Although ‗poverty‘ has been identified as one of the greatest ‗enemies‘ of humankind since time immemorial, attempts to combat and prevent it in the past years have been facing growing challenges regarding its definition and content.
Gordon (2002:12) posits that despite the fact that the term ‗poverty‘ is a widely used concept, its definition is highly contested. What this implies is that the term, ‗poverty‘, cannot be considered from a single viewpoint. The outcome is a cluster of different overlapping senses depending on the subject area or discourse within which it is being examined. The term means different things to different people. For example, while some people may define their state of poverty as lack of income resulting in their inability to acquire certain essential amenities or assets to lead a dignified life, others may link theirs to lack of basic services such as educational training for gainful employment. Consequently, locating or defining poverty for policy intervention has become problematic over the years. Therefore, the question as to what constitutes ‗poverty‘ and who is
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‗poor‘, and according to whom they are poor is still an on-going debate involving scholars from different disciplines, governments, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations, as well as human rights activists.
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary for Students (2006: 797) defines
‗poverty‘ as ―the state of being extremely poor‖, and defines the term ‗poor‘ as
―not having enough money to live at a comfortable or normal standard‖ (p.790).
To Rakodi (2002), poverty is a state of affairs, where individuals or households are poor as a result of insufficient goods and services to enable them to achieve a minimal status of well-being. Defining a household as being poor in terms of consumption has, however, been challenged on the ground that it may not necessarily capture all deprived households and individuals (Rakodi, 2005). In this context, Kabeer (1994) relates poverty to the deprivation of basic human needs: that is, basic necessities such as food, shelter and good health.
The World Development Report (World Bank, 2000/1) holds this view, and identifies poverty as a multidimensional and complex phenomenon. As a result, it argues further that the causes of poverty and its solution are not general, but specific to individual countries. The report, however, limits the definition of poverty on income or consumption, by stating that a person is considered poor if his or her consumption level falls below the set poverty line, which is currently 1.25 and 2.50 US dollars per day. The World Bank‘s definition of poverty, which is based on neoliberal monetary approach to poverty reduction, views poverty as a natural phenomenon, which is linked to the inherent low productivity of the poor. Using or measuring poverty on the basis of statistical or economic growth, by rejecting interventional policies aiming to deal directly with poverty fails to take into account other aspects of poverty such as social, cultural and political ones.
26 Poverty is not limited to deprivation of economic and material resources but also depicts a gross violation of human dignity. This falls in line with Armartya Sen‘s
‗capability approach‘ by which he refers to poverty as the deprivation of basic capabilities rather than merely due to income (Sen, 2004; 1999). Sen‘s capability approach which is rooted in Social Welfare Theory thus rejects the measuring of well-being in terms of monetary income and focuses on indicators of the freedom to live a valued life (Sen, 1993). Both the monetary and capability approach to poverty have, however, been criticized based on their inability to take into account the views of the poor themselves, hence Chambers‘(1995) approach of looking at poverty which is referred to as ‗participatory approach‘.
The participatory approach takes into account the views of the poor themselves, and as a consequence captures the complexities and underlying dynamics of poverty. The cardinal position of this approach is to help in determining the magnitude of poverty by allowing the poor themselves to decide what it means to be poor. The belief is that, through this approach, poverty can be captured in diverse ways for its effective improvement in content, and in the process of its reduction (Brock and McGee, 2002: 25). This approach was embraced by the World Bank in its poverty assessments on the basis that ―poverty assessment works better when it draws on the resources of a range of stakeholders‖ (Both et al. 1998 quoted in Truong, 2005:17). However, the participatory approach has been regarded by scholars such as Cornwall as a ―mere technical fix that leaves inequitable global and local relations of power, and with it the root causes of poverty, unchallenged‖ (Cornwall, 2000: 1). The argument here is that, such a situation is likely to render the poor voiceless and powerless within political and bureaucratic structures, resulting in less possibility of receiving their entitlement.
In this way, poverty with regard to access and power could reduce the poor people‘s access to basic infrastructure and services.
27 The social exclusion approach, another perspective through which poverty is defined, appeared first in France. According to the European Foundation, social exclusion involves ―the processes through which individuals or groups are wholly or partially excluded from participation in the society in which they live‖
(Allen and Thomas, 2003: 3). The approach thus emphasises on relations between individuals, and is used to explain the marginalisation of social groups, deprivation and poverty. From its perspective, poverty is a social construct which is based on sex, disability, ethnicity and religion, and has little to do with the fulfilment of the individual‘s minimum needs. Thus, from the perspective of social exclusion approach, the inability of social groups to participate in society is regarded as both the effect and cause of poverty (Dini and Lippit, 2009: 9). In this way, social exclusion could lead to the disablement or disempowerment of individuals and groups. The Chronic Poverty Research Centre [CPRC] (2004) thus points out that exclusion from social, political and economic institutions is part of a vicious circle in which exclusion leads to lower capabilities, and reduces the prospects of people to escape poverty as a result of their inability to assert their rights. De Haan (2000) contends that the process of social inclusion and exclusion has become the main focus of development studies, and as such linked the notion of social exclusion to the concept of sustainable livelihood.
The UN defines absolute poverty as ―[...] a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information[...] it depends not only on income but also on access to services‖ (Townsend and Gordon, 2002: 59). Thus, to Townsend and Gordon, overall poverty takes various forms such as:
[...]lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihood; hunger and malnutrition; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterised by lack
28 of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life. It occurs in all countries: as mass poverty in many developing countries, pockets of poverty amid wealth in developed countries, loss of livelihood as a result of disaster or conflict, the poverty of low-wage workers, and the utter distribution of people who fall outside family support systems, social institutions and safety nets (Townsend and Gordon, 2002: 59).
The definition of poverty in relation to material deprivation has been recognised by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UNCESCR). The committee goes further by defining poverty within the context of the human rights approach as: ― a human condition characterised by sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights‖ (UNCESCR para 8).
Drawing on Sen and UNCESCR‘s definitions, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its Principles and Guidelines for a Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies made clearer the meaning of poverty from the human rights perspective as follows:
From a human rights perspective, poverty can be described as the denial of a people‘s rights to a range of basic capabilities – such as the capability to be adequately nourished, to live in good health, and to take part in decision-making processes and in the social and cultural life of the community. In the language of rights, one may say that a person living in poverty is one for whom a number of human rights remain unfulfilled – such as the rights to food, health, political participation and so on.
From the foregoing definitions and approaches it is clear that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon. This implies that, for individuals, groups and communities to overcome their impoverishment, they need real freedom or capability. Hence, the human rights and capability approaches to poverty are all
29 similar with regard to this point, and understand poverty as a symptom of deep-rooted inequalities and unequal power relations or a state of powerlessness.
It is worth mentioning at this point that, in the context of this study, the terms
‗poor and poverty‘ are not limited to lack of resource or income only, but also reflect on what Nussbaum (2000) and Sen (1993; 1999) referred to as the deprivation of capabilities. Thus, the fundamental deprivation or denial of capabilities, lack of access to power, opportunity, choices, and influence are considered to be vital for a meaningful existence of individuals or groups which they have reason to value. They need these capabilities to take control over their social, economic and political development. Given that rights violations underpin poverty, interventions should focus on the empowerment of the poor or the marginalised to enable them to reclaim power and to challenge the dominant political authorities and the social system that perpetuate their impoverishment.