Rural Poverty Analysis

Reducing rural poverty is a key objective of FAO. To achieve this goal, the Organization must reach the poor and the extremely poor in rural areas, analysing their needs and aspirations and providing effective guidance for the design of policies and investments that foster inclusive and sustainable development. This guide was developed to strengthen the Organization’s work on rural poverty reduction and inclusivity over the coming years. It provides key information to measure poverty, characterize rural populations, and identify their constraints to target them more accurately. The guide includes five chapters. Chapter 1 explains the structure, content, and use of the guide, as well as its intended users and objectives. Chapter 2 discusses how poverty is measured, focusing on the different indicators that can be used, depending on the context, specific circumstances, data availability and policy objectives. Chapter 3 provides guidance on how to build a poverty profile and produce poverty maps to understand who the poor are and where they are located. Chapter 4 focuses on the targeting process, on various targeting techniques and on how to choose one over another to ensure that programmes and projects effectively combat poverty, particularly in rural areas. Finally, Chapter 5 sets the next steps for the development of further analytical guides. The various chapters provide an overview of both widely used and emerging techniques in poverty analysis, focusing on quantitative methods, and giving constant attention to FAO’s areas of work and the challenges posed by operating in rural areas.

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

America's rural areas have always held a disproportionate share of the nation's poorest populations. Rural Poverty in the United States examines why. What is it about the geography, demography, and history of rural communities that keeps them poor? In a comprehensive analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, Rural Poverty in the United States looks at access to human and social capital; food security; healthcare and the environment; homelessness; gender roles and relations; racial inequalities; and immigration trends to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty. Contributors to this volume incorporate approaches from multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, demography, race and gender studies, public health, education, criminal justice, social welfare, and other social science fields. They take a hard look at current and past programs to alleviate rural poverty and use their failures to suggest alternatives that could improve the well-being of rural Americans for years to come. These essays work hard to define rural poverty's specific metrics and markers, a critical step for building better policy and practice. Considering gender, race, and immigration, the book appreciates the overlooked structural and institutional dimensions of ongoing rural poverty and its larger social consequences.

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Sociology - Individual, Groups, Society, grade: Excellent, , course: MSc. in Development Economics, language: English, abstract: In developing countries like Ethiopia, our day-to-day formal and informal discourses are rarely out of poverty issues that can be linked directly or indirectly. Despite the determined effort of government and development agencies to reduce poverty and ensure sustainable development, poverty remains an everlasting challenge of the world. This study aims to examine rural household poverty and its determining factors using alternative poverty measurement approaches, in case of Gozamin Woreda, East Gojjam Zone of Amhara Region. It used both objective and subjective based poverty analysis approaches, where the survey based analysis and PPA of the study depend on randomly selected 242 and 42 sample households respectively. Using cost of basic needs approach (CBN), the poverty line of the study area is estimated as 19.16 Birr per day per adult equivalent. The study engaged Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) group of poverty measures to assess the incidence, depth and intensity of poverty and decompositions were made across sample Kebeles and socio-economic variables. OLS, logit and censored (Tobit) regression models were also applied to identify determining factors of household consumption expenditure, poverty incidence, depth and severity. PPA findings revealed that, perception of the community towards poverty is beyond the conventional, income/consumption based definition. Therefore, development policies and poverty reduction strategies should respond to rapid rural population growth. Moreover, Dega agro-ecological areas need particular attention all the way through poverty reduction efforts.

Today, about 783 million people live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is primarily a rural phenomenon, with 80 percent of the extreme poor living in rural areas, across greatly diverse rural landscapes. Despite great progress in poverty reduction, the standard of living of the poorest of the poor has remained almost unchanged in the past 35 years, signaling that a huge gap in policy making and programmatic approaches are leaving them behind. FAO has established a Corporate Framework on Rural Extreme Poverty to orient and bring to bear the relevant work of the Organization towards reaching Target 1.1 of the SDGs. Eliminating extreme poverty is directly linked to eliminating hunger (SDG 2), as well as other SDGs. When the extreme poor have means to a better life, they no longer suffer from hunger and can invest in a better future for their families and communities. The Framework reinforces the application of other Corporate Frameworks, particularly those related to gender equality, social protection, sustaining peace, and migration. This makes the Framework applicable to many areas of FAO’s work, accelerating efforts to eliminate extreme poverty in rural areas. The Framework identifies four key areas to reach the rural extreme poor: ensuring food security and nutrition, promoting economic inclusion, fostering environmentally sustainable and resilient livelihoods and preventing and protecting the extreme poor against risks and shocks. To ensure its ability to eradicate rural extreme poverty, the Framework establishes the following five deliverables: 1. Better align the areas of FAO’s mandate into global and national actions to eradicate extreme poverty. 2. Increased capacity to reach the extreme poor by undertaking poverty analysis 3. Develop dedicated and integrated approaches for the rural extreme poor. 4. Ensure that FAO’s actions do not create poverty. 5. Account for FAO’s contribution to SDG 1, and in particular, to Target 1.1.

Poverty in rural areas, particularly in developing country has been a subject of many theories and research. This book tries to investigate the interconnections between poverty and 'vulnerability'. The 'vulnerability' indices have been generated in the local context of Padavedu Panchayat in Thiruvunnamalai district of Tamil Nadu state in South India. It further examines in depth about the livelihood strategy of the local community there through different development initiatives. Joint Forest Management (JFM) and Micro-Credit programs there are critically analyzed. In the end, different areas of further study and recommendations are made.

In most developing countries, poverty is more widespread and severe in rural than in urban areas. The author reviews some important aspects of rural poverty and draws key implications for public policy. He presents a policy framework for reducing poverty, taking into account the functional differences and overlap between the rural poor. Several policy options are delineated and explained, including stable management of the macroeconomic environment, transfer of assets, investment in and access to the physical and social infrastructure, access to credit and jobs, and provision of safety nets. Finally, some guideposts are identified for assessing strategies to reduce rural poverty.