Prepared by: Mostafa NejatiMaster of Urban Affairs Management

Faculty of Management – University of Tehran (UT)

Professor: Dr. Verdi Nejad

Introduction• Our world is out of balance. Of the six billion people living in the

world today, one billion receive 80 percent of global income, while more than one billion barely survive on less than a dollar a day. And while developed countries spend $600 billion a year on defense, and incur $300 billion in direct and indirect agricultural subsidies, they offer only $56 billion a year in aid to developing countries. (Wolfensohn, World Bank President; 2004)

Terminology: Poverty• Poverty, the inability to attain a minimal standard of living, refers to

forms of economic, social and psychological deprivation occurring among people lacking sufficient ownership, control over or access to resources to maintain or provide individual or collective minimum levels of living (Ullah and Routray, 2007).

• Poverty can also be broadly defined as a system of exclusion from society and from its social and productive systems (Mwenda and Muuka, 2004).

Poverty Crisis• Although Poverty rates have decreased in some regions, still the

poverty crisis is increasing in some other places.

Accountable Organizations Strategies (1)

United Nations

• Introduction of the Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4 Reduce child mortality

Goal 5 Improve Maternal Health

Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for development

Table 1: Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2007)

Accountable Organizations Strategies (2)

World Bank• Creating opportunities for broad-based growth• Empowering people to act• Enhancing security among the poor

Accountable Organizations Strategies (3)

UNDP• Macroeconomic and structural policies • Employment for poverty reduction • Public resource management • Information and Communication Technology for

Development (ICTD) • Civil society and MDGs

Strategies for Poverty Eradication• The Poverty Reduction Strategies that international agencies require

developing countries to produce are supposed to be practical, multidimensional statements of how a country assesses the causes of poverty and the practical steps that it intends to take to address the problem (Curtis, 2006).

– Microfinance/Micro Credit (Rhyne, 2001)– Village banking (Mwenda and Muuka, 2004)

• About 70 percent of Africa’s population and roughly 80 percent of the continent’s poor live in rural areas (NEPAD, 2002).

– Providing more equal access to information

Poverty Eradication Strategic Model (PESM)

Conclusion• Despite international efforts to eradicate poverty, it is

necessary to have more strategy-based action plans.

• There is a vital need for empowering the public and involving youth is poverty eradiation initiatives.

References• Curtis, D. (2006), “Mind sets and methods: poverty strategies and the

awkward potential of the enabling state”, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 150-164.

• Rhyne, E. (2001), Mainstreaming Microfinance: How Lending to the poor Began, Grew, and Came of Age in Bolivia, Kumarian Press, Bloomfield, CT.

• Mwenda, K.K. and Muuka, G.N. (2004), “Towards best practices for micro finance institutional engagement in African rural areas; Selected cases and agenda for action”, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 31 No. 1/2, pp. 143-158.

• Ullah, A.K.M.A. and Routray, J.K. (2007), “Rural poverty alleviation through NGO interventions in Bangladesh: how far is the achievement?”, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 237-248

• World Bank, (2004), “Partnership in Development: Progress in teh Fight Against Poverty”,

• United Nations (2007), The Millennium Development Goals Report, New York.