Publication

This paper acknowledges a lack of definition of 'poverty reduction' in developing countries despite a healthy debate on how to achieve it. According to the author, poverty reduction is often used as a short-hand for promoting economic growth that will permanently lift as many people as possible over a poverty line. But there are many different objectives, he argues, that are consistent with poverty reduction, and we have to make choices between them. The paper examines trade-offs between tackling current and future poverty, between helping as many poor people as possible and focusing on those in chronic poverty, and between measures that tackle the causes of poverty and those which deal with the symptoms.