Poverty

 

“Poverty must be recognized in terms of its core impact – violation of human dignity”

 

Berma Klein Goldwijk and Bas de Gaay Fortman, Where Needs Meets Rights, 1999

 

Poverty is a complex, dynamic and multidimensional experience.  The extent of poverty and this ever-increasing gap between the rich and poor is the greatest challenge of humanity. One horror today is that it is indeed preventable. Equalinrights defends and acts to realise the rights of all human beings in human dignity. Equalinrights is committed to the elimination of poverty and the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights for all. This is achievable with commitment and action, at both the global and local level, to transform dominant ways of thinking, to remove the structural constraints imposed on those living in poverty and to empower them to transform their lives.

 

We do not attempt to offer a comprehensive definition or guideline of poverty here, but rather provide some general insight into equalinright‘s understanding that influences our approach and methodology. The framework of poverty we present is concerned primarily with people and their perceptions of what it means to be poor. Also included is a brief overview of the principal definitions in application.

 

 

Principle definitions of poverty

 

Income

The traditional view of poverty was based on needs in terms of lack of income or purchasing power to secure a person‘s basic needs. This has largely been, at least in theory, overtaken as overly simplistic and inadequate to account for the complex and multiple dimensions of poverty. Poverty is now seen more in terms of extreme deprivation of “well-being” (UNDP Human Development Report, 2000-2005).

 

Capabilities approach

Amartya Sen pioneered the capabilities approach, which sees poverty as the failure to achieve certain minimum or basic capabilities. These capabilities refer to a person‘s ability to lead a life that she values in terms of what that person chooses to be or do (Sen 1999). This approach centres around the realisation of human potential, relating to the freedoms that all individuals identify with their well-being. Some have identified the most basic capabilities of human development as: to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to those resources that enable a person to have a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the social and political life. This includes then both income poverty and human development poverty.

 

Social exclusion

There is a third element however, within the notion of poverty that is an integral part of well-being. This is social exclusion. This may generally be defined as a process through which individuals or groups are partially or wholly excluded from full participation in the society in which they live (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1995).

 

Social exclusion is obviously far more focused on social relations. It looks “at how the different groups of individuals relate to each other, and how social mechanisms, institutions and agents interact to cause deprivation” (Arjun Sengupta, Report of the UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, 2005)

 

While Sen‘s theory encompasses social exclusion as an element, others advocate it as the primary component. This centres the social element of poverty and includes the process of descending into poverty through disadvantages and exclusion. These can both mutually trigger the other in a circular spiral into poverty. It also more specifically highlights the relationship between inequality, discrimination and poverty, as well as structural characteristics that can generate exclusion.

 

How do rights-based strategies fit in?

 

A human rights-based strategy builds again on the capabilities approach, extending beyond human freedom to the broader and deeper notion of human dignity. It moves beyond freedom – or liberty – to embrace other principles, including the value of life, equality, self-esteem and self-consciousness, proportionality and bodily integrity.

 

Premised on human dignity, the human rights-based approach views poverty as disempowerment or powerlessness. It further creates global responsibility to remove structural constraints in people‘s living conditions, targeting the systems and structures of power and authority. It introduces the notion of a legitimate claim on another person, group or institution to collaborate or facilitate in ensuring access to some freedom. It correspondingly imposes a duty on the person, group or institution to ensure or assist the claims-holder in securing her right. (De Gaay Fortman, In Search of a New Paradigm: Development interventionism from a human dignity perspective)

  

Empowerment and participation, which are at the heart of this approach, also oppose the external analysis of poverty. They demand that those living in poverty are central to the discussion of what it means to be poor (Chambers Analysis of PRA, 1994).