Social inclusion of marginalized groups in society is both an outcome and a process, related only partly to poverty and inequality. Yet in its warped form of adverse social inclusion or even social exclusion, chronic poverty can emerge. As such, poverty reduction requires not only overcoming social exclusion, but going beyond that to prevent adverse inclusion and nurture beneficial forms of inclusion.
This study explores social inclusion of poor women and children as both process and outcome in Niger and Malawi. It asks: How do social and economic inclusion of women affect social inclusion outcomes in health and education of children in households escaping poverty? It also explores what policy implications of the research may be drawn, with a focus on the inclusion of the poorest households and communities and how this can in turn strengthen social cohesion.
A key message of this study is that despite much higher levels of human development investment in Malawi than Niger, economic inclusion is needed in both countries to activate inclusion in human development services and better outcomes.
Author: Vidya Diwakar
This study explores social inclusion of poor women and children as both process and outcome in Niger and Malawi.
This report is a synthesis of the research developed in the framework of the project 'Disability, poverty and poverty dynamics: a preliminary analysis of panel data, policies and politics in Bangladesh' and aims to summarises its main finding and policy implications.
Persons with disability are often considered as a specific chronic poverty group. However, little empirical evidence exists for developing countries on the size of disabled population. Even less is known about the interface between disability and poverty. The present study aims to provide statistically robust analysis of the state of disability and its interface with poverty and vulnerability through different pathways.
Authors: Binayak Sen, Mainul Hoque
This paper focuses on the economic empowerment of poor and very poor women and girls. Advice on the practical interventions to enable WEE is rarely disaggregated by the intersecting inequalities that magnify poverty and inequality. As such, it fails to address the significant barriers to WEE for chronically poor women. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature.
This report assesses drivers of the economic empowerment of chronically poor women and girls in rural Bangladesh and rural Nigeria. The focus is on drivers related to assets, both intangibly in terms of education, and tangibly in terms of ownership of consumption and productive assets including land.
Thispaper provides the latest analysis of development policies and programmes that work best for the poorest people. It has a particular focus on the poorest women and girls and it also focuses on the work carried out by a number of leading donors, assessing the extent to which they attempt to reach the poorest, and among them the poorest women and girls.
This briefing paper provides recommendations for stakeholders on how toimprove accountability and performance in local governance through a local governance performance index (LGPI) at the district level in Tanzania.
Authors: Rachel Hayman, Anna Mdee and Patricia Tshomba
This working paper details the process of creating a Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI) in Mvomero and Kigoma-Ujiji Districts of Tanzania and of studying its applicability.
Authors: Anna Mdee, Patricia Tshomba & Andrew Mushi
This paper explores the relationship between disability and poverty dynamics in rural Bangladesh drawing from 293 life-history interviews conducted by the author and a small team of researchers in 2007. The aim of the paper is to use existing life-history interviews to provide initial insights into the relationship between poverty and disability in Bangladesh.
Author: Peter Davis
This briefing paper summarises findings around the key questions of what ‘development’ means at the local level, who is responsible for it, and how local government can be held to account in practice. Findings are illustrated with selected quotes from interviews, focus groups and workshops, which demonstrate the challenges that need to be overcome to design and implement a performance index.
This paper explores the links between poverty and disability drawing from 60 qualitative life-history interviews conducted in rural Bangladesh, in 48 households, in three districts, in March 2016. The paper provides insights into the relationship between poverty and disability with the aim of informing policy and practice concerned with both reducing poverty and improving the life chances of people with disabilities.
Author: Peter Davis
The focus of the paper is on persistently poor women with disabilities in Bangladesh. It seeks to contribute to the disability and chronic poverty policy discourse and work towards developing effective poverty reduction measures by investigating daily activities and coping strategies of poor persons with disabilities.
Author: Vidya Diwakar
Efforts to tackle discrimination in access to basic services have shown mixed results in different country settings. This study examines the positive and negative outcomes attributed to anti-discrimination measures adopted in different country contexts and analyses the factors contributing to these outcomes, with a specific focus on anti-discrimination measures in education.
The selection of indicators for the creation of an index is critical if it is to be used as a mechanism to hold local government to account. Clear lines of responsibility and accountability need to be incorporated into the selection of indicators so the index can be applied at the local level.
This report is a rigorous review of 470 pieces of evidence on the effectiveness of anti-discrimination measures in low and middle-income countries. The review focuses on women and girls, children, young people, disabled people, marginalised ethnic and racial groups and marginalised castes.
The guide highlights the potential trade-offs that policy-makers, programme designers and implementers face in using social protection with the specific objective of preventing impoverishment.
Authors: Lucy Scott and Vidya Diwakar
Urbanisation and labour force participation can be powerful drivers of women economic empowerment. This paper reviews the empowering and disempowering effects of urbanisation on the the main areas of work performed by women in cities and analyses the interventions which have been implemented to support the different types of female urban livelihoods
A performance index for local governance in Tanzania needs to provide a clear indication of how effectively local government and partners are delivering public services, supporting livelihoods and ensuring peace and security. This paper sets out the context of good governance, local governance, accountability and local service delivery in Tanzania.
Authors: Anna Mdee and Lisa Thorley
One of the most powerful ideas in development in recent years has been good governance. This review of available evidence considers how the performance of local governance can be improved in relation to the better delivery of services, through the use of a local governance performance index. It also considers how the public tracking of locally meaningful measures of governance can be used to improve the accountability of local government bureaucracies and politicians.
Authors: Anna Mdee and Lisa Thorley
This policy guide looks at evidence from social protection programmes with innovative designs that combine different interventions, either following a graduation approach or by building integrated social protection systems.
Authors: Chiara Mariotti, Martina Ulrichs and Luke Harman