Columbia]) examined the factors contributing to the health gradients in Canada and other countries. They concluded that in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States (US), the major factor contributing to inequities in health was more than poverty and a lack of health care (3). Hertzman et al (4) – members of the CIAR’s population health program – proposed that the socioeconomic conditions in early life affected adult health (physical and mental) throughout life. They and others suggested that the development of the brain and related biological pathways in early life were important factors. This led to the hypothesis that if the socioeconomic gradient in health was influenced by brain and biological pathway development in the early years, it was possible that there were similar socioeconomic gradients in education and behaviour (5). The CIAR established a program in human development to explore the concept. The scientists in this program found that the socioeconomic gradients in literacy, numeracy and behaviour were similar to the health gradients (6). They suggested that the effect of experience in early life on the development of the architecture and function of the brain was important in contributing to inequities in health and education. In 2002, the CIAR established a new program, ‘Experience-based Brain and Biological Development’ to study how genes and experience shape brain development that influences health, learning and behaviour trajectories throughout life.

Inequality and Poverty as a Motor for Growth and Prosperity?

This contribution considers a number of hypotheses based on economic arguments which, on the one hand, can be related to inequality and poverty and, on the other, to growth and prosperity. In principle one can discern two opposing positions among theorists: one hypothesis proposes that prosperity and growth are the result of inequality and poverty. Accordingly, human beings must be poor in order to exert themselves and thus contribute to growth in the society they live in. The drive towards general prosperity is seen as the result of inequality. It is assumed that the poor, seeing the standard of living of the rich which they want to emulate, will exert themselves and thus will contribute to the general development of social prosperity; the rich will invest profitably in jobs and thus will create the preconditions for the (unintended) well-being of the poorer members of society. In contrast, there are those who see a connection between inequality and both an insufficient willingness/ability to achieve and inadequate acceptance of the system as insufficient and thus a lower development of prosperity: accordingly they criticize the neglect of the fact that the poor do not have the preconditions for successful economic activity. The calls for political action, therefore, also go in opposing directions: on the one hand, the state is bad to withdraw from the economic sphere to allow the maximum free play of market forces, while on the other, it is asked to intervene to assist the disadvantaged to develop their economic potential. In addition, as a result of Keynes's thesis concerning the endogenous instability of capitalism itself, there are concerns about exscessive inequality affecting demand as an essential condition of economic growth.

TAXATION IN UTOPIA

Abstract Utopias of the right and the left offer different justifications for taxation and propose different tax systems. Here, utopian proposals are analysed and evaluated from two perspectives: the “ideal” form of taxation (visible, equitable, and non-avoidable), and the democratic perspective (would people willingly consent to it?). Pre-taxation, favoured by left-wing utopias, raises problems from a democratic standpoint while right-wing utopias assert that taxation must be voluntary but are over-confident that “voluntary government financing” would provide a safety-net for poorer members of society. In the conclusion, I argue that there is more at stake than the left/right dispute. The different attitudes to utopian taxation are indicative of markedly different conceptions of society

Analysis of land-cover/use change dynamics in Manica Province in Mozambique in a period of transition (1990–2004)

The land-cover/use change dynamics in Manica Province in Mozambique are analysed, based upon interpretation of LANDSAT images, to assess trends and highlight management suggestions considering current policies in place that include the ownership and participation of local communities in natural resources management and the recognition of traditional ownership systems. Applying an object-oriented approach to compare the year 2004 with 1990, one observes that land-cover/use changes are not distributed evenly in the province. A substantial decrease in areas with trees belonging to the ‘ miombo ecosystem’ occurred and an increase of cultivated areas. The nature of agriculture is changing from shifting cultivation to more permanent types. These changes are found in prevalence on gentle slopes and close to the road network. The shift in equilibrium between the cultivated and (semi-) natural vegetated areas to cultivated areas may reduce the availability of forest products and reduce the free ecological services provided by trees. Prolonged cultivation in the same area represents a critical limit for destruction of rootstock and therefore miombo regrowth potential. Community-based management of the natural resources should thus be careful not to disturb the delicate balance of remaining miombo and give emphasis to the regulation of land-use activities, otherwise the negative impacts of land-cover/use change dynamics may fall disproportionately on the poorest members of society.

Trade liberalisation and CAP reform in the EU

Europe has underperformed relative to its peers and to its own previous performance over the last two decades. That underperformance reflects a range of factors, from structural rigidities in labour and capital markets, to inappropriate macroeconomic policy. But one set of policy measures that could contribute to improved economic performance in the future is trade liberalisation and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This article examines the benefits that could accrue to the UK, EU and global economies from the liberalisation of trade in goods and from the replacement of the current CAP with other, more productive forms of spending. It finds that the current barriers to trade in the EU, and the resources dedicated to the maintenance of the CAP, are set to cost the EU some 2% of GDP by 2015 if they remain in place. Moreover, this cost falls disproportionately on the poorer members of society.

Fear appeals in social marketing: Strategic and ethical reasons for concern

AbstractThis article criticizes the predominant use of fear appeals in social marketing. Laboratory studies, which have been the basis for most of the research on fear appeals and which generally suggest that high fear works, have limitations that include forced exposure, short‐term measurement, and an overdependence on student samples. Although, unfortunately, field research evaluations of fear appeals are few, they usually reveal that fear has both weaker effects and unintended deleterious effects in real‐world social marketing campaigns. Ethical concerns about fear appeals include maladaptive responses such as chronic heightened anxiety among those most at risk and, paradoxically, complacency among those not directly targeted, and increased social inequity between those who respond to fear campaigns, who tend to be better off, and those who do not, who tend to be the less educated and poorer members of society. Alternatives to fear appeals are the use of positive reinforcement appeals aimed at the good behavior, the use of humor, and, for younger audiences, the use of postmodern irony. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Wild Politics: Beyond Globalization

Synopsis In this article, I argue that globalization harms women, and that it does so in gender-specific ways. Further, as globalization contains many elements of violence and violation in its systemic targeting of the poorest members of society, because women are the poorest members of society, they are also negatively affected through poverty. I discuss the impact of globalization on women working in export processing zones in poor countries and in the service sector in rich nations. I examine the impact of globalization on Indigenous women, in particular on their knowledge systems, and on women working in primary production. Finally, I draw some comparisons between the bodilessness of global cyberculture and its impact on those framing a disembodied postmodern feminist response, while at the same time the Internet is used to exploit women further through making them continuously accessible to mobile men. I link this phenomenon with the commodification of women's bodies through the export of women for prostitution and for domestic labor. Finally, I suggest some broad outlines of ways in which feminists could engage in a philosophy of connection and through the development of a wild politics: a politics enlivened and inspired by biodiversity.

Social Capital and the Social Evaluation of Investments

One outcome of the existence of social capital in a community is that individuals will take into consideration the welfare of other members of the community. If an investment project is undertaken that causes the poorer members of society to increase their consumption of goods and services to improve the satisfaction of their basic needs, then other members of the community who are not directly affected by the project may also experience an increase in the level of their economic welfare. This approach takes into consideration both the change in the economic welfare of the recipients of the assistance provided to enhance the satisfaction of basic needs in the community, but also takes into consideration the tastes and preferences of the rest of the community, some who might be subsidizing this activity. This basic needs externality can be created by investments because the project lowers the price of a good or service used to satisfy their basic needs, or by raising the incomes of the poor groups so that they now will buy more of the goods that are used to satisfy their basic needs. This paper develops a theoretical framework for the evaluation of the basic needs externality created by the investment. It then applies this theoretical framework to the case of a project that proposes to expand the water supply in the south part of the city of Manila. We find that these externalities can be quite important. In this particular case a conservative evaluation of the basic needs externality leads to a value that is over 4 times as large as the financial shortfall of the project.

Micro-Credit and Good Governance: Models of Poverty Alleviation

AbstractIt has often been held that economic growth, particularly broad-based growth that leads to rising income and standards of living at all socio-economic strata, is an essential weapon against poverty in the developing world. According to conventional wisdom in development literature, as a country registers economic growth, the benefits will trickle down to even the poorest members of society. It is well-known that this has not happened and that widespread poverty persists. After decades of economic development, too much of the world's wealth is concentrated in too few hands. Instead of lessening the gap between the rich and the poor in this world, this gap has actually increased. This paper identifies two very important models for developing the economies of some Asian countries. The idea of micro-credit has caught on not only in Bangladesh but also in countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, India, China and the United States, and is a model that should be taken seriously.

Palestinian Women Workers in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip

Palestinian women workers who, like other Arab female workers, are exploited in terms of sex (men receive twice what women earn) and class (only the poorest enter wage labor) are also exploited along political lines. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, and its continued control of the territory has pulled female workers in two directions. On the one hand, occupation has both initiated and sustained female participation in the wage labor force. Conversely, it has severely curtailed job opportunity by suppressing the political and economic infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, where the distorted economy exacerbates distinctions based on sex and class, women's role in the work force as a low-paid, reserve army of labor is accentuated. The paper deals first with Palestinian women's subordination in the work force due to sex discrimination, then with women's subordination in the work force due to class. In the world at large, women enter the work force primarily out of economic necessity. In the Middle East, where societal stigmas discourage women from entering the labor market, women who work in wage labor are single, widowed or divorced; they are therefore among the poorest members of society. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has caused clearer class distinctions among Palestinians in Gaza due to the loss of land, which destroyed the middle class, and the post-1967 proletarianization of the refugee population. Except for a small commercial sector, Palestinians in Gaza work either in the professions or in wage labor, and job