Many organisations work to address poverty issues, but what distinguishes CPRC is its focus on persistent or chronic poverty.
The distinguishing feature of chronic poverty is its extended duration
Chronically poor people are those who experience deprivation over many years, often over their entire lives, and who sometimes pass poverty on to their children. Many of the chronically poor die prematurely from health problems that are easily preventable. Such poverty is hard to reverse. An effective response to chronic poverty requires a better understanding of what it means to be chronically poor, and better analysis of the characteristics and underlying social processes that result in sustained and intractable poverty.
Chronically poor people experience deprivation at multiple levels
Chronic poverty is typically characterized not only by low income and assets, but also by hunger and undernutrition, illiteracy, the lack of access to basic necessities such as safe drinking water and health services, and social isolation and exploitation.
The chronically poor are not a distinct group but are typically those experiencing discrimination, stigmatization or “invisibility”, including socially marginalized ethnic, religious, indigenous, nomadic and caste groups; migrants and bonded labourers; refugees and internally displaced persons; and people with disabilities and certain illnesses such as HIV/AIDS. In many contexts, poor women and girls, children, and older people (especially widows) are more likely to be trapped in poverty.
Chronic poverty exists in all regions, and chronically poor people live in many different situations. If and when they have work, it is insecure, casual and at extremely low rates of pay. Many live in remote rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones, suffer from chronic ill health or impairments.
Chronically poor people have little access to productive assets and low capabilities in terms of health, education and social capital. They are the invisible poor, and occupy a blind spot when it comes to the design of development policy and the delivery of public services.
Why does chronic poverty matter?
People in chronic poverty are those who have benefited least from economic growth and development. They, and their children, will make up the majority of the 900 million people who will still be in poverty in 2015, even if the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are met.
The imperative to confront and eradicate chronic poverty is a moral one. International obligations to eradicate poverty cannot be selectively applied, with chronically poor people excluded on the basis that they are too hard to reach. Addressing chronic poverty is integral to the Millennium Development Goals and poverty eradication. Persistent impoverishment is not only a symptom of past deprivation, it is also the cause of future destitution. There is increasing evidence that growth and the prospects for long-term poverty reduction are held back by inequality and by the low returns that the poorest people get on their labour. At the most basic level, people cannot be productive unless their food intake is enough to ensure that they can work.
Reaching the chronically poor is not simply a matter of implementing current policies more fully. Chronic poverty research suggests that millions of people will remain in poverty without policies that specifically address their situation with substantial and well targeted assistance. Understanding the manifestations, attributes and social dynamics of chronic poverty is essential in developing such effective public interventions.