Suchergebnisse

"Multidimensionale Ansätze zur Armutsmessung gewinnen gegenüber einkommensbasierten an Bedeutung. Mit einer neuen Methode lassen sich Ungleichheit und Wechselwirkungen zwischen verschiedenen Dimensionen von Armut erfassen." (Autorenreferat)

"Armutsbekämpfung wird auch nach dem Auslaufen der Millenniumsentwicklungsziele (MDGs) Schwerpunkt der internationalen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit bleiben. Zunehmend stellt sich dabei allerdings die Frage, wie Armut definiert und gemessen werden soll. Während die MDGs Armut noch ausschließlich anhand der 1,25-US-Dollar-Armutsgrenze der Weltbank definieren und messen, werden in der Debatte für die zukünftige Post-2015-Entwicklungsagenda zunehmend multidimensionale Armutsansätze ins Spiel gebracht." (Textauszug, IAB-Doku)

On 25 September 2013, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in New York for a Special Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The purpose of the event was: first, to review the progress made so far towards the achievement of the MDGs and, second, to chart the way for a development agenda after 2015, the target year of the current MDGs. What sounded like a very ambitious and visionary assignment resulted in a very shallow outcome document of merely three pages. This might come as a surprise, particularly against the background of the complex processes that were set in motion in preparation of the event. Yet, it is the very complexity of the processes that explains the shallowness of the document. The MDGs were developed by an expert group from the OECD, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Development Programme with the initial objective of monitoring the implementation of the commitments made in the Millennium Declaration – but ultimately captured only a fraction of them. Thus, from the very beginning, the MDGs were criticized as being a mere donor agenda and for not meeting the much broader vision of the Millennium Declaration – and even less so the sustainability paradigm as established in the Rio Declaration of 1992. In June 2012, Member States gathered at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro – twenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The conference adopted the resolution "The Future We Want" that generated the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is a clear response to the failures of the MDGs: initiated by developing countries – in particular Guatemala and Colombia – and with a focus on sustainability as anchored in the principles of the Earth Summit. In the follow-up, an intergovernmental process was set in motion that is to result in a concrete proposal for SDGs in 2014. At least since then, the parallel nature of the two processes – the consultations on a successor document to the MDGs, and the development of SDGs – has become obvious. The very real risk of two – in the worst case incompatible – agendas for the period post-2015 created a tension that accompanied all preparations for the event on 25 September 2013. The six work streams that were initiated by Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon and his Special Adviser on Post-2015 Development Planning, Amina Mohammed, all worked under the effect of this tension: the UN Task Team, the UN Global Compact, the High-Level Panel of eminent persons, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the UN Development Group. They delivered the input for the report of the Secretary-General that was to provide the platform for the discussions at the Special Event and summarized the recommendations of the work streams. But the Member States that were to discuss the document faced the dilemma that any concrete proposal for a post- 2015 agenda from their side would risk separating the two processes irrevocably. Their response was the production of a kind of "stand-by" document, the only purpose of which was to leave the door open for the linking up of the negotiations of the two processes at some point in the future.

The official measure to analyse poverty in Germany is the at-risk-of-poverty rate, defined as 60 per cent of the median net equivalence income. The severe methodological weaknesses of this rate seem to be the main source for the uncertainty that the issue of poverty in Germany generates in the minds of both the government and the public. Especially since it smacks of envy as a person needs more when others have more. The unacceptance of the rate is additionally fuelled by the high figures it produces. This paper uses the rich data source of the German Socio-Economic Panel in order to propose a new multidimensional poverty index for Germany that is based on the capability approach. It also introduces a multidimensional happiness index, a concept that is enjoying increasing popularity. All three indices are compared across dimensions, regions and over time, and the results seem to indicate one thing above all: the high added value that is created though the new German Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index (GCSPI).

Kernidee des pro-poor-growth-Konzepts ist es, wirtschaftliches Wachstum als Maßnahme zur Armutsbekämpfung einzusetzen. Doch inwiefern sind dieses entwicklungspolitische Konzept und seine Instrumente auf Deutschland übertragbar? (APUZ)

"Kernidee des pro-poor-growth-Konzepts ist es, wirtschaftliches Wachstum als Maßnahme zur Armutsbekämpfung einzusetzen. Doch inwiefern sind dieses entwicklungspolitische Konzept und seine Instrumente auf Deutschland übertragbar?" (Autorenreferat)

Ab den 1980er Jahren entwickelte Amartya Sen eine neue Wohlfahrtstheorie: den Capability Approach (Sen, 1979; 1985; 1992; 1999; 2009). Dabei ersetzen Capabilities und Functionings, d.h. das, was Personen tatsächlich in der Lage sind zu tun und zu sein, den traditionellen Einkommensansatz. Armut ist im Capability Approach das Unvermögen, ein bestimmtes Minimum an zentralen Capabilities zu erreichen, die benötigt werden, um das Leben nach den eigenen Vorstellungen zu gestalten. Der Capability Approach hat so viele interessante Eigenschaften, besonders in Bezug auf die Armutsmessung, dass er z...

On 26 September, the United Nations will adopt the '2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development', which includes 17 'Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs). These Goals will replace the Millennium Development Goals and are meant to make international development transformative and sustainable. This ambition is reflected in their thematic scope which covers fundamental aspects of the social, the economic and the environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In addition, the SDGs are truly universal in nature, i.e. they constitute a challenge for all countries, including the most developed ones. Implementation of the 2030 Agenda will thus involve domestic policymakers as well as international cooperation and go beyond development policy. The list of indicators that is needed for making the goals and targets operational is expected for March 2016. Indicators will be fundamental for implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation. Therefore, a group of experts from the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) have prepared detailed comments on all goals and the indicators that are currently under discussion. The result is an update of a draft version circulated earlier this year. The comments show how difficult it is to identify adequate indicators for all the goals in the new agenda. Some of them can be measured more easily while others are rather qualitative in nature so that it is difficult to measure progress in quantitative terms. In addition, some of the indicators under discussion are very complex with the effect that there is a risk that only experts are able to understand and remember them. Also, some goals lack specifications or a dead-line for achievement, or they are not yet measurable with the available data. And finally, some indicators cover just a small segment of what the respective goal is meant to achieve. With this review, we aim at providing an input for the debate on indicators and for the process of designing national strategies to implement the 2030 Agenda. The monitoring and review processes at the global, regional and national levels will be fundamental for measuring progress, and for adjusting policies. The introduction of the volume summarizes the achievements made by the adoption of a new agenda for sustainable development. It shows the advantages of the SDGs in comparison with the MDGs. The chapter after the introduction focusses on how the UN system can contribute to implementation, monitoring and review of the 2030 Agenda, and reflects on the possible shape of an accountability framework. The core of the discussion paper are chapters that review every SDG, its subordinate targets and its proposed indicators.

Die globale Armut sieht heute nicht mehr so aus wie vor 20 Jahren. In vielen Entwicklungsländern ist das durchschnittliche Pro-Kopf-Einkommen in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten gestiegen; 18 überschritten dadurch sogar die viel beachtete – wenn auch willkürlich gesetzte – Grenze zwischen Ländern mit niedrigem Einkommen ( low income countries – LICs) und Ländern mit mittlerem Einkommen ( middle income countries – MICs). Das sorgte für Aufsehen, insbesondere da sich unter den "Aufsteigern" die bevölkerungsreichsten Länder der Welt befinden, so dass plötzlich 72 % der extrem Einkommensarmen weltweit (gemessen an der Armutsgrenze von 1,25 US$ in Kaufkraftparitäten [KKP] pro Tag) in MICs leben. Die Geber fragen sich zunehmend, ob Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ) zukünftig auf die übrig gebliebenen LICs fokussieren oder lieber neue Strategien entwickeln sollte, um MICs bei der Armutsbekämpfung zu unterstützen. Unabhängig davon wie die zukünftige EZ mit MICs aussieht, muss Armutsbekämpfung eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Denn trotz weltweit steigender Pro-Kopf-Einkommen ist es verfrüht, das Ende globaler Armut zu feiern Die Tatsache, dass sich einige LICs zu MICs entwickelt haben, bedeutet nicht, dass sie die Armut besiegt haben. In ihnen leben noch immer mehr als die Hälfte aller extrem einkommensarmen Menschen. Das Überschreiten einer willkürlich gesetzten Pro-Kopf-Einkommensschwelle ist kein Indiz für einen Strukturwandel. Der Anstieg der Pro-Kopf-Einkommen führte nur auf aggregierter Ebene zu einem Armutsrückgang. Auf regional disaggregierter Ebene hingegen bestehen weiterhin große Unterschiede. So haben Ost- und Südostasien beim Kampf gegen Einkommensarmut vergleichsweise viel erreicht, während Lateinamerika, Zentralasien und der Nahe Osten deutlich weniger erfolgreich waren. In Subsahara-Afrika lebten 2008 sogar mehr Menschen in extremer Armut als noch 1990. Ebenso sank die Einkommensarmut in einigen Ländern deutlich, während Nachbarstaaten nach wie vor mit stagnierenden oder gar steigenden Armutsraten kämpfen. Selbst innerhalb von Ländern schreitet die Armutsbekämpfung zum Teil sehr ungleichmäßig voran. Des Weiteren steigen die Einkommensungleichheiten fast überall auf allen Ebenen. Globale Einkommensarmut ist nicht mehr vor allem Ausdruck eines reichen Nordens und eines benachteiligten Südens, sondern eines wachsenden Einkommensgefälles innerhalb von Ländern. Ausgeprägte regionale und soziale Armutstaschen werden viele Länder in den nächsten Jahrzehnten vor große Herausforderungen stellen. Im Kampf gegen Einkommensarmut wurden mehr Erfolge erzielt als bei anderen Armutsdimensionen wie z. B. mangelnder Bildung, Gesundheitsversorgung und sozialer Sicherung. Früher war Einkommensarmut in der Regel mit anderen Formen von Armut verbunden und stellte daher einen guten Indikator auch für nicht finanzielle Armutsaspekte dar. Heute hingegen hat eine wachsende Zahl von Menschen, die nicht als einkommensarm gelten, keinen Zugang zu Bildung, Gesundheit oder ähnlich elementaren Leistungen. Folglich muss die Messung von Armut neben dem Mangel an Einkommen weitere Armutsdimensionen berücksichtigen.

Global patterns of poverty do not look like they did twenty years ago. Many developing countries have been able to raise their average per-capita income over the last two decades; 18 have even trespassed the highly noticed – though arbitrary – ceiling differentiating between 'low income' and 'middle income countries' (LICs and MICs). The latter event in particular has attracted much attention has the most populous countries are among those that 'graduated' – with the effect that 72 per cent of the extreme income-poor world-wide (defined by the 1.25 USD Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) poverty line) are now living in MICs. Donors increasingly wonder whether development co-operation should therefore focus more on the remaining LICs or rather explore new ways of assisting MICs in poverty alleviation. We argue that whatever future development co-operation with MICs may look like, poverty eradication should take a central place in it. Even if per-capita income levels are rising in most countries, it is much too early to celebrate the end of global poverty: The fact that some LICs have become MICs does not mean that they have been able to eradicate poverty. The recently graduated countries still account for more than half of the world's extreme income poor people. The simple crossing an artificial per-capita income threshold is not an indicator of structural change. Rising per capita income levels translate only on an aggregate level into a decline in the share of people in extreme poverty. Significant differences exist on a regionally disaggregated level. For instance, countries in East and Southeast Asia have achieved significant progress in income poverty reduction, while countries in Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East have been less successful. In sub-Saharan Africa poverty has even been on the rise since 1990. Likewise, while some countries in all world regions were able to reduce income poverty substantially, other countries in the same regions are still suffering from stagnating or even rising poverty rates. And even within countries, progress in poverty reduction is very uneven in many cases. While the incidence of income poverty is declining in most parts of the world, income inequality is rising almost everywhere. Global income poverty is no longer mainly the result of a rich global North and a disadvantaged global South, but increasingly due to widening gaps in income distribution within countries. A major challenge for many countries for the decades to come is thus the problem of persistent regional and social pockets of poverty. Efforts to reduce poverty were more successful with regard to income poverty than to other poverty dimensions, such as the lack of education, health, social protection, etc. In the past, a lack of income tended to go hand in hand with other forms of deprivation so that it was an acceptable proxy indicator for financial and nonfinancial dimensions of poverty. But this changed; an increasing number of people world-wide would not be considered income-poor, yet they lack access to such basic needs as education and health services. There is thus a need to measure poverty not only in terms of insufficient income but also in its multiple dimensions.