Orden de 8 de noviembre de 2016, por la que se modifica la Orden de 14 de octubre de 2005, por la que

The Capability approach, which centres on the notions of capabilities and functioning pioneered by Sen (1976) and developed by Nussbaum (1988, 1993, 2000 and 2006), can be traced back to Aristotle, Karl Marx and Adam Smith (Grusky and Kanbur, 2006). Authors such as Sen (1992), Qizilbash (2008) and Robeyns (2005) have argued that the capability approach is basically

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understood as a changing multi-dimensional framework rather than being concerned only with well-being theory. Based on this, the capability approach is then employed in the conceptualisation of poverty, inequality, social change and quality of life.

The innovative idea of Amatyr, Sen on poverty is in line with the pluralism in the understanding of poverty. Sen (1999a:86) emphasizes that poverty should not only be seen as lowness of income, since income on its own does not necessarily capture other attributes like public goods, life expectancy, housing, non-markets goods, social participation, amongst others. Thus, he advances a conceptualisation of poverty to include not only lowness of income but also a lack of basic capabilities and functioning. In other words, poverty is to be understood as a deprivation of basic capabilities, which can either arise through ignorance, lack of financial resources, government oppression, and false consciousness (Sen, 1999a:86). In this way, he argues that poverty is to be measured in “terms of substantive freedoms one enjoys to lead the kind of life one has reason to value and also as failures of certain basic capabilities rather than of lowness of income per se” (Sen, 1999a p. 87). Sen’s argument does not exhibit a denial of the importance of low income as a cause of poverty since the absence of income can contribute to a person’s capability deprivation. For him, capability poverty and lowness in income are related, since income is a much needed means of capabilities and when enhanced, capabilities will increase the ability of a person to becoming more productive and therefore able to create opportunities for higher income. Thus, higher income, all things being equal, enhances a greater capability to function (Sen, 1999a:88).

The two concepts, ‘capabilities’ and ‘functioning’ are the main core of the theoretical work in Sen’s capability approach, and their use has been helpful in the evaluation of economic inequality and poverty. This approach is very different from the welfare economics that focuses more on the income, utilities and wealth paradigm (Sen, 1992). Functionings are the “‘beings’ and ‘doings’ of a person, whereas a person’s capability is the various combinations of functioning that a person can have” (Sen 1992 p. 34). In conceptualizing poverty within the capability approach theory, Sen (2009:231) holds that it is necessary to hold a view from which overall individual advantage can be

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assessed. This could be done based on Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism that has to do with individual pleasure or happiness, or based on the assessment of a person’s income, resources or wealth. Further still, it could be based on the capability of a person to do the things he or she has reason to value. In this way, the capability approach proposes that the quality of life of an individual or a group should be assessed and measured in terms of capabilities and functioning, rather than in terms of utility and resources alone (Sen, 2009:231). Thus, he defines the capability approach as “primarily a reflection of the freedom to achieve valuable functioning and it represents a person’s freedom to achieve well-being” (Sen, 1992 p. 49).

What the capability approach really does, according to Sen (2009), is not just to focus “on what a person actually ends up doing, but also on what a person is in fact able to do, whether or not the person chooses to make use of that opportunity” (p. 235). Therefore, the approach emphasizes the importance and significance of freedom of choice, heterogeneity and the multi-dimensional nature of the welfare of the individual (Sen, 2009). The capability approach asks whether people have the capability or ability to be happy, healthy, and well- nourished in order to acquire a good education, and participate in political activities. It also asks whether the resources needed for these capabilities (like access to clean water and medical doctors, high quality education, protection from diseases and infections, sufficient food supplies, opportunity to participate politically in the community) are available, and at the reach of the people (Sen, 2006a). In this way, the capability approach covers the entire spectrum of people’s well-being, and does not really depend on how wealthy or rich a person is but on the functioning capabilities. Hence, the well-being of a person is determined by the person’s capabilities to function, the freedom one has to carry out one’s activities and being free to be what one wants to be. These ‘beings and doings’ are what Sen referred to as achieved functionings (Sen, 1999b:19).

Sen explains that functioning “can vary from most elementary ones, such as being well nourished, being in good health, avoiding escapable morbidity and premature mortality, to quite complex and sophisticated achievements, such as being happy, having self-respect, being able to take part in the life of the

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community, and so on” (Sen,1992 p. 5). On account of this, he argues that selecting and weighing the different forms of functioning can impact on the overall assessment of the capability to achieve other forms of functioning bundles. In other words, he seems to believe that functioning constitutes the well-being of a person and therefore its evaluation must assess the constituent elements involved (Sen, 1992). From the above then, it becomes important that the analysis of poverty should be a focus on the capability to function and not on the achieved functionings.

Sen did not propose a list of capabilities and functioning, but Nussbaum (1988), another author of the capability approach, has done. This was arguably their main line of disagreement. Sen opines that the selection of capabilities should be an ‘act of reasoning’, and that there is never a single list which works out for all cases, but that a new list should be drawn up at every point in time for each case (Sen, 1999b). Despite him being sceptical about reducing human development to a single indicator, he still operationalized this by contributing to the HDI, which combines three major capabilities indicators, namely, life expectancy, average income and educational attainment. These are used to measure progress in human development (as discussed above). It is worth noting that, this has been further developed into MPI (UNDP, 20010).

This approach to conceptualising poverty has broadened the view that poverty is multi-dimensional and suggests that lowness of income should not be the only way to understand and conceptualise poverty, bearing in mind the plurality related to the concept of poverty. Understanding poverty from the view point of lowness of income is a uni-dimensional approach, which in the overall assessment may not give a comprehensive conception of poverty. It may simply be misleading and could lead to a wrong evaluation and analysis of poverty. Therefore, there is the need to include also the two core elements in the capability approach theory, ‘capabilities’ and ‘functioning’, in the conceptualisation of poverty as discussed. However, notwithstanding the many advantages of conceptualizing poverty in terms of a lack of capabilities and functioning, it has been criticized as an approach that requires a variety of data as well as lacking consensus on how to compute and measure the capability deprivation at the household level (Yusuf et al., 2009).

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There are yet others who see poverty from the view point of vulnerability, risk and insecurity which are discussed in the next section.