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.     

Assessing Poverty and Poverty Alleviation: Evidence from West Bengal

Recent interest in poverty and poverty relief has included debates that have moved beyond narrow concerns of consumption and income generation. Sen's research on entitlements and capabilities revolutionized approaches to poverty in the 1980s, and his work has itself been open to critical appraisals that have stressed empowerment and vulnerability as issues of equal importance. Some of these theoretical debates are briefly reviewed here, after which the frameworks for analysis that they suggest are applied to the study of rural poverty in West Bengal. The two tasks that the paper then sets itself are to illustrate the empirical value of broader conceptualizations of poverty, and to highlight the methodological difficulties that they raise.     

Non-Governmental Organizations and Poverty Alleviation in Bolivia

Through the 1980s, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) became increasingly involved in implementing development projects in Latin America. In Bolivia, NGOs have played central roles in efforts to alleviate the poverty associated with structural adjustment, the consolidation of neoliberal economic policies, and the resulting reorganization of the state. International donors have shown enthusiasm for working through NGOs, particularly in the area of poverty alleviation. However, it is not clear that NGOs are more successful in overcoming poverty than state agencies. More importantly, there is evidence that the combination of state reorganization and the emergence of NGOs as implementers of development assistance has contributed to undermining grassroots organizations representing the interests of poor people.     

Public Intervention and Poverty Alleviation: A Study of the Declining Incidence of Rural Poverty in Kerala,India

In the context of the continuing and lively debate on the estimates, trends and determinants of rural poverty in India, this article examines the sharp decline, since the late 1970s, in the incidence of rural poverty in the state of Kerala, well known for its record of social development. It is argued that, given the slow rate of growth of the Kerala economy in general and agriculture in particular since the mid-1970s, the ‘trickle down’ theory cannot explain the decline in poverty. Similarly, the fact that rural wages have increased faster than the consumer price index does not constitute a sufficient condition for crossing the poverty line. Expansion of state-directed programmes is seen to be the single most important determinant in reducing rural poverty. The effect of public intervention programmes is roughly estimated to be equal to one fifth of the consumption of rural labour households. The lesson of Kerala for poverty alleviation is that social protection expressed in terms of meeting the basic consumption requirements of the poor, especially the vulnerable among the poor, should be a necessary component of development policy. However, this is not a sufficient condition: there should also be a growth strategy which would provide adequate employment to all members of the labour force from the poorer sections of the population. The current line of official thinking in India, in the context of economic liberalization, is hardly conducive to such a strategy.     

Minimum Wage Policy,Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation in Malawi

This article examines the pattern of minimum wage changes in Malawi and some of their effects, and considers more generally the appropriateness of a minimum wage policy in developing country situations similar to that of Malawi. After a progressive decline in the real value of the minimum wage during the 1970s there is evidence that the government is attempting, through periodic and rather erratic corrective action, to maintain something like a constant real wage. Data from a Ministry of Labour survey demonstrate that such changes in the minimum wage do have a direct effect on wages paid, but that this is concentrated in specific sectors: outside these, minimum wage policy is ineffectual, and the effective coverage achieved in terms of the national work-force is very narrow. Since the most significant influence on the wages of hired workers is the elastic supply of unskilled labour available at very low wages from the smallholder sector, efforts need to be concentrated on raising the supply price of labour through positive policies pursued in the rural sector. Some special features of the rural labour market are therefore examined. Various measures could be taken here: one which seems likely to be effective in producing immediate results is the progressive transfer of burley tobacco quotas to smallholders.     

Structural Adjustment and Structural Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Provisional Conclusions

This article reviews discussions concerning some of the main methodological difficulties surrounding the evaluation of structural adjustment policies, before suggesting a procedure to ‘save’ empirical discussion about new patterns of economic and social relations. In this light it proceeds to examine evidence gathered by the structural adjustment research programme of Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Scandinavian Institute of African Studies) on the changing character of the ‘private sector’ and of the voluntary development sphere in contemporary Africa. The main conclusions are that, in what can be called ‘adjustment situations’, the main tendencies in these spheres are for a rise of trading capitals enjoying illicit relations to the state and for a privatization of local development. The article concludes with an argument that, had adjustment been implemented in a fuller and more consistent way, these tendencies would probably have been still more pronounced.     

‘Voluntary’ Poverty Alleviation Resettlement in China

Current conceptualizations of resettlement in China as either voluntary or involuntary are too rigid. New guidelines and policies, particularly around Poverty Alleviation Resettlement (PAR), are emphasizing the importance of voluntarism. Little is known, however, about how the principle of voluntary relocation of villagers has actually been implemented. This study explores this process by examining local implementation and experiences of PAR in Linfen Prefecture, Shanxi. It introduces China's nationwide PAR programme, and then identifies the spatial and temporal characteristics of PAR in Linfen from 1997 to 2010, highlighting the factors that contribute to widespread voluntary resettlement.     

Structural Adjustment and Diversification in Zambia

Structural adjustment should go hand in hand with measures to diversify the economy to make it less vulnerable to future changes in the external environment. However, adjustment programmes tend to concentrate on expenditure reduction policies, thereby hampering the necessary diversification. This proposition is elaborated for the economy of Zambia, which is still as dependent on mineral exports as it was twenty-five years ago at independence. During and after the minerals boom the country suffered from Dutch disease. The subsequent adjustment efforts, reinforced through IMF involvement, did not sufficiently change the bias against tradables production. The latter is taken as a yardstick for diversification. A balanced implementation of expenditure switching policies in a later stage became increasingly difficult when the country also had to adjust to debt repayments.     

对加快民和县扶贫开发的几点思考

中国特色的扶贫开发,是发展中国特色社会主义的重要组成部分,也是贯彻落实科学发展观的必然要求。文章就如何进一步加强县域扶贫开发,进一步完善国家的扶贫战略和政策体系以及实现全面建设小康社会的目标,提出了对策和建议。     

Global Poverty: National Accounts Based versus Survey Based Estimates

This article examines the dollar‐a‐day poverty estimates produced by the World Bank. It highlights the lack of consistency between average consumption and income in household surveys and national accounts data. After examining the likely sources of divergence between the two series, the author proposes a new method of estimation of poverty, based on calibrating the survey means by conditioning on national accounts aggregates. The new poverty estimates, which are consistent with national accounts data, are contrasted with the World Bank estimates. The implications of the findings for the debate on the relationship between poverty and economic growth are also briefly discussed.     

关于改进和完善政府实施小额信贷扶贫管理体制的研究报告

政府实施的小额信贷扶贫 ,是借鉴国际经验又结合中国实际加以改造而形成的一种资金和服务同时到户的扶贫方式。很好的解决了扶贫资金长期存在的到户难和还贷率低的问题 ,广大农村干部和群众普遍认为 ,在扶贫到户上目前还没有比小额信贷更好的方法 ,应当继续推广实施。针对现行管理体制上的问题 ,作者提出了五条改进和完善现行管理体制的建议。     

Structural Adjustment and Subsistence Industry: Artisanal Gold Mining in Ghana

Since the implementation of Ghana's national Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), policies associated with the programme have been criticized for perpetuating poverty within the country's subsistence economy. This article brings new evidence to bear on the contention that the SAP has both fuelled the uncontrolled growth of informal, poverty‐driven artisanal gold mining and further marginalized its impoverished participants. Throughout the adjustment period, it has been a central goal of the government to promote the expansion of large‐scale gold mining through foreign investment. Confronted with the challenge of resuscitating a deteriorating gold mining industry, the government introduced a number of tax breaks and policies in an effort to create an attractive investment climate for foreign multinational mining companies. The rapid rise in exploration and excavation activities that has since taken place has displaced thousands of previously‐undisturbed subsistence artisanal gold miners. This, along with a laissez faire land concession allocation procedure, has exacerbated conflicts between mining parties. Despite legalizing small‐scale mining in 1989, the Ghanaian government continues to implement procedurally complex and bureaucratically unwieldy regulations and policies for artisanal operators which have the effect of favouring the interests of established large‐scale miners.     

Vietnam's Coastal Communities: An Assessment of Poverty

A Vietnamese geographer examines factors leading to the persistence of poverty in the coastal regions of Vietnam, against the backdrop of the country's overall recent success in poverty amelioration. After reviewing the spatial pattern of poverty for Vietnam as a whole, based on current government statistics, the author contrasts the situation in the country's interior relative to coastal locations, based on a detailed survey of over 200 households in Khanhhoa Province, located in south-central Vietnam. The changing labor market conditions in East Asia are discussed briefly in light of continued poverty reduction in the country. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D31, I31, O15, P20. 4 figures, 5 tables, 33 references.     

Foreign Aid,Structural Adjustment,and Public Management: The Mozambican Experience

In looking at the case of Mozambique under structural adjustment, this article argues that the particular combination of fiscal restraints imposed by financial programming, and the proliferation of decentralized project-based management, together proved to be a potent mixture which failed to reconstruct a coherent pattern of state action. The problem lies in the increasing dominance of foreign aid and in the uneasy interplay between programme aid on the one hand and project aid on the other, as competition from projects wins resources away from regular state programmes, with very little prospect of such projects becoming self-sustainable in the absence of the continued infusion of foreign aid.     

Experimental Flake Scatter-Patterns: a New Interpretative Technique

Abstract

Scatters of flint waste flakes are among the commonest finds on prehistoric sites. To understand how such patterns are formed, we made a series of Neolithic axe roughouts and other tools and recorded the distribution of waste flakes. The most important variable affecting the size and shape of flake scatter patterns seems to be the knapper's position. The applications of these experiments to prehistoric data are considered.     

新阶段青海农村牧区扶贫开发研究

经过30年扶贫开发,青海省农牧区贫困区域、贫困人口构成、贫困程度等都发生了变化,呈现出新的特点。今后的扶贫开发要突破过去传统的、单纯的经济扶贫模式,做到开发式扶贫与救济式挟贫并重,移民性扶贫与生态性扶贫并举,把改造贫困地区的经济落后面貌与改造文化落后面貌结合起来,把发展生产、改善生态环境与转变思想观念相结合起来,体现以人为本、社会公正、政治稳定、民族团结、生态保护、持续发展的新思维。