The Government of Chronic Poverty


Book Description

What are the underlying causes of chronic poverty? Can ‘development beyond neoliberalism’ offer the strategies required to challenge such persistent forms of poverty, particularly through efforts to promote citizenship amongst poor people? Drawing on case-study evidence from Africa, Latin America and South Asia, the contributions critically examine different attempts to ‘govern’ chronic poverty via the promotion of particular forms and notions of citizenship, with a specific focus on the role of community-based approaches, social policy and social movements. Poverty is seen here as deriving from underlying patterns of uneven development, involving processes of capitalism and state formation that foster inequality-generating mechanisms and particularly disadvantaged social categories. Sceptics tend to deride the emphasis under current ‘inclusive’ forms of Liberalism on tackling poverty through the promotion of citizenship as inevitably depoliticising and disempowering for poor people, and our cases do suggest that citizenship-based strategies rarely alter the underlying basis of poverty. However, our evidence also offers some support to those optimists who suggest that progressive moves towards poverty reduction and citizenship formation have become more rather than less likely at the current juncture. The promotion of citizenship emerges here as a significant but incomplete effort to challenge poverty that persists over time. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.




The Government of Chronic Poverty


Book Description

What are the underlying causes of chronic poverty? Can ‘development beyond neoliberalism’ offer the strategies required to challenge such persistent forms of poverty, particularly through efforts to promote citizenship amongst poor people? Drawing on case-study evidence from Africa, Latin America and South Asia, the contributions critically examine different attempts to ‘govern’ chronic poverty via the promotion of particular forms and notions of citizenship, with a specific focus on the role of community-based approaches, social policy and social movements. Poverty is seen here as deriving from underlying patterns of uneven development, involving processes of capitalism and state formation that foster inequality-generating mechanisms and particularly disadvantaged social categories. Sceptics tend to deride the emphasis under current ‘inclusive’ forms of Liberalism on tackling poverty through the promotion of citizenship as inevitably depoliticising and disempowering for poor people, and our cases do suggest that citizenship-based strategies rarely alter the underlying basis of poverty. However, our evidence also offers some support to those optimists who suggest that progressive moves towards poverty reduction and citizenship formation have become more rather than less likely at the current juncture. The promotion of citizenship emerges here as a significant but incomplete effort to challenge poverty that persists over time. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.




Communities in Action


Book Description

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.




A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty


Book Description

The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.




Poverty, Chronic Poverty and Poverty Dynamics


Book Description

This book discusses critical policy issues that need to be addressed if India wishes to achieve the SDG 1 based elusive goal of ending poverty in the country. In its nine chapters, it takes the readers through trends and estimates of poverty in India, explains changes in the way it has been measured over time and the factors that lead to persistence of poverty, draws attention to the fact that hunger is both a cause and an effect of poverty and has gender and age dimensions too. The book revisits strategies that were successful in addressing poverty emanating from situations of conflict, presents a discussion on migration as a critical coping mechanism among poor, analyses the links between ill health and poverty as well as education and poverty to draw attention to the policy imperatives that need attention. India’s report card on poverty remains dismal even though there is recognition of the importance of reducing or eliminating or ending it at both national and global levels. Despite rapid economic growth and improvement on a range of development indicators, an unacceptably high proportion of India’s population continues to suffer poverty in multiple dimensions. SDG 1 or “ending poverty in all its forms everywhere” cannot be achieved unless policies and poverty alleviation programmes understand and address chronic poverty and its dynamics. This requires that we estimate and understand the extent of poverty, the factors that lead to people getting stuck in it and the ways this can be addressed. It also requires understanding the dynamic nature of poverty or the fact that many of those who are poor are able to move out of poverty as well as the fact that many others who are not poor become impoverished. These are the issues that are comprehensively examined and addressed in this book. In addition to students, teachers and researchers in the areas of development, economic growth, equity and welfare, the book is also of great interest to policy makers, planners and non‐government agencies who are concerned with understanding and addressing poverty-related issues in the developing countries.




Methodological Challenges and New Approaches to Research in International Development


Book Description

Development researchers face many challenges in producing robust and persuasive analyses, often within a short time-frame. This edited volume tackles these challenges head-on, using examples from other fields to provide practical guidance to research producers and users.




Income-poverty and Beyond


Book Description

Focuses on the need to go beyond the conventional definition of poverty and to consider various human aspects of the problem. Examines trends in income-poverty in India between 1983 and 1994, provides a profile of human development in rural India and investigates national poverty-reduction policies and programmes. Analyses expenditure for human development and considers poor people's perceptions and assessments of poverty.




The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century


Book Description

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.




The Future of Public Health


Book Description

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.