poverty

Frontline

New loan sharks

The rural poor in Andhra Pradesh, a State showcased as a model for SHG-bank linkage, are caught in the vortex of microfinance. WITHIN a decade of their coming into operation, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have dealt a serious blow to the economy and the well-being of thousands of families in rural Andhra Pradesh. Harassment by their collection agents has allegedly driven at least 60 borrowers to death, and the number is increasing. Read (...) read

date of on-line publication : 21 December 2010

Justine Peullemeulle

Medium Term Budget Policy Statement: building up to bold decisions, but time is not on the side of the poor

> Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen

According to official projections, as a society, we are unlikely to narrow the income gap, nor reach our employment targets. If there is a silver lining in South Africa’s Millennium Development Goals report it is that government has achieved or is likely to achieve in the areas of schooling, water and sanitation in terms of targets, but certainly not in terms of quality. The bleakness of the picture going forward is an important reality check to understand the policy responses from (...) read

date of on-line publication : 15 November 2010

Truthout

US Adds 3.8 Million More to Ranks of the Poor as Poverty Rate Jumps

US poverty rate hit 14.3 percent last year, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. The jump bring the number of the poor to its highest level since 1959, five years before the Johnson-era War on Poverty. Read here and here read

date of on-line publication : 20 September 2010

Social Watch: G8 countries have not met their promises

The world’s most powerful countries have failed to live up to their promises, distancing the poorest countries even further from satisfying the basic minimum needs of their citizens. According to the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) published today by Social Watch (http://www.socialwatch.org), at the current rate of progress universal access to a minimum set of social services will only be achieved in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2108. This means a delay of almost a century with regards to the (...) read

date of on-line publication : 6 June 2007

Inter Press Service (IPS)

Poor Could Lose 67 Billion Dollars

Poor countries risk receiving 50 billion euros (67 billion dollars) less than what they have been promised from the European Union by 2010 unless the bloc improves the quality of its development aid, anti-poverty campaigners have warned. The EU’s development aid ministers are to assess what progress has been made in realising commitments to increase aid at a Brussels meeting May 15. Although EU officials say the ministers will express confidence that pledges are being upheld, non- (...) read

date of on-line publication : 22 May 2007

The economic impact of telecommunications on rural livelihoods and poverty reduction

> TelAfrica.org

http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/info (...)

Aimed at a policy audience, a study looks at the use of various communications technologies in villages in Gujarat, Mozambique and Tanzania. It reveals that in all three research countries telephones are the preferred means of communications for emergencies and family networking; mass media are the preferred ICTs for general information such as news and weather and face-to-face communications is overwhelmingly the main method of communications for specific information in all three countries, including information about education, farming, business and government services

• Download the document in PDF, 447 pages: http://www.telafrica.org/R8347/file...

date of on-line publication : 27 September 2006

DIEYE Cheikh Tidiane Dièye

The hopes and illusions of world trade liberalisation for women in Africa

> Pambazuka News

http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-A (...)

Africa has faced ten years of unfettered liberalisation that, argues Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, has left the continent on its knees. Women, more than any other group, suffer the weight of the constraints of poverty largely brought about by the world trade system. It is women that must play a crucial role in winning the struggle for a better trading system.
Even though over the last twenty years many African nations have adopted sometimes draconian economic reforms, the benefits of trade liberalisation that were promised have not materialised. On the other hand, developed nations have enjoyed 70% of the wealth generated by trade liberalisation. In some respects, world trade regulations, defined for the most part by industrialised countries during the Uruguay Round agreements between 1986 and 1994, have only increased Africa’s economic problems.
Before an “ambiguous consensus”1 was reached at Doha, which was at the heart of the launch of the round of multilateral negotiations that tool place at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the “battle of Seattle” or “Seattle showdown”2 revealed to the world the growing dissatisfaction of developing countries with regard to the WTO, whose way of working did not appear to respond to their profound desire for economic progress and development.  read

date of on-line publication : 22 September 2006

ONU

Review of the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty: 1997-2006

> United Nations, December 2005

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/poverty (...)

In December 1995, the General Assembly proclaimed the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006). In December 1996, the General Assembly declared the theme for the Decade as a whole to be "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind."
This report by the UN Secretary General looks at the last ten years of worldwide efforts to reduce poverty. Although poverty has decreased in Asia, the UN observed little progress in Latin America and especially Africa. These regions suffer from wide income inequality preventing economic growth from translating into reduced poverty.  read

date of on-line publication : 20 June 2006

AFRODAD, CIDSE, Eurodad, Initiative d’Halifax, Jubilee USA

Sell IMF gold to cancel the debt: decision time is now

> Report, April 2005, 9 pp., PDF

http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles (...)

Debt owed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other multilateral institutions has grown rapidly in recent years and these institutions are now the major creditors of the world’s poorest countries. Because there are serious consequences for countries which default on payments to these bodies, multilateral debt can be extremely onerous for countries struggling to provide for even the most basic social and development needs of their citizens.  read

date of on-line publication : 13 October 2005