A combined approach for poverty alleviation

Poverty any where is a threat to prosperity everywhere and has been most sought after critical issue from time immemorial. World Bank data reveals that around 4.4 billion people are poor in the world. In India, still 30% population are below poverty line. The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income.

Around one fourth of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation. Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.

Poverty reduction in itself is the first Millennium Development Goal and Sustainable Development Goal. Poverty is multidimensional and is denoted as the lack of the basic capabilities (economic, human, political, socio-cultural and protective) and conditions needed for living in dignity. The multi-dimensionality of poverty on one hand demands not only efforts to understand and analyze poverty but also, crucially, the development and channelization of strategic interventions to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development.

Three major approaches - Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLAs), Human Rights-based Approaches (HRBAs) and Market Led Approach (MLD) - have gained wide recognition for poverty eradication among development practitioners, academia and researchers. The sustainable livelihoods framework is embedded in paradigm shifts in (rural-tribal) development since 1980s towards a focus on human wellbeing and sustainability rather than just economic growth.

Its key objective is to increase the sustainability of poor people’s livelihoods by strengthening their assets to respond to opportunities and risks, minimize vulnerability and maintaining, smoothing or improving wellbeing. SLA put people at the centre of development and highlights their strengths rather than their needs. They provide a structure for strategic analysis of livelihoods, risk, vulnerability and poverty, and the design of people-centered development and poverty reduction policies, programmes and projects, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable.

SLA help in logically prioritizing entry points and enables agencies to develop flexible and locally appropriate responses to risk, vulnerability and poverty and can provide the evidence and analysis necessary for the prioritized and strategic selection of interventions. The human rights-based approach (HRBA) has its foundation in the normative framework of international human rights standards and principles, and the protection and promotion of these.

States, as primary duty bearers, are obliged to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights entitlements of individuals, or rights holders. In line with the UN Common Understanding of a human rights-based approach is based on the following three key elements: Use of the international human rights framework as a reference, Integration of the human rights principles and address both the rights-holders and the duty-bearers with respect to rights and duties.

The Market led Approach focus on improving the rural-tribal poor and women access to markets and seeks ways to effectively increase the market share of the rural poor and improve the terms in which they participate in markets, achieve greater market access and market development for the rural poor and effectively improve at national, regional and international levels the rules of trade in favor of the rural poor.

It is increasingly recognized that economic empowerment of women is greatly governed by the market forces. Hence, it is believed that building knowledge, attitude and skills of women to negotiate better with market will help women to enhance, access and control income. As value chain approach is widely acknowledged promising platform to improve poor and women access and control to markets.

It is imperative that the framework should be gender responsive as women and men are likely to be involved at different stages of the value chain as producers, middlemen, traders, entrepreneurs and processors.These three approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages but have gained wide recognition among different development practitioners and researchers.

Despite some areas of overlap in the founding principles, all approaches have different roots, starting points and underlying assumptions. These approaches also seek to address different kinds of problems or challenges. Simply merging these approaches is not necessarily desirable, or appropriate. However, building on respective strengths, it is possible to identify specific circumstances where combining these approaches may be beneficial.