Bangladesh has come out of the "shadow of famine", the problem of starvation still persists. Accurate figures are not available for urban areas, but in effect between 25 to 30 million of the country's citizens are chronically poor. Here we review the present status and situation of the poorest, analyse the main factors that keep them in poverty and identify the types of policy that can help them escape deprivation and gain their full rights as citizens of an increasingly prosperous and high-stepping country.
Read MoreEnergy Policy Guide: Harnessing the power of energy access for chronic poverty reduction
This policy guide explores how access to energy can assist with policies for the chronically poor.
Authors: Shonali Pachauri, Andrew Scott, Lucy Scott and Andrew Shepherd.
Read MoreChallenge Paper 1: What has happened to the poorest 50%?
This challenge paper draws on available evidence to challenge existing thinking on the way forward for a revised agenda to eradicate extreme poverty.
Authors: Amanda Lenhardt and Andrew Shepherd
Read MoreAgriculture Policy Brief: Meeting the challenge of a new pro-poor agricultural paradigm
This Policy Brief recommends that the priorities of the poorest farmers are placed at the core of agricultural research and development and agricultural policies to help them overcome the barriers that prevent them from escaping poverty.
Author: Lucy Scott
Read MoreEducation Policy Guide: A guide to what works in policy and practice
This Policy Guide look at the points at which education and chronic poverty policies overlap and at where, how and why education policies have successfully contributed to poverty reduction.
Authors: Naomi Hossain, Lucy Scott and Andrew Shepherd
Read MoreAgriculture Policy Guide: Meeting the challenge of a new pro-poor agricultural paradigm
The guide identifies key areas and new emphases for agricultural policy and programme development
to eradicate poverty and hunger and presents new research results on agriculture and poverty
dynamics in Africa.
Authors: Amanda Lenhardt, Amita Shah, Andrew Shepherd, Bara Gueye, Lucy Scott and Miranda Morgan
Read MoreTackling chronic poverty: The policy implications of research on chronic poverty and poverty dynamics
The first decade of the 21st century has illustrated the power of economic growth (especially in China) and human development to bring large numbers out of poverty. But a large number of people
remain abjectly poor, among them almost half a billion people who are poor over long periods of time, their entire lives, and who may pass poverty to their children. The essential argument advanced in this report is that if these people are to escape poverty beyond 2015, they require additional policies and political commitment, underpinned by greater understanding and analysis, compared to what is currently practiced at global and national levels.
The Chronic Poverty Report 2008-09: Escaping poverty traps
The report is about the estimated 320 to 443 million people who live trapped in chronic poverty - people who will remain poor for much or all of their lives and whose children are likely to inherit their poverty. The chronically poor experience multiple deprivations, including hunger, undernutrition, illiteracy, lack of access to safe drinking water and basic health services, social discrimination, physical insecurity and political exclusion. Many will die prematurely of easily preventable deaths.
Read MoreTackling obstacles to social protection for chronically poor people
Social protection policies and programmes can make a major contribution to reducing poverty among chronically and severely poor people and securing their rights. Negative perceptions of social protection transfers continue to influence national and international anti-poverty agendas. Most of the concerns raised are based on misconceptions. This briefing outlines evidence that demolishes some of the myths concerning social protection.
Author: Rachel Marcus
Read MoreSocial protection transfers for chronically poor people
Social protection policies aim to address both severe and long-term poverty, and to reduce vulnerability, and are thus one of the most significant areas of policy for chronically and severely poor people. good social protection addresses both factors that push people into poverty and those which keep them there. It can help both poor people and countries move out of ‘low equilibrium poverty traps’, where they are producing low-value added products with limited returns.
Author: Rachel Marcus
Read MoreChronic Poverty and the Environment: a Vulnerability Perspective
This paper highlights some of the key thinking on poverty-environment relationships before introducing a framework focusing on the importance of environmental vulnerability in explaining poverty dynamics.
Author: Lucy Scott
Read MoreChronic Poverty Report 2004-2005
The first Chronic Poverty Report examines what chronic poverty is and why it matters, who the chronically are, where they live, what causes poverty to be persistent and what should be done about it. A section of regional perspectives looks at the experience of chronic poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, transitional countries and China. A statistical appendix brings together data on global trends on chronic poverty.
Read MoreChronic Poverty and Remote Rural Areas
This paper is a first attempt at putting the case that people living in remote rural areas (RRAs) account for a substantial proportion of the chronically poor. The paper argues that there has been a widespread ‘policy failure’ in RRAs. The focus on livelihoods development, based on successes in non-remote areas did not take account of the special risk, exclusion and marginalisation characteristics of RRAs. Attacking these causes of persistent poverty would involve a greater emphasis on human capital and security.
Authors: Kate Bird, David Hulme, Andrew Shepherd and Karen Moore
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