CPRC - Chronic Poverty Reports Area

Chronic Poverty Report 2004-05

The Chronic Poverty Report 2004-05 is about people living in chronic poverty - people who remain poor for much or all of their lives, many of whom will pass on their poverty to their children and all too often die easily preventable deaths.

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 still in poverty in 2015 even if the Millennium Development Goals are met.

The reports argues that while many policies that are potentially beneficial for the poor and for the chronically poor, people living in chronic poverty are not 'just like the poor but a little bit further down the poverty spectrum'.

Opportunity is not enough for chronically poor people to escape poverty. They need targeted support, social assistance and social protection, and political action that confronts exclusion.

Overcoming chronic poverty needs a framework that prioritises livelihood security for all, puts more chronically poor people in a position where they can take up opportunities, takes empowerment seriously and recognises obligations to provide resources. Chronic poverty cannot be seriously reduced without real transfers of resources and sustained, predictable finance.

The report examines what chronic poverty is and why it matters, who the chronically are, where they live, what causes poverty to be persistent and what should be done about it. A section of regional perspectives looks at the experience of chronic poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, transitional countries and China. A statistical appendix brings together data on global trends on chronic poverty.