Developmental Pathways to Poverty Reduction

Poverty reduction has gained much prominence in international development policy. In 2000, governments made a commitment through the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty and hunger by half by 2015. Low-income countries that seek help from the international financial institutions (IFIs) are now required to prepare poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) that will inform their economic and social policies. Bilateral aid is also increasingly tied to progress made in poverty reduction. However, there are concerns that many countries will be unable to make meaningful dents in their poverty. At the centre of these concerns is whether countries are following the right development paths. Critics affirm that current anti-poverty strategies have not overcome the constraints of the stabilization policies of the 1980s which contributed to a deepening of poverty or generated growth with limited employment in loan-recipient countries; and that lessons have not been drawn from the development strategies of newly industrialized countries that drastically reduced poverty in relatively short periods.