Mojtaba Amiri, Mostafa Nejati Ajibisheh, Role of empowerment and youth involvement in poverty eradication / Annals of ROLE OF EMPOWERMENT AND YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN POVERTY ERADICATION MOJTABA AMIRI, MOSTAFA NEJATI AJIBISHEH Millennium Development Goals aim to reduce poverty and improve health and wellbeing within a fixed timeframe. However, statistics show that although half of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals period has passed, still some of its targets are not making a reasonable progress. For example, although the number of extremely poor people in sub-saharan Africa has levelled off, and the poverty rate has declined by nearly six percentage points since 2000, the region is not on track to reach the Goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015. This paper will investigate the challenging problem of poverty, and discuss the role of public empowerment, especially youth participation in the process of poverty alleviation. Besides, a model for poverty eradication through empowerment will be introduced and reviewed. Keywords: Poverty eradication, Public empowerment, Youth participation. Introduction Poverty is one of the most challenging and lasting problems of the world. Investigating the transition into and out of poverty necessarily begins with the question: How is poverty to be defined? In official circles, the view that has prevailed from the start is that poverty is an absolute concept. Accordingly, the official US poverty standard always has been an absolute standard in which poverty is defined in terms of the income required to purchase the goods and services needed to maintain a minimal standard of living (O Boyle, 1998). Poverty can also be broadly defined as a system of exclusion from society and from its social and productive systems (Mwenda and Muuka, 2004). In other words, it is the inability to attain a minimal standard of living, refers to forms of economic, social and psychological deprivation occurring among people lacking sufficient ownership,control over or access to resources to access to resources to Assistant Professor, School of Management, University of Tehran, Iran. Master student of Urban Affairs Management, School of Management, University of Tehran, Iran.
maintain or provide individual or collective minimum levels of living (Ullah and Routray, 2007). However, the concept of poverty is divergent in terms of its dynamics, intricacies, and definitions, and varied indicators are required to deal effectively with different dimensions of poverty (Hye, 1996). Although it is believed that being poor is morally, socially and physically painful, while being rich is pleasing in all these respects, and therefore individuals cannot suffer poverty voluntarily (Elahi and Danopoulos, 2004), some individual explanations of poverty see poverty as the consequence of individual characteristics and failings (Burton, 1992; Rank, 1994). Millennium Development Goals In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to a set of time bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. Placed at the heart of the global agenda, they are now called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Summit s Millennium Declaration also outlined a wide range of commitments in human rights, good governance and democracy. These Goals aim to reduce poverty and improve health and wellbeing within a fixed timeframe (Curtis, 2006). The MDGs provide a framework for the entire UN system to work coherently together towards a common end. Millennium Development Goals are as it follows: 1) Halve extreme poverty and hunger; 2) Achieve universal primary education; 3) Empower women and promote equality between women and men; 4) Reduce under-five mortality by two thirds; 5) Reduce maternal mortality by three quarters; 6) Reverse the spread of diseases, especially HIV/Aids and malaria; 7) Ensure environmental sustainability; 8) Create a global partnership for development, with targets for aid, trade and debt relief. 164
Poverty still a problem: The world is making progress toward the MDGs but it is uneven and too slow. Now, in the beginning of the third millennium, more than 800 million people, which are 19 percent of the developing world's population, live in absolute poverty, with an income of less than one dollar a day (United Nations, 2007). A large majority of nations will reach the MDGs only if they get substantial support advocacy, expertise and resources from outside, and if they can gain proactive participation of their people. Undoubtedly, the way people live in 2015, when the due date for the Millennium Development Goals arrives, greatly depends on how responsible and accountable they feel toward others and their own fate. However, there is a strong necessity for empowering the public in order to involve them in the development plans and poverty eradication programs. Empowerment Empowerment means having the right and opportunity to select from among various options. That is, people can decide how to live. Empowering people depends on the equal access to cultural, economical, and political opportunities. Equal accessibility to information and knowledge sources, has a key role in developing and maintaining those equal situations which can create money, power, and knowledge, and increase human capability (Pourezzat, et al., 2007). Based on HDR report (HDR, 1996), while 900 million people in developing countries were income poor, 1.6 billion were capability poor. So, there is a need to empower citizens in order to make poverty eradication activities more effective. Actually many of the policy implications have been that solution to poverty is about changing the poor to be different and better in some ways (Hong and Pandey, 2007, pp. 19). Even in the Millennium Development Goals, there has been a special consideration on the necessity of Empowerment (Satterthwaite, p. 8). As Fig. 1 shows, any plan to tackle poverty is only effective when it considers the necessity to empower people and enable them to develop their skills, create and improve opportunities, and have a higher life expectancy (Pourezzat, et al., 2007). 165
Empowerment / Developing Equality in Wealth & Income Proactive Participation in: Information & Knowledge Poverty Eradication Cultural Arena Political Arena Power Economical Arena Fig. 1. Poverty eradication through empowerment and ensuring social equality It seems that there should be a great focus on the involvement of youth in the poverty eradication plans, because as the future makers, youth can have an important role in the achievement of development and poverty alleviation programs. Youth Involvement Youth can play a very important role in any development programs. They are indeed invaluable resources to any nation, because their fresh motivation, capabilities, and innovativeness can act as a catalyst for achieving excellence goals. Youth are the social and human capital and therefore keeping and developing this invaluable resource is a main duty of the government (National Youth Organization, 2007). Conclusions Poverty is a challenging social problem which has lasted for numerous years and has affected human life. It seems that there should be a great focus on 166
public empowerment in order to realize poverty alleviation plans. In this regard, considering the young generation and their important role as a catalyst in development can be very helpful to the success of poverty eradication strategies; because, youth will shape future. In this article, poverty problem has been discussed, and world Millennium Development Goals and its achievement trend have been studied. Besides, a model for poverty eradication through empowerment has been introduced and reviewed. REFERENCES BURTON, E. (1992), The Poverty Debate: Politics and the Poor in America, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. CURTIS, D. (2006), Mind Sets and Methods: Poverty Strategies and the Awkward Potential of the Enabling State, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 150-164. ELAHI, K. Q. (2004), Microcredit and the Third World Perspectives from Moral and Political Philosophy, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 31, No. 7, pp. 645. H. D. R. (1996), Capability Poverty Measure (CPM), http://www.womenaid.org/press/ info/poverty/cpm.html, (last access: February 20, 2008). HONG, Y. P. and PANDEY, S. (2007), Human Capital as Structural Vulnerability of US Poverty, Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 19, 23, 27. HYE, H. A. (1996), Below the Line: Rural Poverty in Bangladesh, Chapter IV, University Press Limited, Dhaka, p. 112. MWENDA, K. K., MUUKA, G. N. (2004), Towards Best Practices for Micro Finance Institutional Engagement in African Rural Areas; Selected Cases and Agenda for Action, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 31, No. 1/2, pp. 143-158. O BOYLE, E. J. (1998), Transitions Into and Out of Poverty, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 25, No. 9, pp. 1411-1424. POUREZZAT, A. S., NEJATI, MO., NEJATI, ME. (2007), E-Government & Public Policy for Poverty Eradication and Empowerment, Proceedings of the 5 th International Conference on E-governance (ICEG 2007), India. RANK, M. R. (1994), Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America, Columbia University Press, New York, NY. SATTERTHWAITE, D., The Millennium Development Goals and Local Processes: Hitting the Target or Missing the Point?, International Institute for Environment and Development, p. 8. *** Special Document for Organizing Youth Affairs, National Youth Organization, Iranian Youth Main Assembly (2007). ULLAH, A., ROUTRAY, J. K. (2007), Rural Poverty Alleviation Through NGO Interventions in Bangladesh: How Far is the Achievement?, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 34, No. 4, p. 237. *** The Millennium Development Goals Report, United Nations, New York (2007). 167