Ageing,Poverty and the Role of a Social Pension in Vietnam

Using the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey in 2004, this article seeks to quantify the potential role and impacts of a social pension scheme for reducing elderly poverty in Vietnam. The authors simulate changes in the poverty rate, poverty gap and poverty severity of the elderly in the counterfactual situation that such a scheme had been introduced to Vietnam in the past. They consider a number of categorical targeting groups of elderly people along with various transfer parameters to assess the impacts of the scheme on social welfare. They conclude that, depending on the characteristics of the social pension, there would be beneficial poverty reductions, but also large leakages to the non‐poor people. For a variety of measures, the results suggest that targeting the elderly in rural areas might be the most effective use of limited resources. Simulations for different budgetary constraints show that, even with limited budgeting, a social pension scheme would significantly reduce poverty incidence for the elderly. Furthermore, for a given programme cost, combining lower benefits with lower eligibility requirements is more effective at reducing poverty than providing larger benefits to a more limited group of recipients.     

Poverty Alleviation Programmes In Rural India: An Assessment

ABSTRACT The Planning Commission estimated a sharp reduction of poverty during the early 1980s, which it attributed largely to the poverty alleviation strategy followed during the Sixth Plan. Specifically, it was claimed that the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) was responsible for a substantial reduction in rural poverty. This claim is critically evaluated here. Drawing upon the results of an applied general equilibrium model, selected anti-poverty interventions are compared from a macro perspective. Noting the incentive and information-related problems, some key issues in designing anti-poverty interventions are addressed. Section I reviews changes in rural poverty at the all-India level. Section II explores the relationship between rural poverty, agricultural production and (consumer) prices. Distinguishing between transitory and persistent poverty, alternative measures of persistent poverty are presented in Section III. A case is then made for an interventionist anti-poverty strategy, followed by a brief review (Section IV) of salient features and selected performance indicators of poverty alleviation programmes launched/implemented during the Sixth Plan period. Section V investigates whether these programmes — especially the IRDP — played a significant role in alleviating poverty. Section VI discusses selected anti-poverty interventions and possible design-related reforms; concluding observations are offered in the final section.     

In Cameroon,a female-centred organization works to conquer the poverty of rural women

This is a discussion of the work of the Rural Women Development Council for poor rural women in Cameroon. The concept of absolute poverty involves the measurement of the quantity and quality of necessities required to maintain the average well-being of an individual or group of individuals. The standards are considered to be relative to a particular time and place. Subjective poverty is a state of acceptance by the person who is poor that he or she is poor; it is independent of the perspective of onlookers. Income levels vary resulting, and as a result, poverty exists. Under those premises, the Rural Women Development Council (RWDC) is helping to alleviate poverty in rural women through microcredit schemes. Over 200 women have engaged in farming and small trades. Increased equity, enhanced opportunity, peace and security, participation and sustainable future, in addition to increased income, help to defeat poverty. Strategies for eradicating poverty include enhancing the ability of local communities to adapt to stress, overcome emergencies and improve long-term productivity. The RWDC have observed that loanees are today economically above other rural women.     

CASH TRANSFERS AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN CHILE*

ABSTRACT The headcount ratio in Chile has declined from 40 percent to 14 percent since 1987. However, most analysis of this reduction uses national and regional poverty statistics. In contrast, we employ poverty mapping methodologies to find heterogeneity in the effectiveness of transfers across counties. To better understand this variation, we explore the roles of characteristics of the local population, structural features of the county, and geography. The greatest reductions in poverty occur in rural households, yet population characteristics and geography are also important. These findings suggest that targeting at low levels of aggregation can deliver further reductions in poverty.     

乡村旅游对贫困山区农户多维贫困的影响研究

在分析乡村旅游对农户多维贫困影响机理的基础上,利用陕西4市22个乡村旅游扶贫村农户调查数据,采用内生转换回归模型,定量分析了乡村旅游对贫困山区农户多维贫困的影响。研究发现:多维贫困程度越深,农户参与旅游比例越低,乡村旅游不具有天然益贫性;参与旅游能够显著减缓农户的多维贫困。从单维贫困看,乡村旅游对调查地农户的经济、教育、生活水平和权利维度具有显著的减贫效应,其中对生活水平的减贫效应最大,健康维度效应不显著;参与和未参与乡村旅游的农户在多维贫困以及经济、生活水平维度的减贫影响因素存在着显著差异,而在教育、健康、权利维度的减贫影响因素差异不大。据此,从乡村旅游经营、精准帮扶、权益保障等方面提出对策建议。     

Social Funds in Stabilization and Adjustment Programmes: A Critique

This article evaluates the impact of the large number of Social Funds (SFs) which were introduced over the last fifteen years to offset the increase in poverty induced by adjustment. SFs have enjoyed greater visibility and financial support by the donor community than traditional social security programmes, and raised expectations about improvements in living conditions in developing countries. Notwithstanding the visibility and administrative flexibility they enjoyed, and their fairly rapid implementation, SFs played only a minor role in reducing the number of adjustment poor and chronic poor and reversing adverse shifts in income distribution. This was due to problems in funding, targeting and sequencing, and cost‐effectiveness. The article concludes that, all in all, SFs have proven to be no panacea. Many of them were formulated with the political objective of reducing domestic opposition to the adjustment process. Greater impact on poverty would have required increased resources, more permanent relief structures, improved planning and targeting and, especially, better timing in relation to the fiscal cuts entailed by macroeconomic adjustment.     

Mining sick: Creatively unsettling normative narratives about industry,environment, extraction,and the health geographies of rural,remote, northern,and Indigenous communities in British Columbia

Rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous communities on Turtle Island are routinely—as Cree Elder Willie Ermine says—pathologized. Social science and health scholarship, including scholarship by geographers, often constructs Indigenous human and physical geographies as unhealthy, diseased, vulnerable, and undergoing extraction. These constructions are not inaccurate: peoples and places beyond urban metropoles on Turtle Island live with higher burdens of poor health; Indigenous peoples face systemic violence and racism in colonial landscapes; rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous geographies are sites of industrial incursions; and many rural and remote geographies remain challenging for diverse Indigenous peoples. What, however, are the consequences of imagining and constructing people and places as “sick”? Constructions of “sick” geographies fulfill and extend settler (often European white) colonial narratives about othered geographies. Rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous geographies are discursively “mined” for narratives of sickness. This mining upholds a sense of health and wellness in southern, urban, Euro‐white‐settler imaginations. Drawing from multi‐year, relationship‐based, cross‐disciplinary qualitative community‐informed experiences, and anchored in feminist, anti‐colonial, and anti‐racist methodologies that guided creative and humanities‐informed stories, this paper concludes with different stories. It unsettles settler‐colonial powers reliant on constructing narratives about sickness in others and consequently reframes conversations about Indigenous well‐being and the environment.     

西南连片特困地区乡村旅游的减贫效应分析——基于广西235个村庄的调查

基于精准识别的一手调查数据,运用最小二乘法的多元线性回归模型,评估西南连片特困地区235个村庄乡村旅游的整体减贫效果,并进一步考察交通设施建设、旅游产业项目建设和旅游就业参与等不同开发环节对减贫效果的具体影响。结果发现:乡村旅游开发的整体减贫效应明显,但是交通设施建设、旅游产业项目建设以及旅游就业参与等不同开发环节的减贫效应存在显著差异;乡村旅游扶贫开发有助于贫困户脱贫增收,针对不同开发环节的具体问题要精准滴灌、靶向治疗,实现乡村旅游扶贫开发的精准发力、精准施策和精准帮扶。     

DISTANCE FROM URBAN AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES AND RURAL POVERTY*

ABSTRACT Despite strong national economic growth and significant poverty reduction during the late 1990s, high poverty persisted in remote rural areas. This study uses a geographical information system county database to examine the nexus between rural U.S. poverty and remoteness. We find that poverty rates increase with greater rural distances from successively larger metropolitan areas (MAs). We explain this outcome as arising from the attenuation of urban agglomeration effects at greater distances and incomplete commuting and migration responses to lower labor demand in rural areas. One implication is that remote areas may particularly experience greater reductions in poverty from place‐based economic development policies.     

Environments of disadvantage: Geographies of persistent poverty in Glasgow

Persistence of poverty amidst plenty is a characteristic of advanced capitalist societies. In the UK most of the disadvantaged live in towns and cities, where despite half a century of the welfare state, poverty and deprivation remain serious problems for people and places marginal to the capitalist development process. This research employs data from successive national Censuses of Population to map the changing geography of disadvantage in the post‐industrial city of Glasgow. The findings provide insight into the effectiveness of past anti‐deprivation strategies and signpost areas for future action.     

Voices from the Top of the Pile: Elite Perceptions of Poverty and the Poor in the Philippines

How do elites perceive poverty and the poor? In this article, we present the results of interviews with eighty members of the Filipino elite, undertaken as part of a larger six‐country study of elite perceptions of poverty and the poor. Poverty, we argue, is a highly subjective phenomenon. People's perceptions of poverty, of who is and who is not poor, of how poverty affects them and others, and of how poverty can be effectively tackled, vary enormously between different types of people (defined in terms of class, status, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, gender or a myriad of other social identities). Wherever people cohere as groups, classes or other social constructs, perceptions of poverty are aggregated and refined and then embedded in social dynamics. The study of elite perceptions of poverty and the poor, we conclude, can both add to our understanding of the social dynamics of poverty and inequality and inform pro‐poor public policy.     

It is Possible to Just Give Money to the Poor

Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics recently suggested that, rather than ‘giving fifty billion dollars of overseas aid’, we should simply ‘find the poor and give them one dollar a week … That would probably do more to relieve poverty than anything else’. Two experiences in Mozambique of simply handing out money show this is possible. Payments to demobilized soldiers over a two year period and single payments to flood victims were of the order of magnitude suggested by Desai. Rural people had no difficulty cashing cheques and used the money prudently. The money stimulated the rural economy and thus had a development impact. Administrative costs were between 5 and 10 per cent, much less than in other aid projects. Using the Mozambique experience, this article concludes by suggesting that Desai's proposed one dollar per person per week could be paid as a family grant bi‐monthly, which would keep administrative costs low.     

From Reconstruction to Development: The Early Years of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Conceptualization of Rural Welfare, 1945–1955

This paper examines the early years of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its conceptualization of ‘rural welfare’, an approach that foresaw the modernization of agricultural societies and the alleviation of poverty through improvements in labor, housing, health, education of people working in agriculture. Based on the correspondence of FAO officials and experts, the paper shows how in the late 1940s, the Rural Welfare Division, under the leadership of its Director Horace Belshaw, promoted a low-modernist and local-sensitive approach to rural development that emphasized the subjectivity of welfare and that was skeptical of top-down development programs. As the paper argues, Belshaw's holistic understanding of rural communities was abandoned in the early 1950s in favor of an increasingly technical development consultancy, characterized by short-term interventions rather than by an intellectual and scientific debate about the larger implications of development.     

The political economy of maize production and poverty reduction in Zambia: analysis of the last 50 years

Poverty and food security are endemic issues in much of sub-Saharan Africa. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger in the region remains a key Millennium Development Goal. Many African governments have pursued economic reforms and agricultural policy interventions in order to accelerate economic growth that reduces poverty faster. Agricultural policy regimes in Zambia in the last 50 years (1964–2008) are examined here to better understand their likely impact on food security and poverty, with an emphasis on the political economy of maize subsidy policies. The empirical work draws on secondary sources and an evaluation of farm household data from three villages in the Kasama District of Zambia from 1986/87 and 1992/93 to estimate a two-period econometric model to examine the impact on household welfare in a pre- and post-reform period. The analysis shows that past interventions had mixed effects on enhancing the production of food crops such as maize. While such reforms were politically popular, it did not necessarily translate into household-level productivity or welfare gains in the short term. The political economy of reforms needs to respond to the inherent diversity among the poor rural and urban households. The potential of agriculture to generate a more pro-poor growth process depends on the creation of new market opportunities that most benefit the rural poor. The state should encourage private sector investments for addressing infrastructure constraints to improve market access and accelerate more pro-poor growth through renewed investments in agriculture, rural infrastructure, gender inclusion, smarter subsidies and regional food trade. However, the financing of such investments poses significant challenges. There is a need to address impediments to the effective participation of public private investors to generate more effective poverty reduction and hunger eradication programmes. This article also explores the opportunities for new public–private investments through South–South cooperation and Asia-driven growth for reducing poverty in Zambia.     

农村贫困化与空心化耦合发展的空间分异及影响因素研究

农村贫困化与空心化是乡村地域系统衰退的主要表征和关键内因，在当前乡村振兴初期和脱贫攻坚决胜期，深入探究二者间互动关系，有助于了解乡村发展阶段，缓解深度贫困，促进城乡融合发展。本文以宁夏同心县为例，采用MPI和人口空心化综合评价法测算农村贫困化与空心化程度，并进行耦合发展空间分析和影响因素探测。结果表明：①农村贫困化与空心化耦合程度呈现低、中、高3种趋势交替出现的“北低南高”空间分布格局，高度耦合区多集中于南部山区；②乡村地域系统衰退程度与耦合度空间分布基本吻合，贫困地区乡村普遍处于亚健康和非健康发展状态；③农村自然条件和资源禀赋是影响乡村发展的基础因素，区位条件是其重要因素，经济基础则是其决定性因素，各因子之间相互作用增加了乡村地域系统发展的复杂性。     

Does Agricultural Growth Matter in Poverty Alleviation?

This article uses a panel survey of households in the Indian state of Maharashtra to demonstrate that agricultural growth takes too long to trickle down to the rural poor. Unanticipated inflation, on the other hand, aggravates rural poverty, as does domination of the agricultural growth process by large landholders. This affects the poor through the oligopsonistic influence of the landholders in rural labour markets, dampening employment and wages (as compared with the outcome in a competitive market). In the context of structural adjustment, while the emphasis on allocative efficiency through withdrawal of input subsidies and remunerative prices for output is justified, acceleration in agricultural growth by itself is unlikely to make a dent in rural poverty. Measures designed to accelerate agricultural growth must therefore be supplemented by direct anti-poverty interventions. Consumer price stabilization is particularly important, and would be assisted by an overhaul of the Public Distribution System. Major reforms would include improved flexibility in the scale of the PDS, better targeting through alternative distribution networks when private trade channels are weak or non-existent, and simplification of registration procedures. The oligopsonistic role of large landholders could be curbed through market-mediated land redistribution, scrapping of all tenancy regulations when tenancy markets function efficiently, and through large-scale intervention in rural labour markets along the lines of the Employment Guarantee Scheme.     

Hardworking Newcomers and Generations of Poverty: Poverty Discourse in Central Washington State

This research is part of a project that aims to reinterpret geographies of poverty in the American Northwest by focusing on the intersections of cultural and political–economic processes that produce poverty differences. This paper contributes to this aim by unpacking poverty beliefs by race at the local county level. This qualitative analysis is grounded in a brief discussion of the political economy of Kittitas County in Central Washington State, which provides space to analyze the theoretical linkages between structural and cultural constructions of poverty differences. Specifically, this paper argues that first generation “hardworking” Hispanic immigrants embody the “working poor”, while individual explanations of poverty are articulated as the “intergenerational poor”, who are racialized as white and choose poverty as a lifestyle. In this vein, many local residents use the marker of “generation” to distinguish between white, lower class individuals who choose to be poor from a group of Hispanic newcomers whose poverty stems from structural forces such as non‐living‐wage jobs and discrimination. This forms one part of a larger strategy to “blame the individual” for the existence of white poverty. This analysis poses new theoretical insights into the intersection between difference markers such as race, class, and generation and contributes to the literature on racial differences in poverty explanations. The geographical specificity of poverty discourse argues for further grounding of the poverty literature in material conditions, which will allow for more nuanced understanding of the creation and persistence of poverty in poor communities.     

Changes in Food Consumption and the Implications for Food Security and Undernourishment: India in the 1990s

This article examines the changes in the nature and quantity of food consumption in India during the reform decade of the 1990s, and analyses their implications for calorie intake and undernourishment. The study documents the decline in cereal consumption, especially in the urban areas, and provides evidence that suggests an increase in the prevalence of undernourishment over the period 1987/88 to 2001/2002. The results also point to a significant number of households, even in the top expenditure decile, suffering from undernourishment. This calls for a reassessment of the current strategy of directing the Targetted Public Distribution System (TPDS) exclusively at households ‘below the poverty line’. This study shows that, both as a source of subsidized calories and as a poverty reducing instrument, the PDS is of much greater importance to female‐headed households than it is to the rest of the population. Another important result is that, notwithstanding the sharp decline in their expenditure share during the 1990s, rice and wheat continue to provide the dominant share of calories, especially for the rural poor. The overall message is that, especially in a period of significant economic change, one needs to go beyond the standard expenditure‐based money metric measures to assess the changes in the living standards of households.     

Constructing Social Capital: Self‐Help Groups and Rural Women's Development in India

The success of the group approach in rural micro‐finance among women has inspired the tendency to look at all networking as essentially good and desirable in rural community development, without acknowledging the entrenched caste, class, ethnic and religious hierarchies that lead to diversities among women. Government schemes designed for poverty alleviation among rural women tend to be influenced by concepts and models that have been successful elsewhere, but do not take into account the diversities of situations at the local level. Internationally popular catchwords are used indiscriminately without questioning how these concepts can work effectively in the specific local context. This paper examines why some ‘self‐help groups’ fail by using the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) experience in India. The empirical survey was done over a period of two years in Burdwan, a relatively rich agricultural tract located in eastern India. We argue that whilst the ‘group’ has inherent benefits, it must never be allowed to become the paradigm in developmental policies for women.