Negotiating Poverty: New Directions, Renewed Debate

Most people alive in the world today are living in poverty. Over one and a half billion people live on the equivalent of less than one US dollar a day. As the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, more people than ever before live below the poverty line, and their numbers will increase. Development aid has helped in some cases, but in general it has failed to seriously reduce destitution, and its uses continue to provoke debate. This volume is a serious attempt to address what can be done to alleviate poverty on a worldwide scale. While politicians debate at length what their policy aims should be, practicalities of how these aims will be implemented, and what is really achievable or sustainable , are left to NGOs, development workers and activists. The latest policy document produced by senior politicians and international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF is Guidelines on Poverty Reduction . Unsurprisingly, its central assumption is that poverty is best alleviated through economic growth, by incorporating the poor into the globalized market.
Negotiating Poverty is a critical examination of these new guidelines, which argues that attempts to incorporate the poor into a liberal market will only increase the poverty and suffering of the majority of the world. With contributions from a range of leading academics and activists from a range of countries in the North and South, who were invited to debate these guidelines along with the politicians, Negotiating Poverty offers a radical analysis of the real issues to be addressed. Chapters cover the aims and framework for poverty reduction; the role of the global market; the problems of employment; human security; environmental security; legal aspects; and the practical problems of implementation.