This study focuses on the city of São Paulo, Brazil and examines the ways in which irregular and illegal growth have influenced the collective action of social movements of the urban poor. The study describes how São Paulo grew as a socially segregated city during the twentieth century due to calculated neglect on the part of the municipal authorities. Highlighting the city's sociospatial inequality, degradation of the central districts and widespread irregularity, it illustrates how these factors have both negatively affected the urban poor and provided a catalyst for social mobilization.
Topic:
Poverty, Social Stratification, Social Movement, and Urbanization
Channing Arndt, M. Azhar Hussain, E. Samuel Jones, Virgulino Nhate, Finn Tarp1, and James Thurlow
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Measuring poverty remains a complex and contentious issue. This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa where poverty rates are higher, information bases typically weaker, and the underlying determinants of welfare relatively volatile. This paper employs recently collected data on household consumption in Mozambique to examine the evolution of consumption poverty with focus on the period 2002/03 to 2008/09. The paper contributes in four areas. First, the period in question was characterized by major movements in international commodity prices. Mozambique provides an illuminating case study of the implications of these world commodity price changes for living standards of poor people. Second, a novel 'backcasting' approach using a computable general equilibrium model of Mozambique, linked to a poverty module.
Economic growth in developing countries is desirable and necessary, but it is the distribution of that growth that matters for poverty reduction, rather than the pursuit of growth for its own sake.
Against a background of increasing food insecurity, agriculture in developing countries must undergo a significant transformation in order to increase production and respond to climate change. It is estimated that feeding 8.2 billion people – an additional 1.4 billion – in 2030 would require raising overall food production by some 50 per cent between 2005/07 and 2030. Feeding a larger urban population in a context of increasing scarcity of land and water, while also adopting more sustainable production methods, is a daunting challenge. In Africa, where it is predicted that population levels will double during the same period, the challenge will be even more acute.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Poverty, Science and Technology, Food, and Famine
Oxfam knows that ethnic minority women's organisations are proud, persistent, and passionate. Activists, members of management committees, staff, and volunteers bring a range of commitment, knowledge, and skills. They know their community and the women they work with, and the issues particular to both. This knowledge is vital to their organisations' success. And, using it, they achieve results.
Though in decline, tank irrigation is still an important characteristic of rural social life in many parts of South India. It is of particular importance to the poor being dependent on agriculture, while rich landowners increasingly concentrate their investments and income on non-rural activities. Based on fieldwork in two communities, this paper explores the strategies of the poor and the management of tank irrigation. It establishes the main concerns and priorities of the poor and describes why the poor regard well-managed tank irrigation as a significant asset. Moreover, it studies two sets of institutionalised practices in relation to tank management, namely those related to the distribution of water from the tank and those related to the use of water when water is scarce. Both sets of practices have stable and disputed elements, and given the particular circumstances they are the object of more or less intense negotiations. Furthermore, the practices are influenced by contextual changes including the changing caste relations. Overall, the paper argues that different and equally legitimate logics can be applied to the distribution of water and this provides some opportunities for the poor to influence tank management to their advantage.
In the aftermath of the 2010–11 floods, the path to recovery and reconstruction in Pakistan will be long and full of challenges. However, there is also an opportunity to tackle crucial structural issues such as crippling inequalities in people's rights and access to land. A failure to do so would not only condemn millions of Pakistanis to continued and deepening poverty, it would also undermine the scope and sustainability of the country's recovery from this disaster and its ability to cope with the next.
Topic:
Agriculture, Political Economy, Poverty, and Natural Disasters
The Indus floods of 2010-2011 were the direct cause of over 1,700 deaths and the displacement of an estimated 18 million people across Pakistan. Official estimates of the economic costs of the damage caused by the floods range from $8.74bn to $10.85bn, which include the estimated costs, early recovery for the provision of relief, rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, and other economic losses to individuals, communities, firms, and the government.
Niger is the epicentre of hunger. Here, it is chronic. Corrosive. Structural. Systemic. Over 65 per cent of people survive on less than $1.25 a day. Nearly one in two children is malnourished. One in six dies before they reach the age of five.
This report is a contribution to the Oxfam report: 'Growing a Better Future'. It explores a range of scenarios for food price increases to 2030 through the GLOBE model. Over and above providing a global perspective, the research provides disaggregated results for a range of countries and country groups identified by Oxfam.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Economics, Poverty, and Food