Learning from the Extreme Poor : Participatory Approaches to Fostering Child Health in Madagascar

Abstract

Definitions of poverty in developing countries used by most development organizations focus on household income or consumption that falls below a given threshold, such as one dollar per capita per day, and on other quantified indicators. While such definitions have the merit of providing a standard by which to measure progress, the very poor use quite different terms and ideas to communicate what extreme poverty means to them. This paper discusses learning from the extreme poor in the form of participatory approaches to fostering child health in Madagascar.