Poverty is a dynamic phenomenon; while some people remain in poverty for long periods of time, over the same period others escape poverty, others fall into poverty and yet others escape poverty and fall back into it. In other words, poverty reduction is not a one-way street. An understanding of the nature of poverty trajectories is important, as different trajectories require different programmatic responses. In addition, if poverty reduction efforts will ever be successful in the long term, escapes from poverty must be sustained over time.
This brief draws on lessons from the country-level research to propose implications of a poverty dynamics approach for policies and programs in order to better support conditions in which poverty escapes can be sustained over time.
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Author: Lucy Scott and Andrew Shepherd with the support of Anna Garloch of ACDI/VOCA
This policy brief is part of the USAID funded project Investigating the dynamics and drivers of transitory poverty escapes
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