How politics ticks . : debating politics and poverty

In: 1874-2033 ; The Broker, 13-15. (2007)

Abstract

In 2007, the Effectiveness and Quality Department (DEK) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a collection of essays on aid effectiveness. The contributors agree that pro-poor policies affect the interests of many groups, not only the poor, and are essentially political. By failing to address the root causes of poverty, the technocratic approaches of many donors are unlikely to succeed. The crux of the matter may be the grave misconception that no one loses from pro-poor policies. The challenge is to translate the academic insights and the knowledge gained through decades of development practice into a framework that does not limit itself to only one aspect, but that takes into account the politics of poverty as they are manifest at the individual, societal, national and global levels.