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

• Andrew Shepherd, Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network

• Catherine Grant, Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies

• Professor Toby Green, Professor, Kings College London

• Dr Asif Mohammed Shahan, Senior Research Fellow, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development

• Dr Martha Reyes Alvarez, Minister of Health, Government of Nicaragua

• A representative from the Government of Cambodia (to be confirmed)

Chair

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

CPAN moves to Institute of Development Studies

Photo credit: IDS

After 11 years at ODI, the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) has moved to the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex.

With its strategic focus on reducing extreme inequities in ways that can foster more fulfilling lives, IDS is a very appropriate host for the network. It has a strong tradition of fostering participatory development, long-term multi-disciplinary research partnerships and civil society advocacy which makes it well placed to assist with CPAN’s further development.

IDS is located at the University of Sussex, and we're looking forward to the potential relationships with a wider circle of researchers and alumni networks working on poverty and inequality and related issues (climate change, conflict, politics, financial crises, migration).

At the same time, CPAN will continue to engage across the partnership and continue our bread and butter mixed methods poverty dynamics and policy analysis work at a national level, and the flagship Chronic Poverty Reports (including a report on Pandemic Poverty in partnership with the Covid Collective, making use of CPAN’s Covid-19 Poverty Monitoring Initiative). In addition, we will continue to carry out thematic research, such as recent publications on the education of children in poverty and on climate-smart agriculture. We will also continue our policy monitoring research, for example by updating the Poverty Eradication Policy Preparedness Index (PEPPI) 2015 baseline of policies in 30 countries to 2019 and the pandemic period and supporting advocacy efforts on poverty eradication.

Social protection links across sectors critical in getting to zero poverty

By: Vidya Diwakar and Adeniran Adedeji

Cassava processing, a source of employment to Nigerian women

Photo credit: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Nigeria has a large and growing share of people living in poverty. Roughly 40.1% of its population live below the national poverty line, while a similar share (46.4%) are multidimensionally poor. Covid19 has amplified these concerns, forecasted to push an estimated additional 10 million Nigerians into extreme poverty by 2022.

Research by CPAN and CSEA investigated key drivers associated with descents into and exits from relative monetary poverty across zones of Nigeria, the ways in which COVID-19 pandemic are likely to impact on these dynamics, and the implications for the design of social protection programmes and policy in Nigeria.

Pathways out of poverty constrained by vicious cycle of shocks and insecurity

The analysis uncovered limited sustained poverty escapes (6% of households), but a large share (19%) of households that experienced impoverishment or just transitory escapes from poverty, with spatial variations. If more of these households could be converted into sustained escapes, poverty would reduce in Nigeria.

To escape poverty, many households rely on land, education, and good health to enable livelihood-based pathways out of poverty. Engagement in non-farm enterprises (NFEs) is a common source of poverty escapes in the country, particularly for households with good health and some savings to start up the business. Salaried employment can drive sustained poverty escapes, particularly when coupled with completion of at least lower secondary education. In its absence, poverty escapes through agriculture are also possible, with land ownership important in guarding against subsequent descents into poverty.  

However, high volatility of income especially in non-farm businesses during Covid19 has aggravated the riskiness of enterprises, limited education access, worsened health outcomes, and constrained the ability of households in poverty to effectively respond to shocks. The resulting hunger and distress coping strategies that emerge during Covid19 has created a vicious cycle limiting the potential of households to develop viable livelihoods to escape poverty in the time ahead.

Figure 1: Vicious cycle (outer circle) limiting poverty escapes (inner circle)

What can be done to support asset-enabled livelihood pathways out of poverty in Nigeria?

The research identified various factors that hold back the emerging social protection system from having a greater impact in reducing poverty. Key among them include a heavy dependence on using a social register that remains limited geographically and in its ability to provide real-time information on a household’s potentially changing status, the latter especially important in Covid. There is a pressing need to scale up investments in social protection policies, programmes and systems at federal and state levels-- especially in real-time selection and updating, and identification of a wider range of participants.

In addition, integrating social protection with other interventions in human development and livelihood sectors is relevant in better balancing the 3Ps of social protection (protection, prevention, and promotion). However, in a situation of weak governance, the institutional mechanisms for arbitrage may be limited, and so prioritising issues that require integration becomes key, as is ensuring contextual relevance in different regions.

The results of the analysis point to issues particularly important in helping tackle chronic poverty, prevent impoverishment, and ensure sustained escapes from poverty, and that concurrently work to address the 3ps of social protection (protection, prevention, and promotion). Examples of such interventions include effectively addressing ill health through access to quality services free at the point of delivery, responding to key sources of livelihood risk in non-farm businesses and agriculture (e.g. through micro-insurance), and supporting asset development.

In efforts to integrate, social protection could be at the core of a sequence over a period of years, with social assistance gradually combined with individual and collective savings and credit (e.g. through GEEP), education catch-up if necessary, and then with technical and business skill upgrading, and business development advice and/or agricultural extension support.

Addressing the vicious cycle through integrated social protection is an important component of enabling sustained poverty escapes in Nigeria