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1. Comparing Global Trends in Multidimensional and Income Poverty and Assessing Horizontal Inequalities

Author:
Francesco Burchi, Daniele Malerba, Nicole Rippin, and Claudio E. Montenegro
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Development Institute (DIE)
Abstract:
The 2030 Agenda has provided new impetus to two facets of the struggle for poverty alleviation, which is a central goal of the international development community. First, poverty is no longer viewed strictly in monetary terms, but rather as a multidimensional phenomenon. Second, the need to reduce poverty for different social groups and not just at the aggregate, national level is explicitly recognised. Against this background, this paper has three objectives: (1) to analyse the trends in multidimensional poverty in low- and middle-income countries, (2) to explore rural-urban differences in poverty over time, and (3) to assess the validity of the claim that there has been a feminisation of poverty. The analysis relies on a new indicator of multidimensional poverty, the Global Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index (G-CSPI), that incorporates three key components: education, employment and health. The G-CSPI has several methodological advantages over existing measures, including that it is an individual rather than a household-level measure of poverty, which is crucial for gender-disaggregated analysis. Regarding aggregate trends, this paper shows that both income poverty and multidimensional poverty fell between 2000 and 2012. However, the decline in (extreme) income poverty in percentage terms was twice as large as the decline in multidimensional poverty. There is significant heterogeneity in the results across regions. Multidimensional poverty declined the most in Asia, converging towards the relatively low levels of Latin America and Europe, while sub-Saharan Africa’s slow progress further distanced it from other regions. These findings point to the existence of poverty traps and indicate that more efforts are needed to eradicate poverty. Regarding the urban-rural comparison, our analysis shows that poverty is predominantly a rural phenomenon: the rural G-CSPI was more than four times the urban G-CSPI. This difference remained nearly constant over time. As for the third objective, we find no gender bias in 2000 at the global level. This contrasts with the claim made in 1995 in Beijing that 70 per cent of the poor were women. However, we find that multidimensional poverty declined more among men (-18.5 per cent from 2000) than women (-15 per cent), indicating a process of feminisation of poverty. This was triggered by the decline in employment poverty, which was much slower among women. As most existing studies conclude that there was no evidence of the feminisation of poverty, this finding is new to the literature.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Poverty, Inequality, Urban, and Rural
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Global Focus

2. Africa and the Politics of Possibility

Author:
Louis S. Segesvary
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
According to the IMF, the 2016 GDP per capita estimate for Eritrea was only $771 per annum; for Ethiopia $739; for Gambia $435; and for Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa's most populous country with major petroleum reserves, it was $2,930, or around $244 a month. According to a comprehensive report prepared by the African Development Bank Group, the number of impoverished people in sub-Saharan Africa had doubled from 1981 to 1998, with the number of people living on less than US $1 per day in the region, "reaching 290 million in 1998, which is over 46% of the total population." According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, in 2014/2015 some 153 million individuals in sub-Saharan Africa, about 26 percent of the population or one out of four individuals above 15 years of age, was "hungry but did not eat or went without eating for a whole day because there was not enough money or other resources for food." [...]a case can be made that all this aid has contributed to fostering a culture of dependency in which foreign aid grants become a form of entitlements that governments rely on to maintain a status quo, as opposed to attracting the type of private sector investments that grow economies.
Topic:
Development, Migration, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

3. Why is it so hard to reach the EU’s ‘poverty’ target?

Author:
Zsolt Darvus
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Bruegel
Abstract:
The ‘poverty’ target set by the European Commission aims to lift “over 20 million people out of poverty” between 2008 and 2020 in the EU27. Progress to date against this target has been disappointing. Why is it so hard to reach the Europe 2020 ‘poverty’ target? What does the poverty indicator actually measure?
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Europe

4. Neoliberal Policy Implementation Goes Hand in Hand with Stronger Symbolic Boundaries

Author:
Jonathan Mijs and Michèle Lamont
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Citizens in countries that implemented more rigorous neoliberal policies over the last two decades (1990 to 2010) draw stronger symbolic boundaries between themselves and unwanted others. Based on publicly available data from the European Values Study, our research suggests that neoliberal policy implementation is intricately related to the ways in which citizens define worthiness. We find that in central and eastern Europe, the adoption of neoliberalism goes together with weakening boundaries toward ethnic others and a strengthening of animosity toward the poor, who are increasingly described as lazy and undeserving of government help. Conversely, in western Europe we find a weakening of boundaries toward the poor, but a strengthening of animosity toward ethno-religious others, Muslims in particular: citizens increasingly do not want Muslims as their neighbors. The trends we observe are supported by studies describing European citizens’ stance toward the (undeserving) poor, on the one side, and research on anti-immigrant sentiments, the rise of nativism, and the vote for extreme right parties, on the other. The contribution of our project is to offer a framework that describes these trends as two facets of symbolic boundaries and to link these to the uneven rate of implementation of neoliberal policies across European societies.
Topic:
Poverty, Religion, Sociology, and Neoliberalism
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe

5. Who's Afraid of … Migration? A New European Narrative of Migration

Author:
Stefano Volpicelli
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Human mobility has changed profoundly since the onset of globalisation, with old patterns of south-north movement of male economic migrants being replaced by mixed flows of people moving because of a variety of needs and motivations. In Europe these changes have gone largely unnoticed and the discourse on migration has been conducted in a confused and contradictory way. Policies have swung between two poles: on one end the view of migrants as a problem rather than as an opportunity; on the other, the view of migrants as vulnerable people escaping poverty or persecution. Through the analysis of policies, juridical terminology, concepts and stereotypes, this paper proposes a three-step approach for a different narrative of migration to curb the political manipulation that, labelling migrants as a threat, is dangerously fuelling racism and discrimination towards “aliens”.
Topic:
Globalization, Migration, Political Economy, Poverty, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe
Publication Identifier:
978-88-98650-56-9
Publication Identifier Type:
DOI

6. A Europe For the Many, Not the Few: Time to reverse the course of inequality and poverty in Europe

Author:
Teresa Cavero
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Europe is facing unacceptable levels of poverty and inequality. Instead of putting people first, policy decision making is increasingly influenced by wealthy elites who bend the rules to their advantage, worsening poverty and economic inequality, while steadily and significantly eroding democratic institutions. Austerity measures and unfair tax systems across Europe are skewed in favour of powerful vested interests. It is time to reverse the course of poverty and inequality in Europe, putting people first.
Topic:
Poverty, European Union, Economic Inequality, and Elites
Political Geography:
Europe

7. For Richer or Poorer: The capture of growth and politics in emerging economies

Author:
Alice Krozer
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The emerging economies Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Turkey - in short, the BRICSAMIT - have come to be considered the economic powerhouses of recent decades. Not only have these countries managed to reduce poverty; most have embarked on a steep economic growth path and play an increasingly influential role on the global scene. But today, all eight BRICSAMIT countries occupy the top ranks as some of the most unequal countries in the world. The price these countries - and millions of their citizens - pay for this is high. Excessive inequality hampers development prospects: negatively impacting growth potential, threatening poverty reduction, leading to mass migration flows and 'brain drain', and reducing opportunities for young people. This report, which was commissioned by civil society networks across the BRICSAMIT countries, aims to increase the urgency to tackle the structural causes of inequality by shedding light on the nature and scope of the issue in the BRICSAMIT, and the economic, political and social consequences these countries are now facing as a result.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Migration, Poverty, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, China, Europe, Indonesia, Turkey, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, South America, and Mexico

8. British Foreign Policy in an Unequal World

Author:
Edmund Cairns
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The UK needs a safe world in which to trade and invest, and to be free from the security threats caused by conflicts or fragile states. Yet spiralling inequality and climate change, among many other factors, threaten to create a more dangerous, unequal world. As the continuing tragedy in Syria shows, the world's old and new powers have not yet found a way to unite to end conflicts. The age of interventions, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, is over. But a new rule-based world in which China, India, and others unite with Western powers to protect civilians and end conflicts has not yet come into being. Whoever wins the 2015 UK general election, the greatest test for UK foreign policy will be how much it can do to help build that world.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Poverty, Insurgency, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Britain, China, Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, India, and Syria

9. Michael B. Gerrard and Gregory E. Wannier (eds). Threatened Island Nations. Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate

Author:
Susannah Wilcox
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
There is growing evidence that climate change-related impacts like rising sea levels, higher storm surges, and changing rainfall patterns are exacerbating existing vulnerabilities like poverty, isolation, and resource scarcity, and may eventually leave small island states uninhabitable, causing the displacement of entire populations. Among those particularly at risk are low-lying coral atoll states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and the Republic of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.
Topic:
Poverty
Political Geography:
Europe, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Maldives

10. The BRICS Development Bank: Why the world's newest global bank must adopt a pro-poor agenda

Author:
Lysa John
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In July 2014, a new multilateral and Southern-led development bank is expected to be launched by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – better known as the BRICS. The BRICS Development Bank will provide a fresh source of finance for developing and emerging economies to meet their development needs. Little has been made public regarding the proposed Bank's core mandate or activities but while governments negotiate the technicalities of the Bank, it is critical that they also provide a solid vision of the principles, priorities and objectives on which the Bank's activities and operations will be premised. This policy brief recommends that these include commitments to: ending extreme poverty and inequality, with a special focus on gender equity and women's rights; aligning with environmental and social safeguards and establishing mechanisms for information sharing, accountability and redress; leadership on the sustainable development agenda; the creation of mechanisms for public consultation and debate; and the adoption a truly democratic governance structure.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Gender Issues, International Cooperation, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, China, Europe, India, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, and South America