The Structures of Poverty
"Within the prevailing property structures of society, the rural poor, in particular, remain disconnected from the more dynamic sectors of the market, particularly where there is scope for benefiting from the opportunities provided by globalisation. The fast growing sectors of economic activity tend to be located within the urban economy, where the principal agents of production tend to be the urban elite, who own the corporate assets which underwrite the faster growing sectors of the economy. Even in the export-oriented rural economy, in those areas linked with the more dynamic agro-processing sector, a major part of the profits, in the chain of value addition, accrue to those classes who control corporate wealth. The rural poor, therefore, interface with the dynamic sectors of the economy only as producers and wage earners, at the lowest end of the production and marketing chain, where they sell their produce and labour under severely adverse conditions. This leaves the
rural poor with little opportunity for sharing in the opportunities provided by the market economy for value addition to their labours."
(Sobhan, R.,
Correcting Social Injustices: Refocusing the Agenda for Poverty Eradication, 2000, visited 2006-11-21)
Poverty Eradication Programmes
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals set eradication of poverty as a priority.
"Commitments to alleviate poverty are not new and have informed the agendas of the UN, international agencies and governments for at least a quarter of a century, if not longer. However, until recently, poverty alleviation was part of a broader agenda for development and viewed as a by-product of rapid growth. What is, however, new today is the prioritization of poverty as the primary mission of the global development agencies and many governments. The development agencies, in particular, appear quite categorical in defining poverty reduction as the immediate priority of their various aid programmes."
(Sobhan, R.,
Correcting Social Injustices: Refocusing the Agenda for Poverty Eradication, 2001, visited 2007-08-12)
"Progress in reducing
rural poverty has stalled. In the 1990s, it fell to less than one third of the rate needed to meet the United Nations' commitment to halve world poverty by 2015. Although three quarters of the world's 1.2 billion extremely poor people live and work in rural areas, aid to agriculture, their main source of income, has fallen by two thirds."
(International Fund for Agricultural Development,
Rural Poverty Report 2001 - The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty", visited 2011-05-16)