Chronic Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia: A select annotated bibliography with special reference to remote rural areas, CPRC Working Paper No. 1
Abstract
This bibliography is the first of a series of background papers from the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC). It has a specific focus on chronic poverty in remote rural areas, one of several cross-cutting research themes to be pursued by the CPRC. The bibliography is primarily intended as a working document for the partners working within the Centre, although it will hopefully be of use to researchers of poverty and development more widely.
In its broadest sense, the term 'chronic poverty' refers to a sub-group of the poor who experience poverty over a lengthy time period, and at a particular depth. At the policy level there is a perceived need to distinguish between the chronically and transitorily poor, in order to ensure that the targeting and sequencing of poverty alleviation measures are appropriate to the specific type of poverty involved. The Centre's specific focus on chronic poverty is driven by growing concerns that current development strategies and patterns of growth have failed to alleviate the hard-core poverty experienced by certain categories of poor people.
Remote rural areas - such as semi-arid, coastal, deep forests, borders and mountainous areas - are a particular focus as they are likely to experience poverty along several dimensions, including low incomes, low rates of literacy, and political marginality. They are likely to have underdeveloped and highly imperfect markets, limited non-farm livelihood opportunities, poor social and physical infrastructure, and weak social and political institutions. Some of these areas will be particularly vulnerable to 'risk', particularly environmental shocks such as drought or flooding.
Citation
Chronic Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africaand South Asia: A select annotated bibliography with special reference to remote rural areas, CPRC Working Paper No. 1, Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), Manchester, UK, ISBN 1-904049-00-1, 66 pp.
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