Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Source Book

Book Details

• Author: Deepa Narayan

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

• Binding: Hardcover

• Release Date: 01-03-2006

• ISBN: 8170339588

• Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches

• Languages: English

• Pages: 396

• Sale Territory: India

About the Book

"Empowerment and Poverty Reduction" explores the idea that poverty cannot be significantly reduced without tapping into the energy, skills, and motivations of the poor themselves. The book offers a detailed framework for empowerment, which emphasizes increasing poor people’s freedom of choice and their ability to shape their own lives. This approach calls for three fundamental societal changes:

1. Change in Mindset: Moving from seeing the poor as the problem to recognizing them as essential partners in poverty reduction.

2. Change in Relationships: Ensuring that poor people can actively participate in decisions that affect their lives.

3. Change in Institutions: Reforming formal and informal institutions to be more responsive to the needs of the poor.

The book draws from global experiences to provide a comprehensive framework for empowerment, identifying four key elements crucial to supporting the empowerment of poor people:

• Information

• Inclusion/Participation

• Accountability

• Local Organizational Capacity

The framework is applied across five major areas of action aimed at improving development effectiveness:

• Provision of basic services

• Improved local governance

• Improved national governance

• Pro-poor market development

• Access to justice and legal aid

Additionally, the book presents twenty “Tools and Practices” that cover various topics such as:

• Poor people’s enterprises

• Information and communication technologies

• Diagnostic tools like corruption surveys and citizen report cards

This sourcebook is an essential guide for those looking to understand the role of empowerment in poverty reduction and provides actionable tools to improve development outcomes in underprivileged communities.

Contents

• Key Elements of Empowerment: Information, Inclusion, Accountability, Local Organizational Capacity

• Areas of Action: Basic services, local and national governance, market development, justice and legal aid

• Tools and Practices: From poor people’s enterprises to citizen report cards

About the Author

Deepa Narayan is affiliated with the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management program, where she contributes to the Bank's senior leadership on issues related to empowerment and development effectiveness. Her work highlights the importance of empowering the poor to reduce poverty globally.