Social equity gets a boost

Poverty and social impact assessments – the latest tool in the development handbook – force a rethink of the human dimensions of economic policy

Poverty is widespread around the world in large part because of the economic, social and political rights of people are routinely violated. In fact, human rights violations can be both a cause and a consequence of poverty. People living in poverty are excluded from society, and their ability to secure their own rights is particularly limited by their predicament. Poverty can be seen as a human condition of deprivation of resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.

The struggle against poverty has evolved more and more visibly into an overarching development goal of the international community. Poverty eradication, however, is not only a development goal. It is also a central challenge for ensuring worldwide recognition and realization of human rights. The international community has acknowledged that poverty is a violation of human rights and that promoting economic, social, and political rights can reduce privation.

The right tool for the job

In order to reduce poverty, tools for policy analysis need to be used that ensure development policies and projects in fact benefit the poorest. One such powerful tool is the poverty and social impact assessment. A poverty and social impact assessment is an analysis of the distributional impact of development policies and activities on the well-being of different social groups, with a particular focus on the poor and vulnerable. Impact assessments rely on quantitative and qualitative techniques, including stakeholder surveys.

Whatever the development activity, impact assessments provide a means to measure how different social groups will be affected by it. “The key issue is not to leave social development in a silo,” explains Isabel Ortiz, Senior Interregional Adviser in DESA’s Division for Social Policy and Development, “but to mainstream social impacts in all development interventions. Ultimately, what is needed are national development strategies and international agreements, for example on trade, that benefit all members of society.”

The World Bank has conducted over 150 poverty and social impact assessments in seventy-two countries over the past five years in structural, sectoral and macroeconomic policies. Such assessments are now routinely used in such countries as Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania. The experience so far however, shows that the assessments are still viewed at the country level as a donor requirement, with limited national involvement in their preparation, and that funds to conduct them tend to be increasingly scarce. The assessments tend to be more frequently used in sectoral work and less in the analysis of macroeconomic policies, which can have deep and nation-state wide impacts on the poor.

For development interventions to truly benefit the poor, a wide range of alternate policy options need to be considered before any single one is chosen. Often, however, poverty and social impact assessments are applied to a very narrow range of policy options. Assessments conducted so far have cost in some cases several hundred thousand dollars each. There is an urgent need, therefore, to standardize methodologies for assessments and to develop low-cost, participative methods for their implementation. Poverty and social impact assessments should also be an integral part of poverty strategy preparation. Above all, the methodology for preparing assessments needs to be modified to reflect a human rights-based approach to development, with references to both international human rights norms as well as relevant national legislation.

Most importantly, both the process and the outcomes of the assessments should be the subject of debate at the national level in parliaments as well as in local forums involving stakeholders. Ideally, assessments need to lead to policy choices that enjoy broad-based support in the country. True national ownership of assessments would require that nationals have the knowledge and skills themselves to carry them out and to be significantly involved in them. This tends not to be the case at the present time. Many of these assessments have involved elite national or international NGOs rather than grassroots organizations of stakeholders. Both donor and domestic resources should be allocated to developing the human resources necessary for conducting social impact assessments. The further use of national personnel should also contribute to bringing down the costs of this instrument.

Poverty eradication as a human right

On 17 October, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, events at UN headquarters in New York and around the world will promote solidarity with people who struggle with extreme poverty every day. In recognition of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the theme for this year's observance is human rights and dignity of people living in poverty.

Under the core human rights instruments, human beings are guaranteed among others, the rights to life, liberty and security of person, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to just and favourable working conditions, the right to adequate food, housing and social security, the right to education and participation in the democratic process. Simply securing those rights for all – not only in word but in deed – would bring the world closer to poverty eradication.

The human rights-based approach to fighting poverty makes poverty reduction a legal imperative and obligation of the state, rather than mere charity, and so compels policymakers to implement strategies that allow the most vulnerable individuals and groups to escape poverty and deprivation.

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty presents an opportunity to acknowledge the effort and struggle of people living in poverty, a chance for them to make their concerns heard, and a moment to recognize that poor people are the first ones to fight against poverty. Participation of the poor themselves has been at the centre of the day's celebration since the General Assembly first announced it in 1992. The commemoration of 17 October also reflects the willingness of people living in poverty to use their knowledge and expertise to contribute to the eradication of poverty.

While providing a platform for the poor to make their voices heard, the International Day for Eradication of Poverty will also provide an occasion to recall and raise public awareness about practical tools such as the poverty and social impact assessment which can serve to realize that human rights of those living in destitute conditions. As we pass the midpoint towards the achievement of the millennium development goals in 2015, of which halving the number of people living in absolute poverty is the most important, creating a widespread culture of poverty and social impact assessment among policymakers as well as ordinary stakeholders as a participative, nationally-owned exercise is particularly urgent.

For more information: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/social/poverty/