**ACTIVITIES 1**

GROUP 1
1. How do you define “poverty”?

when a person cannot afford basic standard of living e.g. water, food, shelter.

Absolute and relative poverty exist

Absolute poverty- Not having enough money to afford the basic necessities for survival

Relative poverty- When someones income or resources are significantly lower to the rest of society that they live in.

2. According to you, what causes "poverty" at the individual level? Give explanation and/or references to support your arguments.

The cause for poverty at the inidividual level can be for multiple reasons inlcuding unemployment whixh may be due to lack of education.For instance, according to UNESCO 170 million people today would be free of poverty if they had the basic reading and writing skills.

"poverty imposes cognitive burden, present bias, and stress which then encourage poverty perpeturating behaviour such as lower educational attainment" (Gennetian & Shafir 2016)

3. According to you, what causes "poverty" at the national level? Give explanation and/or references to support your arguments.

- Inequality
- Economic instability, Low GDP
- conflict
- Lack of access to education

Lack of economic development: for example, Ravillion and chen (2007) shows that economic development and urbanisation explains China's massive decline of pervety in the recent decades

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

4. Categorise your causes of poverty into the following groups:
- Systemic/structural- demographic and labour market contexts which lead to poverty. This has a more contextual approach- how the environments surrounding an individual can lead to poverty. Indirectly, structural contexts cause problematic behaviour- leading to poverty. Economic and demographic circumstances do not act solely through behaviour. However they do still have some focus on behaviour.
-
- Institutional/governmental- power and institution which controls policies- this could lead to poverty. Those in power and who have conrol of policies lead to poverty. Power and institutions decide how to share resources. They shape poverty and moderate the behaviour poverty link.
-
- Individual/behavioural - individuals behaviours are affected by culture and incentives. This looks at the culture surrounding the individual and how it is an individuals responsibility that they are poor. Everyone has different incentives. Poverty reproducing behaviour that leads back into poverty. However, you then come into the issue as to how poverty began in the first place.

You might wish to use this article to inform your choices: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022550#_i6

GROUP 2
1. How do you define “poverty”?

Poverty is when there is a lack of basic needs such as food, healthcare, education or shelter. Basically when financial means are not able to cover essentials for the minimum standard of living.

2. According to you, what causes "poverty" at the individual level? Give explanation and/or references to support your arguments.

Poverty at the individual level can be attributed to the behavioural thoery, which involves culture and incentives (Brady, 2019).
Personal issues eg. family, substance abuse etc can create inability to be self-sufficient, therefore creating lack of funds.
Persecution based on individual attributes (gender, sexual orientation...) and the expected roles based on these - for example in some cultures women have the expectation of being domestic (raising kids, cooking etc)
Geographic situation can cause poverty - for example living in an area that is prone to natural disasters.

3. According to you, what causes "poverty" at the national level? Give explanation and/or references to support your arguments.

Lack of Government help, welfare state not updating with cost of living and increase of number that need it.
political theories.
confit meaning peolpe don't have access to employment oppertunities, local or widespread conflict.

4. Categorise your causes of poverty into the following groups:
- Systemic/structural
- Institutional/governmental
- Individual/behavioural

Individual/ behav: cultural values, expectations based on personal attributes, geographic situation, personal circumstance such as family and so on.

Structural theories emphasize the demographic and labor market context, which causes both behavior and poverty.

Political theories contend that power and institutions cause policy, which causes poverty, and moderates the relationship between behavior and poverty.

You might wish to use this article to inform your choices: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022550#_i6

GROUP 3
1. How do you define “poverty”?
Absolute poverty:
Household icome is below a necessary level to maintain basic living standards (food, shelter, housing)

Relative poverty:
Household income is a certain percentage below the median incomes.
e.g threshjold could be set at 50% of the median incomes

multidimentinal
gold standard

2. According to you, what causes "poverty" at the individual level? Give explanation and/or references to support your arguments.

Lack of educational attainment. Eg. Potentially due to geographically location (living in rural areas, iscolated from urban schools). Or not being able to afford school uniform, books etc. that are mandatory to have.

Fixed cultural norms, specifically gender specific. Eg. women growing up being taught by their mothers to cook, crochet, clean etc. - no toher outlook or desire to do anything else, they have never known anything else. Same with men, they have been taught to follow their cultural traditions maybe as 'hunter, gather'- more likely to have a job or go out searching for food etc.
There is no motive for educational attainment or to deviate from their traditions which may mean that they are stuck with a very low income. - Does not mean they aren't satisfied or content with life.
"Culture explains the counterproductive behaviour that causes poverty". "poor neighbourhoods are more culturally heterogenous, which causes porblematic adolesent male sexual, violent and educational behaviour, which presumably then causes poverty"

Single parent housholds. - Troubles in relationships can mean that there is no 'bread winner' in the family.

Individual choices; substance abuse, criminala activity. - Secondary poverty where someone is making just enough to get by and support themself. However, is then spending some on drugs etc. (coping mechanisms) to deal with their financial stress. Resulting in them not being able to afford the bare minimum.

Climate change.
Conflict.
External environment.

Ethnic groups in Vietnam excluded from national development programs. Forced to be excluded from health care, education etc. - Causing these disadvanatged and discrimminated against groups to become individuals.

How does these factors effect; indivuals, families, communities?

3. According to you, what causes "poverty" at the national level? Give explanation and/or references to support your arguments.
- level of economic development in a country
At national level, behavioral theories suggest that individual behaviors driven by incentives, political and cultural factors contribute to poverty. eg: decisions related government policies.
It can also be influenced by inequality, discrimination, instability and other economic and political factors.
Additionally, conflicts such an lack of employment opportunities lead to poverty.

4. Categorise your causes of poverty into the following groups:
- Systemic/structural - economic, social factors
- Institutional/governmental - power dynamics, conflicts, education, institutions
- Individual/behavioural -

You might wish to use this article to inform your choices: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022550#_i6
Behavioural causes of poverty are those linked to incentives and cultural trends and paterns.
Institutional/Governmental poverty relates to the idea that power and institutions can be assosciated with the policy that drives poverty and controls the relationships between other factors and poverty.
Structural poverty is strongly assosciated with markets demographics and the labor market and how each of these factors can affect poverty in both a good and bad way.

**ACTIVITIES 2**
CASE STUDY:
1. The Second Generation of Micro Credit: Grameen Bank II
**2. Unleashing the Potential of the Poor: E-Choupal (group 2)**

Choupal refers to traiditional Indian village trading economies. These communities trade commodities between themselves. E-Choupal is a new system of internet-enabled trading in these communities that provides potential for interaction with ledners, processors, and larger markets - ultimately providing potential for poverty allievation etc.

A new system of transaction between locals, lenders, processors, and government using the internet. Streamlining supply chains through minimised contact with middle-men, so that traders can easily see prices of goods and make transactions digitally.

**This worked well because of:**
1. Lowering transaction costs
2. Including private sector fudning
3. Increasing accountability and transparency to enusre good practices
4. Improved strengths of existing institutions.

However, government barriers are still there and it is possible to avoid the E-Choupal system. It is also struggling to keep up with growing demand.

**Strategies used:**
- (Increased in access to communication)Access to internet in rural India. This benefited over a million farmers.
- (Made doing business more affordable)Involved private sectors which helped with finance and management leadership. By partnering with more local organisations, this also lowered the cost of transaction cost of agricultural produce which made his business model more financially sound which led to more communication with the buyers and producers
-

**Some of the future steps for E-choupal are:**
* **Scaling up**- currently reforms are slow which means it is taking longer for this business to scale up
* **Expand goods**- orignally dealt with just soya. Increase what is traded to include things such as services.
* **More infrastructure developments**- would increase the operation and delivery capacity
* **Increase practical knowledge**- using client feedback could make E-Choupal work better
* **Expand demographic client survays**- analyse the rural communities that benefits from this service
* **Maintain innovation**- better technologies for greater development

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3. Empowering Communities: Access to Justice
group 3
1.
Bhutan HDI of 134th 0.536 and Nepal HDI rank of 136th 0.526.

Access to Justice (A2J) intitative in Indonesia emerged out of the gap between the 'law in books' and the 'law in action'.
Inadequacies within the justice system are spread across the board extending from the courts, generals office, public etc.

Many developing countries can't afford a good justice system due to the costs of legal procedures etc. and so will inevitaby be corrupt.
The costs of legal protection are prohibitive to the poor.
Rules, rulings and procedures are remotes, unaffordable, delayed or incomprehensible to ordinary people. - Denying them legal protection

Lack of trust between generals / police / judges / prosecutors and the population. They are perceived to be corrupt and only protecting interests of a narrow elite group rather than providing a public service to the greater population, especially the poor, conflict affected and other vulnerable groups.

2. The strategies applied included but were not limited to:
Improved accessibility to court processes.
Availability of adequate legal representation.
Improved access to more informal legal processes.
Wider availability of legal advice.
Public education around the legal system.

These strategies were implemented as part of a program referred to as A2J.

3.
critics of strategies

- developing countries may not have sufficient funds to run a coherent and inclusive justice system. lack of inclusivity
- may have their focus on other issues, e.g improving health care, this could have priority over justice system.
- difficult to implement due to corruption

relevance till today - having access to informal legal prossesses or legal advive. Knowing when and what kind of legal support to look for is timeless and could help individuals today. Contionous need for government efforts.

5. Combating Hunger and Malnutrition: Tamil Nadu’s Integrated Nutrition Programmes for a Malnutrition Free State

Group 1

1. Describe the situations (e.g., challenges, issues)

One of the main issues is a large percentage of over 50% of child deaths are from malnutrition % progress i. east asia declines the number of malnourished children from 24 to 10 million.

Poor nutrition and health has had signifiacant private and social costs: Investment in nutrition can reduce healthcare costs, cut down incidence of non communicable diseases, and promote educational attainment, which would improve productivity and and economic growth while contributing to social development.

2. What strategies have been applied? To what extent were they successful (if any)? What are the lessons learnt?

school mid-day scheme for 200,000 children, where it was implmented in 1956

noon meal day plan for young children who dont go to school where feeding can be orgnaised - succesful - succesful

Evalutation of central kitchens scheme- The implementation of Central Kitchens to address operational problems related to food preperation and distribution in schools.

3. Provide your critics of the strategies (e.g. areas for improvements, their relevance till today, their applicability in specific contexts)

15 mins for reading case studies, answer the following questions:
1. Describe the situations (e.g., challenges, issues)
2. What strategies have been applied? To what extent were they successful (if any)? What are the lessons learnt?
3. Provide your critics of the strategies (e.g. areas for improvements, their relevance till today, their applicability in specific contexts)