Publication: Empowerment and Poverty Reduction : A Sourcebook
Date
2002-06
ISSN
Published
2002-06
Author(s)
Abstract
Poverty will not be reduced on a large
scale, without tapping into the energy, skills, and
motivation of the millions of poor people around the world.
This book offers a framework for empowerment, that focuses
on increasing poor people's freedom of choice, and
action to shape their own lives. This approach requires
three societal changes: a change in the mindset, from
viewing poor people as the problem to viewing them as
essential partners in reducing poverty; a change in the
relationship between poor people, and formal systems,
enabling them to participate in decisions that affect their
lives; and, a change in formal, and informal institutions to
make them more responsive to the needs, and realities of
poor people. Based on analysis of experiences from around
the world, the book identifies four key elements to support
empowerment of poor people: information,
inclusions/participation, accountability, and local
organizational capacity. This framework is applied to five
areas of action to improve development effectiveness. These
are: provision of basic services, improved local governance,
improved national governance, pro-poor market development,
and access to justice, and legal aid. The book also offers
tools and practices, focusing on a wide range of topics, to
support poor people's empowerment. These range from
poor people's enterprises, information and
communications technology, and, community driven
development, to diagnostic tools such as corruption surveys,
and citizen report cards.
Citation
“Narayan, Deepa. 2002. Empowerment and Poverty Reduction : A Sourcebook. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/bdc9ff61-d597-5a3e-b1ee-c2b5b2ec3be5 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”