The neoliberal capitalist crisis of 2008 brought to light poverty and destitution in our societies. In Spain, 13 million people live in poverty, structural unemployment is over 20% and levels of insecurity have risen in all sectors and social groups. In the EU, 120 million live in poverty, while globally, wealth is increasingly concentrated in…

Investment in human capital is an important tool for reducing poverty. However, the poor may lack the capacity to aspire, which often results in underinvestment in their children's education. This paper studies the effect of a social program on the educational aspirations poor parents have for their children, and explores the role of exposure to…

In 2008, the Ministry of Education in Manitoba, Canada approved a $1.8 million grant for a major three-year pilot project entitled the Student Success Initiative (SSI) designed to support schools facing barriers to success. Six schools with lower-than-average graduation rates in Manitoba from urban, rural, and northern communities were invited to…

There is a growing optimism among international organizations such as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can transform developing countries such as Nigeria to developed ones in a relatively short time. Experiences from Asian and European countries such as India, Bangladesh, Malaysia,…

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reducing poverty and increasing the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children's education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechanisms used by CCTs have been generally successful in…

Effective poverty reduction programs require careful measurement of poverty status. Commonly used consumption or income-based classifications of poverty aggregate together households that are persistently poor with those who are only in poverty due to passing conditions. They also classify as non-poor households that are at risk of falling into…

Community and Individual Development Association (CIDA) City Campus is a private business college that provides bachelor's degrees to economically disadvantaged students in South Africa. CIDA's model of management education is in stark contrast to conventional business schools, which are not accessible to or adapted to students from extreme…

The development theory for progress in the countries of the Third World must be based on the aspirations of the common people; the majority poor. The poor cannot simply be provided with resources; they must also be psychologically, socially, and economically empowered. The most important conflict in poor countries is between urban and rural…

This report is one of a series of papers presented to encourage discussion on the evaluation of important development issues. The recent emphasis within the Agency for International Development (AID) on knowing the impacts of development assistance, particularly the benefit incidence of projects and programs, makes it important to look at the…

Analysis of 101 projects in 7 public works programs (PWPs) in Western Cape Province in the mid-1990s estimated the public expenditure needed to transfer resources to the poor. Comparison of the result with that generated by a hypothetical, untargeted transfer showed that most of the PWPs outperform the benchmarks. (Contains 26 references.) (JOW)

Before 1944, when Great Britain's local education agencies were empowered to ensure that students were adequately clothed and fed, the Boots for the Bairns Fund sponsored by the Yorkshire Evening Post provided shoes for poor children in Leeds. This article reviews the fund's history from 1921 to 1939. (PGD)

This report describes how children bear the brunt of poverty and explains why they are central to poverty reduction in developing nations. The report also illustrates UNICEF's support for the process of improving access to, and quality of, health care, education, water and sanitation, and child protection. It describes how the participation of the…

In rural Mexico, the Progresa program provided educational grants to poor mothers of children enrolled in grades 3-9 and attending 85 percent of the school days. Payments were increased at the higher grades, a premium was paid for girls enrolled in grades 7-9, and every 6 months the grants were adjusted upward to compensate for inflation. The…

This book, a collection of articles and papers, reviews techniques and tools that can be used to evaluate the poverty and distributional impact of economic policy choices. Following are its contents: "Evaluating the Poverty and Distributional Impact of Economic Policies: A Compendium of Existing Techniques" (Francois Bourguignon and Luiz A.…

Food security means access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life. Available data suggest that more than 700 million people in the developing world lack the food necessary for such a life. No problem of underdevelopment may be more serious or have such important implications for the long-term growth of low-income…