Forging renewed commitments towards eradicating extreme poverty

By: Keetie Roelen and Vidya Diwakar

Blog in observance of 17 October 2023, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Source: Shutterstock

‘Decent Work and Social Protection: Putting Dignity in Practice for All’ is the theme of this year’s UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty held on 17 October. Enabling these outcomes and practices is more pertinent than ever. According to recent reports, the world is currently off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 on ending extreme poverty by 2030. The Covid-19 pandemic, rising food and fuel prices, debt and other intersecting crises including climate change and conflict are making lives more precarious and creating new poverty traps.

This changing landscape requires a rethink of the most appropriate and effective ways to reduce poverty and help people to navigate precarity, respond to shocks and increase resilience.

On 27 and 28 September 2023, the Centre for the Study of Global Development at the Open University hosted the international workshop ‘Poverty Reduction: Rethinking Policy and Practice’. Co-hosted by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network at the Institute of Development Studies, and supported by the Development Studies Association and EADI networks, the hybrid workshop welcomed 45 participants from around the world to discuss the current state of affairs and share ideas for getting back on track towards ending extreme poverty.

As co-organisers, we reflect on four of the key take-aways of the workshop discussions.

1. Linking poverty eradication to the climate change agenda

First, the short- to medium-term future of poverty reduction does not look good. Projections and new estimates presented at the workshop suggest a best-case scenario of stagnating poverty rates over the next few years, sometimes concentrated in challenging contexts of conflict and various sources of fragility including those due to climate risk. More pessimistic estimates indicate that poverty may even increase.

Yet despite the continued scale of the challenge, workshop participants expressed concerns on how poverty eradication seems to have slipped down the development agenda.

Linking the poverty eradication and climate change agendas more closely could be a means of renewing international commitments towards poverty reduction, given the reinforcing relationships that underpin these global challenges.

2. Balancing resilience-building with recovery programming

Second, intersecting crises only amplify the scale of the challenges experienced by people in and near poverty, and can act to drive downward mobility, as observed during Covid-19. There is moreover a convergence of conflict fatalities, climate-related disasters and high numbers of people in and near poverty in certain low- and lower-middle income countries.

In this context, anti-poverty programming that seeks to respond to intersecting crises requires strengthening. Resilience-building is one such means of pre-emptively addressing multiple crises. At the same time, given the salience and chronicity of these crises, there needs to be a stronger focus on recovery programming such that it goes on for much longer than it currently does.

3. Responding to structural change within decent work and social protection strategies

Third, social protection and broader anti-poverty programming remain spaces for exciting new initiatives and exploration of novel individual, household and community-based interventions, or components thereof. From needs-based case work to use of digital tools to improve village savings and loan associations or public works programmes, there is no shortage of ideas to try and make programming more effective while at the same placing humanity and dignity at its centre.

At the same time, there was strong recognition that more bottom-up approaches can only succeed in an enabling environment. Structural factors, including continued manifestations of global coloniality, and macro policies – to stimulate economic growth, establish labour market conditions, or prioritise public spending – ultimately determine the conditions for success of poverty reduction interventions. An important recurrent theme was the enormous cost of mounting levels of debt for many low-income countries, and the considerable pressures this puts on their public resources.

4. Centring frontline workers in poverty eradication programming

Fourth, the human relationships linking people in poverty to higher-level policymaking are often overlooked or undervalued yet remain vital in achieving poverty reduction. Community leaders, frontline workers and shopkeepers selling subsidised food items, for example, are at the forefront of delivering services, and often also wield considerable power over the allocation of resources themselves.

This makes frontline workers crucial stakeholders in strengthening the social contract between citizens and the state, and holding governments to account. At a more human level, they are at the forefront of ensuring support is delivered in inclusive and dignity-enhancing ways. More research into the relationships between frontline workers and the populations they serve, and more support for these workers, is needed to strengthen the dignified delivery of anti-poverty programming.

 

Note: this blog was simultaneously published on CSGD, CPAN, IDS, EADI and DSA websites in recognition of this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Event: How can we avoid pandemic poverty in the future?

The Covid-19 pandemic was responsible for high but also highly varied mortality and illness, both of which also had major wellbeing consequences for affected individuals, households and communities.

Policy responses to the pandemic also severely disrupted economies and social life and all these together have led to substantial reversals in social and economic progress, especially for poor and vulnerable people in low- and middle-income countries.

In this official-side event at the UN’s 2023 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) organised by the IDS-hosted Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN), we will explore countries’ different responses to these concerns, what mitigating measures were and can be taken in the future, and with what results, and how the WHO’s Pandemic Preparedness Treaty can take account of such needs and learning from the Covid-19 pandemic.

There will also be a Q&A towards the end of the webinar.

Register for the event now

Speakers

Chair

  • Peter Taylor, Director of Research, Institute of Development Studies

How can Afghanistan’s young adults escape poverty amid layered crises?

By: Vidya Diwakar and Orzala Nemat

Photo by Unsplash

One year ago the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. This was preceded by existing multiple crises, including drought, Covid-19, and political insecurity, and all have affected the prospects for young women and men to develop pathways out of poverty.

What happened to Afghanistan? After the widespread  outcry accompanying the shift in power last year, other global challenges have since dominated the international media. Yet, the latest data from our new research shows that 80 percent of Afghan households reported that they faced a much worse economic situation in January/February 2022 than they did in early 2021. In a country where nearly four in five people are under the age of 35, this poses a serious concern for the future of the country and efforts towards zero poverty.

Youth livelihoods caught between multiple crises

When understanding the plight of Afghan youth, it is important to understand how many young adults are impacted by poverty and the striking deprivations and inequality they experience. This represents many Afghans: approximately 4.7 million young adults aged 18-35 years old were living in poverty in 2019/20 and young adults headed around two in five households. Some of this may be affected by what survey data constitutes as a household, especially important to consider in a context like Afghanistan where joint households may be the norm.

Our recent analysis of 2019/20 survey data (before and during the onset of the pandemic), shows that households in poverty headed by youth—perhaps on account of their early stage of life— had a lower average value of assets, livestock, and were less likely to own cultivable farmland, compared to older household heads also living in poverty. They were also significantly more food insecure.

We did find that youth heads of households had more years of schooling and have been more likely to migrate or access salaried employment. However, these options were severely affected during the pandemic, with schools closed, borders restricted, and social protection initiatives that were largely inadequate. The suspension of donor support since the shift in power and cut in salaries for teaching, healthcare and other essential work affected young adults in those jobs.

Erosive forms of coping with crises

From our qualitative interviews in Herat and Kandahar in July 2021, we found that many youth who lost access to credit in the summer of 2021, started working in low-paid agricultural wage labour. Others were driven to mortgage their land. While many would have commonly relied on informal social networks of support, our research found that these were also drying up as entire communities struggled.

The precarity of livelihoods and coping was also felt by women. The survey data points to a slight increase, from a low base, of women in poor households engaging in economic activities in 2020 during Covid-19, compared to pre-pandemic months. Women in areas facing environmental or agricultural shocks (disasters, reduced water, or high food prices) and insecurity also increased their economic activities in 2020, compared to less disaster-prone and more secure areas. This response is potentially a survival need rather than a form of economic empowerment; indeed, past research has pointed to Afghan women intensifying income-generating activities to survive as households sought to cope with drought.

At the same time, many other women  also experienced job loss as our mixed methods data indicates, reflecting additional intersecting sources of vulnerability in a time when sequenced shocks limited their ability to cope in times of crises.

Inclusive youth futures in Afghanistan

So, what can be done to support pathways out of poverty for Afghan youth? Based on our research we make the following recommendations:

  • Responses across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus need to address the context of overlapping crises. There is a good basis for this already in the UN’s 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan. When as many as 97 percent of Afghans could be living in poverty this year, strong coordination within the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is needed to address these crises, especially in ways that can counter historical myopia.

  • Current donor prioritisation for Afghanistan focuses extensively on humanitarian concerns, but this alone is not going to be enough. Instead, multi-sectoral interventions are needed that span the remit of the nexus, with a focus on food security and livelihood support and further supported by strengthened institutions for education, health, and inclusive financing.

  • Youth strategies in Afghanistan should be embedding dialogue with local authorities to develop a shared commitment to youth inclusion that engages with youth as agents of change – where they are able to articulate their interests. This focus should be mainstreamed across projects and programmes in the country.

  • Policy and programmes for young adults in poverty should include developing their asset base and expanding social protection floors, with an urgent focus on addressing the most severe forms of hunger, plus social insurance (e.g. for health and death, business assets, livestock). This would help promote pathways out of poverty while also preventing impoverishment. This could also bolster informal support structures.

  • Support for young women in and near poverty could include providing monthly child allowances, cash benefits for parents affected by day closures, and work-sharing arrangements in response to the care crises.

Parts of this agenda may be unworkable in current circumstances but could benefit from stepwise change through increasingly coordinated efforts by government ministries, NGOs and CSOs, and aid agencies. Bilateral funders would then need to remove or reduce their restrictions on what can be funded to support youth inclusion in Afghanistan.

In all of this, addressing intersecting inequalities – especially on poverty, age and gender will be key to promote inclusive futures of young adults in Afghanistan.

This blog draws on multiple recent research publications:

International Youth Day

To mark international Youth Day 2022 we would like to encourage you to revisit a series of seminars from last year on Youth Employment and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa region. This includes a seminar chaired by Marjoke Oosterom on Hard work and hazard: Youth and the rural economy in Africa.

Note: This blog was originally published on the IDS website.

Charting pathways to zero poverty amidst complex crises

By: Vidya Diwakar and Andrew Shepherd

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Can progress on poverty eradication be rescued? TheWorld Bank has recently called for course correction but their fiscal recovery-focused blueprint is only part of the solution given the scale of the challenge. Instead, we need to forge a more ambitious transformative pathway to zero poverty amidst layered crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and conflict. We can do this by collectively supporting “dignity for all in practice” through commitments towards “social justice, peace, and the planet”—the theme of this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17 October).

Layered crises obstruct focus on recovery

Pre-pandemic there was a slowdown in progress and some retrogression in poverty reduction. This was followed by significant impoverishment during the pandemic, and a turbulent post-pandemic political, military and economic environment marked by new or amplified crises linked to inflation, energy and food scarcities, conflict and climate change.

Not long after the beginning of the pandemic there was much talk of building back (or forward) better which meant greener, more inclusively. Governments optimistically developed recovery plans.

However, political preoccupations have since moved on to other crises. Indeed, the pandemic was barely treated as an emergency with full involvement of key national and international disaster-focused actors. It was instead largely treated as a health crisis, and the response was primarily a health and macro-economic one – important, but completely inadequate to the task of preventing impoverishment. The World Bank’s course correction blueprint and several discussions at its recent Annual Meetings largely builds on this macroeconomic policy focus.

Yet we know that the crisis was so much more, especially for people in and near poverty, who have found their room for manoeuvre and agency additionally constrained.  So where is a dignified recovery for those millions of people already struggling with life and for whom these layered crises form a real setback? And what can be done to accelerate progress towards more peaceful, environmentally sustainable, and inclusive societies amidst layered crises?

Centring ‘social justice, peace and the planet’

First, responding to crises trajectories is essential. Given the multiple nature and duration of the shocks produced during the pandemic alone, it should have been treated as a rapid-onset disaster with slow-onset stressors that continue to prolong its impacts today. Loss of livelihoods, loss of jobs, food insecurity, school closures and displacement of migrants were some of the shocks immediately felt. However, the depressed economies, food and energy price rises, and sustained school dropouts continue to create longer-term, slower-onset conditions likely to drive the intergenerational persistence of poverty.

Second, risk management strategies need to consider the layering of crises. Conflict and climate-induced shocks and stressors add to pressures and affect people’s ability to cope. Even in countries not typically classified as conflict-affected or ‘fragile’ states, subnational areas of violence may limit recovery efforts. Climate change is also having disproportionate effects on the poorest, and so equitable and environmentally sustainable pathways are key.

Finally, underlying vulnerabilities of people and communities can amplify crises. As such, a challenge in crises is to sustain the additional commitments of expenditure needed in other key areas (health, education, expanded and adaptive social transfers and social protection, agriculture, economic development including in the informal economy) to support people’s agency and also address sources of vulnerability. This involves extended targeting to include vulnerable people, and a focus within that on social groups especially badly affected in the pandemic – migrants, children in education, women informal workers, to name a few.

Transformative change during crises

How can the strategies above contribute to transformative change? Treating the pandemic and crises that followed as a longer-term humanitarian emergency of multiple disasters requires a transformation in its response: these should involve conflict-sensitive disaster risk management linked to public health responses, and peacebuilding activities within adaptive management frameworks. Instead, the history of emergency measures giving way too quickly to development – an aspect of the humanitarian-development divide – continues today.

The commitments to social expenditure listed above is just a first step towards tackling the structural inequalities that might prevent access to quality human development and livelihoods – and are transformative. Transformation can also be achieved by reasserting and upholding people’s human rights, and allowing and supporting the voice and agency of people in poverty so that they are better able to articulate their needs and engage in decision-making about their futures.

 Too often we see international agencies and governments removed from the realities of people’s lived experiences. Real transformation towards poverty eradication in contexts of complex crises starts from a premise of sustained risk-informed, people-centred change that asks vulnerable groups about their changing needs amidst crises and responds in real-time through adaptive and participatory decision-making.

 In an era when some governments have become more authoritarian and in which the international order is not only in flux but at loggerheads amongst elites, this has become a greater ask. However, there are authoritarian governments which are committed to parts of the agenda. And there are also places where democratic processes have been reaffirmed and progressive governments installed, which offer some hope.

 See also:

 Note: The Chronic Poverty Advisory Network has moved to IDS this summer, see our update here. This blog has been cross-post published on the IDS website on occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.