Your Custom Text Here
This report presents the findings of a rigorous review of evidence on anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies and legislation in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It focuses on three areas: political participation, education and labour markets.
Authors: Rachel Marcus, Anna Mdee and Ella Page
Read MoreThe objective of this policy guide is to provide policymakers and programme designers with an up-to-date view of what needs to be done to include the poorest people in financial services, and by doing so make a dent in their poverty. It selects savings and insurance as two aspects of financial services that are most likely to build poor people’s resilience in the face of the multiple risks they face – a necessary precursor to any investments they might make to get out of poverty.
Read MoreThis policy brief provides a situation analysis on financial inclusion in Nigeria, including a short analysis of how it may figure in chronic poverty, and processes of escaping poverty and impoverishment. It also goes on to assess the relevance of the four potential promising avenues identified in the global CPAN Financial inclusion Policy Guide (Smith et al 2015) for including the poorest people in Nigeria. This leads to a commentary on the e Nigerian Financial Inclusion Strategy.
Read MoreThis policy guide aims at identifying those interventions that best promote entrepreneurship among the poor in a way that puts them on trajectories out of poverty. For some, these interventions can contribute to sustained poverty escapes; for others, they mean faster upward mobility to the poverty line.
Read MoreThis policy brief looks at the two key challenges for a pro-poor private sector development strategy: the creation of decent jobs; and the promotion of (formal and informal) micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with the potential for growth and transformation.
Read MoreThis paper analyses 12 Swedish bilateral country programmes of development cooperation and the extent to which they are focusing on interventions assessed to be effective in fighting poverty, according to the Chronic Poverty Report (CPR) 2014-2015 and other research findings.
Read MoreThe people most likely to be left behind by development are those facing ‘intersecting inequalities’, or economic deficits intersecting with discrimination and exclusion on the grounds of identity and locational disadvantage.
The experience of seven countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, India, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Nepal) shows that key ingredients for addressing intersecting inequalities are: social movements demanding changes in the ‘rules of the game’; political trajectories and processes of constitutional change that facilitate and actualize these changes; social guarantees, opportunity enhancements and developmental affirmative actions as well as specific policies and programmes which show commitment to reduce intersecting inequalities over time.
The post-2015 agenda can help establish global norms which will support and encourage mobilisation to tackle intersecting inequalities, including a strong commitment to universal quality basic services, and the development of country-specific frameworks of targets and indicators monitoring intersecting inequalities
Authors: Veronica Paz Arauco, Haris Gazdar, Paula Hevia-Pacheco, Naila Kabeer, Amanda Lenhardt, Syeda Quratulain Masood, Haider Naqvi, Nandini Nayak, Andrew Norton, Nidhi Sadana Sabharwal, Elisa Scalise, Andrew Shepherd, Deepak Thapa, Sukhadeo Thorat, D. Hien Tran, Leandro Vergara-Camus, Tassew Woldehanna, Chiara Mariotti.
Click here to download the Report
The following background papers prepared for the report are also available:
Pakistan (Gazdar, Masood and Naqvi)
Latin America (Hevia and Vergara-Camus)
Edited by Flora Kessy, Oswald Mashindano, Andrew Shepherd & Lucy Scott
Tanzania is a politically stable, much aided country that has consistently grown economically during the first decade of the millennium, while also improving its human development indicators. However, poverty has remained persistent, particularly within rural areas. This collaborative work delves into the reasons why this is so and what can be done to improve the record.
The book is the product of both Tanzanian and international poverty experts, based on largely qualitative research undertaken within Tanzania by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC). The authors highlight and discuss the importance of macro- and micro-level causes of the persistence of poverty. The latter, on which the book is focused, centre around a negative dynamic affecting a large number of poor households in which widespread failure to provide household food security undermines gender relationships and reduces the possibility of saving and asset accumulation which is necessary for escaping poverty. This results in very low upward mobility. Vulnerability is widespread and resilience against shocks minimal, even for those who are not absolutely poor. Through an in-depth and broad analysis of poverty in Tanzania, the book provides alternative conclusions to those often repeated in the poverty discourse in international and local arenas.
The conclusions were reached with the specific aim of informing political and policy debates within Tanzania.
This brief examines the current extent of financial inclusion in Tanzania – focusing particularly on the chronically poor – and also specifically on access to savings and insurance services. This is because of the increasing body of evidence about the role which the two services can play in helping households to escape poverty and, by implication, to manage shocks and build their resilience.
Authors: Lucy Scott and William Smith
Photo Credit: Panos Pictures
Read MoreThis paper argues that panel data provides important insights to measure progress towards zero poverty, including through identifying who is getting 'left behind'.
Authors: Lucy Scott and Chiara Mariotti
Read MoreMiddle-income countries (MICs) are home to the majority of the world’s extremely poor people. However, some have also achieved remarkable success in reducing chronic poverty, and have been a source of inspiration for developing countries as a whole.
This Policy Guide is targeted to policymakers in middle- and lower-income Countries (MICs and LICs) who would like to be inspired and learn lessons from the countries that have reduced chronic poverty as part of their efforts to accelerate structural transformation and achieve a higher growth path. The Guide provides recommendations on how countries can replicate this achievement using lessons learnt from ten selected MICs with greatest poverty reduction record since 1990 (Cape Verde, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Senegal, Viet Nam, Brazil, China, Thailand and Tunisia). Evidence is analysed to identify the policies, strategies and political trajectories that have characterised their route out of extreme poverty.
Authors: Dominik Bulla, Abdou Salam Fall, Haris Gazdar, Medhi Krongkaew, Amanda Lenhardt, Sami Mouley, Alina Rocha Menocal, Andrew Shepherd and Chiara Mariotti
Click here to download the Middle-income Countries Policy Guide
Read the first chapter of 'Why Poverty Persists: Poverty Dynamics in Asia and Africa', which brings together the findings from panel survey analysis to increase insights into what traps people in poverty, causes them to fall into poverty or enables them to escape from poverty.
Author: Bob Baulch
Read MoreA summary of the influence and impact of ten years of research into chronic poverty conducted by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre
Read MoreThis is a list of available panel datasets (as of June 2014).
Read MoreThis policy brief highlights the importance of making poverty eradication an overarching goal of the post 2015 process, with other goal areas such as employment, education and social assistance all making a contribution towards it, rather than focusing on poverty eradication policies alone.
Authors: Andrew Shepherd, Lucy Scott and Chiara Mariotti.
Read MoreThis paper explores whether there is a 'resilience threshold' or a line that, once people are living over, means that they are highly unlikely to live in poverty in the future. The research explores these questions for several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Authors: Lucy Scott, Debbie Hillier and Helen Underhill
Read MoreThis National Policy Brief focuses on the importance of building poor people's resilience to shocks in Senegal, to prevent them from falling into poverty.
Author: Abdou Salam Fall
Read MorePoverty reduction in Tanzania has not occurred at the rate that would be expected, given the recent high levels of economic growth. This National Policy Brief advocates for addressing chronic poverty in the country through rural industrialisation.
Authors: Flora Kessy and Oswald Mashindano
Read MoreThis National Policy Brief highlights the improvements that have been made in the poorest people's incomes, levels of education and health in Bangladesh and sets out the policies that need to be focused on in order to sustain and expand this progress.
Authors: Binayak Sen and Zulfiqar Ali
Read MoreThis report demonstrates that escaping from poverty is not a one-way street – many families slide back below the poverty line because of factors such as ill-health, job loss and natural disasters.
Authors: Andrew Shepherd, Lucy Scott, Chiara Mariotti, Flora Kessy, Raghav Gaiha, Lucia da Corta, Katharina Hanifnia, Nidhi Kaicker, Amanda Lenhardt, Charles Lwanga-Ntale, Binayak Sen,
Bandita Sijapati, Tim Strawson, Ganesh Thapa, Helen Underhill, Leni Wild.