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[Combating poverty and inequality] Preface
Cook, Sarah
Cook, Sarah
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Abstract
"Combating Poverty and Inequality is published just as global leaders meet to review and recommit themselves to a set of goals for reducing poverty agreed, under vastly different circumstances, a decade ago. The optimism of the new millennium is now overshadowed by the effects of multiple, interrelated crises. Progress in many areas appears threatened and resources are more constrained. This volume provides a timely reminder of the strengths and limitations of various approaches to addressing poverty in the current context. It is the culmination of an ambitious project, Poverty Reduction and Policy Regimes, initiated with characteristic foresight by my predecessor as Director of UNRISD, Thandika Mkandawire. Responding to a concern that dominant approaches to poverty reduction, as refl ected for example in the PRSPs and MDGs, had serious shortcomings, the research aimed to reposition the analysis of poverty and poverty reduction processes within the broader political economy of development. A key premise of the report is that poverty cannot be reduced when both analysis of the problem, and the people affected, are relegated to the margins of development processes – targeted with safety nets or residual policy interventions while economic growth fails to create jobs, deliver services, or provide other means through which all individuals can realize their capabilities. Building on lessons from prior research on social policy by UNRISD, the report demonstrates that countries which have successfully reduced poverty, from Europe to East Asia, did so through strategic state interventions. These included transformative social policies that aimed not only at protecting the vulnerable, but that also enhanced productive capacities, provided critical social investments and performed a redistributive function that contributed, in turn, to social cohesion and nation building."(pg V)
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2010
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9789290850762
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With permission of the license/copyright holder