OBJECTIVES OF THIS PROJECT

The major objectives behind making this project

are:

• To work with people and communities experiencing poverty

to empower them to address poverty
• To work with organisations to build a strong anti-poverty
network in Scotland
• To support the development of policies which promote
social justice and combat poverty
• To raise awareness about poverty and encourage debate
about solutions.
 WHAT IS POVERTY?
 Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as clean
water , nutrition, health care, education, clothing and
shelter, because of the inability to afford them.
 It can also be referred as absolute destitution.
 Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources
or less income than others within a society or country, or
compared to worldwide averages.
 The world bank describes poverty as :
“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is
being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not
having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty
is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a
time.”
 TYPES OF POVERTY
It is multidimensional phenomena.
Absolute Poverty
•It is the extreme kind of poverty involving the chronic lack of basic food, clean
water, health andhousing.
•People in absolute poverty tend to struggle to live and experience alot of child
deaths from preventablediseases.
Relative Poverty
•This kind is usually in relation to other members and families in the society.
•For example, a family can be considered poor if it cannot afford vacations, or
cannot buy presents for children at Christmas, or cannot send its young to the
university.
Situational Poverty (Transitory)
•In this type, there is usually no escape from it, aspeople are trapped in its causes
and have no accessto tools that will help them get out of it.
•People or families can be poor because of some adversitieslike
earthquakes, floods or a seriousillness.
 CAUSES OF POVERTY
Lack of education Poverty is also caused by
Natural disasters DRUGS & ALCOHOL as
Lack of money some people spend
No opportunities all their money on
provided addictions like this.
Over population
 MAJOR CAUSES OF EXTREME
POVERTY
Hunger & Malnutrition
Limited access to quality health care
Insufficient access to sanitary water
Limited education
 MEASUREMENT OF
POVERTY
• EXPENDIURE METHOD
 Under this the minimum food
requirements for survival is
estimated.
 The food value is converted
into calories.
 The caloric value of food is
then converted into the
money value i.e. in rupees.
 The total equivalent amount
is considered as the poverty
line.
• INCOME METHOD
 This method is used by the
government while
distributing food through
PDS at the local level.
 Under this a poverty line is
fixed by the government.
 All the families whose total
income is less than the
poverty line fixed by the
government are
considered as BPL.
 IMPORTANT POVERTY
MEASURE METHODS
Head Count Ratio (HCR): proportion of total population that falls
below poverty threshold income or expenditure. Based on either
national PLor dollar-a-dayPL.
Poverty Gap Index (PGI): unlike HCR, it gives us a sense of howpoor
the poorare.It is equivalentto incomegapbelow PL per head of
total population, and expressed as a percentage of the povertyline.
Squared Poverty Gap index (SPG): Adds the dimension of inequality
among the poor to the poverty gap index. For a givenvalueofthe
PGI,populationwithgreaterdispersionof incomeamong poor
indicatesa highervaluefortheSPG.
Monotonicity Axiom
TransferAxiom
 EFFECTS OF POVERTY
High Mortality Rates.
Increased health risks and
perpetuation of epidemics such as
HIV/AIDS and Malaria.
Hampers children’s ability to grow &
develop properly and contributes to a
cycle of poverty
Inhibits education and social
advancement
Increased armed conflict

EFFECTS OF POVERTY
Diseases are more widely spread because poor people cannot
afford hygienic foods and pure drinking water which is much
expensive.
 Many infants born into poverty have a low birthweight,
which is associated with many preventable mental and
physical disabilities.
 Poor families experience much more stress than middle-class
families. Besides financial uncertainty, these families are more
likely to be exposed to series of negative events and “bad luck,”
including illness, depression,eviction.
 Homelessness, or extreme poverty, carries with it a particularly
strong set of risks for families, especiallychildren. Homeless
children are less likely to receive proper nutrition and
immunization. They experience more health problems.
 Homeless women experience higher rates of low-birth-weight
babies, miscarriages, and infant mortality, probably due to not
having access to adequate prenatal care fortheir babies.
 Homeless families experience even greater life stress than other
families, including increased, family relationships,and
friendships.
 1.Effects on children:
• 22,000 children die each day
 27-28 % of all children in develpin g
countries are underweight
 10.6 million died in 2003
 For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there

are:

 640 million without adequate shelter

 400 million with no access to safe water

 270 million with no access to health services

 2.Effects on Women:
 70% of the world's poor represent a staggering population.

 Of the 500,000 women who die in childbirth every

year, 99% live in developing countries.

 4 million girls and women were sold.

3.Effects on Education:
 About 72 million children of primary school age in the

developing world were not in school 57 per cent of them

were girls.

 Nearly a billion people were uneducated after entering 21st

century.

 121 million out of education worldwide.

 Govt. Policy Regarding Reduction of Poverty
 The Govt, of India took certain measures to reduce poverty, inequality of
income and wealth in its five year plan periods. Followings are some steps
taken by the Govt, from time to time.

1.Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)

2.National Rural Employment Programme (NREP)
3.Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP)
4. Jawahar Rozgar Yojna
5. Training of Rural Youth for Self-Employment
6.Development of Women and Children
7.Drought Prone Area Programme
8.Desert Development Programme
9.Employment Exchanges
10.Employment Guarantee Scheme
11. Employment Assurance Scheme
12. Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana
 SOLUTIONS TO POVERTY
Poverty will never end unless there are real solutions to end it;
solutions based on economic justice and politicalchanges.
The full equality between men and women in public aswell as
private areas of life.
The guarantee of shelter, healthcare, education, food and drinking
water asbasic human rights that must be provided free to all.
A total redistribution of idle lands to landless farmers and the
imposition of a 50% cap on arable land devoted to products for
export per country, with the creation of aworldwide subsidy for
organic agriculture.
An end to private monopoly ownership over natural resources,
with a minimum of 51% local communal ownership in
corporations, which control such resources as well as the
termination of intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical
drugs.
 The cancellation of third world debt with no reciprocal
obligations attached and the payment of compensation to Third
World countries for historical as well as ecologicaldebt.
An obligation of total transparency for any corporation with
more than 100 employees and a 1%tax on all benefits
distributed to shareholders of corporations to create
unemployment funds.
The termination of tax havens around the world aswell asfree
flow of capital indeveloping countries.
An equal voting for developing countries in international
organizations such as IMF, World Bank, WTO, and the termination of
veto right for the permanent members of the UN Security Counsel.
A commitment by industrialized countries to decrease carbon
emission by 50% over a ten-year period as well as reducing by 25%
each developed country%u2019s consumption of natural
resources.
 WHAT WE SEEK TO CHANGE
• Poverty is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. In order to focus our
activities the Poverty Alliance has identified three key areas that must be
addressed in order to make progress in the fight against poverty:
• Low Incomes
• Services
• Participation.
• Attitudes

• Incomes: Low income is at the heart of our analysis of poverty, and access to
an adequate income is essential to addressing poverty. Much of our work
over the next three years will be focused on supporting policies and actions
that increase the incomes of those currently living in poverty. Whilst
working in partnership with other anti-poverty organisations, we will
prioritise work to address low incomes amongst working age adults, who
receive less attention in current policy. This focus will include both incomes
in and out of work.
• Services: People living on low incomes are more likely to rely on public
services. A key policy focus over the next three years will be to ensure
that people living on low incomes have access to high quality public
services. Over the coming three years we will work to ensure that
services used by and targeted at people experiencing poverty are
defended and improved. Our primary concerns will be in the areas of
employment services (including skills and training), health, regeneration,
social work services and advice services.

• Participation: We believe that the participation of people experiencing

poverty is central to developing better policy solutions to poverty. We
will therefore work to ensure that more participatory forms of policy
development are created over the coming years. Our primary focus will
be on the national level (in Scotland), but will also seek policy change
that ensures that people are able to have their voices heard at the local
level. We will also continue to work to embed more participatory
approaches at both UK and European levels.
• Attitudes: Public attitudes set the context in which we attempt to change
anti-poverty policy. Increasingly, it has become clear that efforts to
introduce more effective anti-poverty policies can be hindered by
negative or discriminatory attitudes to people experiencing poverty. For
example, if it is widely believed that poverty is inevitable, or that
poverty is a result of ‘personal failure’, then it will be more difficult to
create support greater public investment for policies to address poverty.
We will therefore be involved in a range of activities to highlight where
progress is being made to address poverty and to challenge negative and
stereotypical views of people experiencing poverty.
THANKS