IMHO, the key factor in poverty alleviation is microeconomic intentional community business development.  I did preliminary research on this topic and coined the phrase in 2008-09 when I researched social entrepreneurship and presented a very rudimentary paper at GLOBELICS in Senegal in 2009 during my first year of doctoral studies.  I see two key issues--1) lack of logistics infrastructure and 2) business development focused on international trade while the majority of locals lack basic items that could easily be produced for consumption. In 2009, I saw first hand how locals coveted small farm tools for women who normally tended crops but had to do so with tools built for men.  Two women had to take each side of hand hoes because the span of the handles were too wide.  Meanwhile, large tractors given to the African people while US farmers struggle to tend crops with old equipment  were idle on the side of the road.  Individuals working with 1-2 acres of land cannot purchase fuel or maintain such equipment.  They need business development to create simple items that address simple needs and could realistically provide enough additional funds to send children to school to advance their chances to be better prepared for an improved socioeconomic status.  Poverty alleviation is a local problem that requires local business development to address local needs.  Apart from the increase in facilities for vaccines, most of the business development is targeted for international sales which may help a small number of people but fails to bring large communities out of poverty.  Each community in which you assess needs and develop accordingly can be a piece of a puzzle until you see entire nations.  But international development with little foresight into the needs of the immediate population is short-sighted and can lead to further economic decline.

IMHO, the key factor in poverty alleviation is microeconomic intentional community business development. I did preliminary research on this topic and coined the phrase in 2008-09 when I researched social entrepreneurship and presented a very rudimentary paper at GLOBELICS in Senegal in 2009 during my first year of doctoral studies. I see two key issues--1) lack of logistics infrastructure and 2) business development focused on international trade while the majority of locals lack basic items that could easily be produced for consumption. In 2009, I saw first hand how locals coveted small farm tools for women who normally tended crops but had to do so with tools built for men. Two women had to take each side of hand hoes because the span of the handles were too wide. Meanwhile, large tractors given to the African people while US farmers struggle to tend crops with old equipment were idle on the side of the road. Individuals working with 1-2 acres of land cannot purchase fuel or maintain such equipment. They need business development to create simple items that address simple needs and could realistically provide enough additional funds to send children to school to advance their chances to be better prepared for an improved socioeconomic status. Poverty alleviation is a local problem that requires local business development to address local needs. Apart from the increase in facilities for vaccines, most of the business development is targeted for international sales which may help a small number of people but fails to bring large communities out of poverty. Each community in which you assess needs and develop accordingly can be a piece of a puzzle until you see entire nations. But international development with little foresight into the needs of the immediate population is short-sighted and can lead to further economic decline.

Hi Roberto,

I have by no means a complete answer to your question, but perhaps some resources that might be helpful. I selected some resources that I think are currently relevant, covering general inequality and poverty, redistributive policies, family policies, single parenthood, active labour market policies, and the social investment state.

I look forward to more contributions from others! 

General resources on inequality / poverty:

Gornick, J., & Jäntti, M. (Eds.). (2013). Income Inequality. Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries. Stanford University Press.

Salverda, W., Nolan, B., & Smeeding, T. M. (Eds.). (2009). The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality. Oxford University Press.

DiPrete, T. a., & Eirich, G. M. (2006). Cumulative Advantage as a Mechanism for Inequality: A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Developments. Annual Review of Sociology, 32(1), 271–297. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123127

Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. Science (New York, N.Y.), 341(6149), 976–80. doi:10.1126/science.1238041

Redistributive Policies:

Smeeding, T. M. (2004). Twenty years of research on income inequality , poverty , and redistribution in the developed world : introduction and overview. Policy, 149–163.

Kenworthy, L. (1999). Do social-welfare policies reduce poverty? A cross-national assessment. Social Forces, 77(3), 1119–1139. Retrieved from http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/77/3/1119.short

Korpi, W., & Palme, J. (1998). The paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality: Welfare state institutions, inequality, and poverty in the Western countries. American Sociological Review, 63(5), 661–687. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2657333

Brady, D., Fullerton, A. S., & Cross, J. M. (2010). More Than Just Nickels and Dimes : A Cross-National Analysis of Working Poverty in Affluent Democracies, 57(4), 559–585. doi:10.1525/sp.2010.57.4.559.SP5704

Family Policies:

Family policies and earnings inequality (chapter 6 in linked resource): https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/wfrn-repo/object/22gt024oi46to5x5

Williams, J. C., & Boushey, H. (2010). The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict. The Poor, the Professionals, and the Missing Middle (p. 96).

Ghysels, J., & Van Lancker, W. (2011). The unequal benefits of activation: an analysis of the social distribution of family policy among families with young children. Journal of European Social Policy, 21(5), 472–485. doi:10.1177/0958928711418853

Poverty among single mothers:

Family Policies and single parent poverty: https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/wfrn-repo/object/22gt024oi46to5x5

Gornick, J. C., & Jäntti, M. (2012). Child poverty in cross-national perspective: Lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study. Children and Youth Services Review, 34(3), 558–568. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.10.016

Brady, D., & Burroway, R. (2012). Targeting, universalism, and single-mother poverty: a multilevel analysis across 18 affluent democracies. Demography, 49(2), 719–46. doi:10.1007/s13524-012-0094-z

Active Labour Market Policies

Bonoli, G. (2010a). The Political Economy of Active Labor-Market Policy. Politics & Society, 38(4), 435–457. doi:10.1177/0032329210381235

Card, D., Kluve, J., & Weber, A. (2010). Active Labour Market Policy Evaluations: A Meta-Analysis. The Economic Journal, 120(1976), 452–477. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02387.x.

Kluve, J. (2010). The effectiveness of European active labor market programs. Labour Economics, 17(6), 904–918. doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2010.02.004

Social Investment State:

Cantillon, B. (2011). The paradox of the social investment state: growth, employment and poverty in the Lisbon era. Journal of European Social Policy, 21(5), 432–449. doi:10.1177/0958928711418856

Vandenbroucke, F., & Vleminckx, K. (2011). Disappointing poverty trends: is the social investment state to blame? Journal of European Social Policy, 21(5), 450–471. doi:10.1177/0958928711418857

Dear Beth and Rense: Your comments are fantastic, I will look for articles aligned with them.

Dear Roberto,

You are right. Poverty reduction is definitely a part of official policy agendas in both poor and rich countries. One of the present hot issues in the field of poverty reduction is theme of micro-savings programmes. You can find interesting examples from Slovakia if you look at attached links.

Daniel

http://www.etp.sk/en/skvalitnenie-b%C3%BDvania-rod%C3%ADn-s-n%C3%ADzkymi-pr%C3%ADjmami-ida/

http://www.etp.sk/en/zlep%C5%A1enie-kvality-b%C3%BDvania-marginalizovan%C3%BDch-r%C3%B3mskych-rod%C3%ADn-2/

imo, capacities and functionings. It's not how much money people have (well obviously that matters too), but their ability to access a certain basket of basic goods and services, such as food, housing, health, education, and infrastructure.

The income approach is too limited. Multidimensional poverty measures can account for the things that really matter.

I wouldn't then say "let's forget cash transfers to the poorest parents because we are interested in outcomes, not incomes". Free agency matters. But governments can do a lot to provide these services without unduly affecting agency: services to support farmers ability to make good accounting decisions in accessing inputs, conditionality of cash transfers on children going to school and getting health checkups, and spending on infrastructure.

In short, focusing on outcomes, not income, but without ignoring that income really matters. Few people want to live on a world run on food stamps.

Consumption based approach to poverty analysis can therefore be far superior to income based approaches, although income is certainly still one of the single most important pieces of information when looking at poverty.

In India, minimum work guarantee and cash transfer has been the themes of poverty reduction.

Hi, Dear Mathew: I liked this view of local solutions to such problems.

An interesting debate here is whether 'social policy' could be seen as a subsect of public policy that addresses poverty reduction. Social policy literature is not conclusive on this debate. Some scholars argue that the primary function of social policy was merely to deal with anomalies created by the market - this typical welfare state argument. However, often social policy is treated as a poverty reduction policy. These ideas are articulated in the following special issue of International Journal of Social Welfare: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijsw.12041/abstract

I'm no expert on theoretical aspects. However, I see public policies to fight poverty in various countries with diverse political tendencies. Thus, Germany created elements (part-time jobs) to minimize the crisis of 2008, and was an important tool. The United States has for decades been a food distribution program, which now benefits 49 million people and consumes $ 80 billion a year. The Bolsa Família Program, created in Brazil, after merging four previous programs has been widely adopted in dozens of other countries from various continents. So I think it is a reality the existence of public policy to fight poverty.

Hello Roberto,

Obviously, there are many answers to this question, depending on specific country context and also (possibly mostly) on the respondent’s point of view and professional background.

Increasingly, the effectiveness of institutions is recognized as critical for the functioning of governments, societies and economies. Effectiveness of institutions can be strengthened by developing individual professional capacities, but also and more importantly by developing organizational and institutional capacities. The Busan New Consensus on Effective Institutions was only one of the starting points for the international debate. Its topic is being taken forward under the Effective Institutions Platform (EIP), which brings together governments, NGOs, academia and other stakeholders from high, middle and low income countries.

I agree with you that your question is not only relevant for developing countries, but also for developed countries. The financial crisis of 2008+ is only one, but a rather prominent example. In my opinion, oversight and accountability were in many cases the missing link which may have prevented the crisis or at least reduced its impact. However, in most cases there was evidence for either non-functioning or non-effective oversight (non-effective meaning that there was evidence, for example an audit report, but the legislator or more generally the recipient of this report chose not to act on its recommendations). Accountability institutions, notably Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI), and oversight mechanisms such as internal audit units are supposed to be monitoring and controlling the use and effectiveness of public funds and the collection of revenue. They then report to the legislature (for SAIs) or the executive (for internal audit), who are supposed to follow up on the findings.

Please note that I am talking about external public sector audit, not about private sector auditors! Private sector auditors of course play a vital role in how the 2008+ crisis played out. However, since your question asked for public policy issues related to poverty reduction, I would argue that the role of external audit of the public sector, which is executed by the SAI, is crucial for governments to be held accountable by parliaments and by citizens. With a solid accountability framework in place, governments are held accountable for their actions across all government sectors, whether you are talking about employment policies, basic health care or education.

Hello Meike,

I considered interesting the experience this institute that conducts audits in Government Organizations. I appreciate your interest in adducing these ideas to the debate. Finally, consider an additional example of the social policy field - though not directly related to the topic of poverty because the audits may cover broader themes.

Roberto, just as additional information for you: the Supreme Audit Institution of Brazil is the Tribunal de Contas. They are doing an excellent job in auditing and are very transparent, so maybe you will find some useful resources on their website. If you are looking for examples from other countries, look for either "Tribunal de Cuentas", "Auditoria General" or "Contraloria General".

Hi, @Meike Pätzold,

Acting on a federal agency (CNPq), we have strong familiarity with TCU, and know their role in protecting the proper use of public resources.

Dear Dr. Palani,

Thanks a lot, I'm going to use your material.

Dr. R. Minadeo

I had opportunities to study both texts calmly thus surely I will use the ideas that I thought most relevant that are aligned with what I have been building.

Thank you again.

Thanks, Prof. @Ahsan

I agree with your words, indeed, the correct implementation of good policies is vital so that we can reduce poverty - albeit slowly.

Effective combating of poverty in many countries consists in reliable planning and implementation of anti-crisis, pro-development, interventionist social policy, which is an important segment of the socio-economic policy.

Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

It has been said that the best anti-poverty program is a job.

And by that it was mean a productive job in the private sector. Jobs that actually produce something and increase the overall production and trade of a nation.

As a rule, the nation's with the greatest production and trade have the least poverty.

Hi, Dariusz Prokopowicz

I totally agree with the importance of State in social issues.

Hi, Stephen Martin Fritz

Great words, the private sector has an important rule in poverty reduction.

Actually the power of the state can decide how to protect the poor people that could be managed by implementing effective measures.

Before that the government or private in the sense NGOs can conduct the Baseline Survey to identify the target population who are looking for the benefits from the Government.

The Government can execute the most suitable program like Productive Safety Net Program in order to provide the employment on monthly basis but salary in terms of cash or kind on weekly basis.

Most of the developing are being followed these programs in general.

Some developing countries have Public Private Partnership (PPP) program to implement at all levels to reduce the poverty situations.

The themes are mainly focusing on fulfilling the basic needs such Food, Shelter, Cloth and Health among the poor people.

The Donors countries are supporting like Food-Aid, Health and Nutrition, Medical support and supply medicine, including other components of providing Vocational Education, Employment opportunities and Entrepreneurial motivation etc.

Poverty reduction is possible only when these themes can cover the program to execute effectively.

The poverty is also different kinds. Income poverty, food poverty and multi-dimensional poverty aspects in the society.

Based on the nature of the povery that it has to be implemented accordingly.

Hi, Senapathy Marisennayya and Krisztina Melinda Dobay

Thanks for your answers. I agree with the importance of State in social issues and that education is crucial in the matter.

Hi Dr Roberto - Minadeo . The most important themes including:

Free education, free medical treatment, support for poor families, and allocations from the state to provide a decent life for the individuals.