Other approaches

Another approach that has been proposed for alleviating poverty is Fair Trade which advocates the payment of an above market price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of goods. The efficacy of this approach to poverty reduction is controversial.

Community and monetary economist Thomas H. Greco, Jr. has argued that the mainstream global economy with its debt-based currency has built-in structural incentives that create poverty through keeping money scarce. Greco points to the success of modern barter clubs and historical local currencies such as the Wörgl Experiment at revitalizing stagnant local economies, and calls for the creation of community currency as a means to reduce or eliminate poverty.

The Toronto Dollar is an example of a local currency oriented towards reducing poverty. Toronto Dollars are sold and redeemed in such a way that raise funds which are then given as grants to local charities, primarily ones oriented towards reducing poverty. Toronto Dollars also provide a means to create an incentive for welfare recipients to work: Toronto dollars can be given as gifts to welfare recipients who perform volunteer work for charitable and non-profit organizations, and these gifts do not affect welfare benefits.

Some have argued for radical economic change in the system. There are several fundamental proposals for restructuring existing economic relations, and many of their supporters argue that their ideas would reduce or even eliminate poverty entirely if they were implemented. Such proposals have been put forward by both left-wing and right-wing groups: socialism, communism, anarchism, libertarianism, binary economics and participatory economics, among others.

Inequality can be reduced by progressive tax.

In law, there has been a move to establish the absence of poverty as a human right.

The IMF and member countries have produced Poverty Reduction Strategy papers or PRSPs.

In his book The End of Poverty, prominent economist Jeffrey Sachs laid out a plan to eradicate global poverty by 2025. Following his recommendations, international organizations such as the Global Solidarity Network are working to help eradicate poverty worldwide with intervention in the areas of housing, food, education, basic health, agricultural inputs, safe drinking water, transportation and communications.

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign is an organization in the United States working to secure freedom from poverty for all by organizing the poor themselves. The Campaign believes that a human rights framework, based on the value of inherent dignity and worth of all persons, offers the best means by which to organize for a political solution to poverty.

Climate change adaptationedit

The increase in extreme weather events, linked to climate change, and resulting disasters is expected to continue. Disasters are a major cause of impoverishment and can reverse progress towards poverty reduction. A report by the world bank shows that poor persons are most prone to climate disasters.

It is predicted that by 2030, 325 million (plus) extremely poor people will be living in the 49 most hazard prone countries. Most of these are located in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

A researcher at a leading global think-tank, the Overseas Development Institute, suggests that far more effort should be done to better coordinate and integrate poverty reduction strategies with climate change adaptation. The two issues are argued to be currently only dealt with in parallel as most poverty reduction strategy papers ignore climate change adaptation altogether, while National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) likewise do not deal directly with poverty reduction. Adaptation-poverty linkages were found to be strongest in NAPAs from sub-Saharan Africa LDCs.

Bicyclesedit

Experiments done in Africa (Uganda and Tanzania) and Sri Lanka on hundreds of households have shown that a bicycle can increase the income of a poor family by as much as 35%. Transport, if analyzed for the cost-benefit analysis for rural poverty alleviation, has given one of the best returns in this regard. For example, road investments in India were a staggering 3–10 times more effective than almost all other investments and subsidies in rural economy in the decade of the 1990s. What a road does at a macro level to increase transport, the bicycle supports at the micro level. The bicycle, in that sense, can be one of the best means to eradicate poverty in poor nations.

Millennium Development Goalsedit

Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition to broader approaches, the Sachs Report (for the UN Millennium Project) proposes a series of "quick wins", approaches identified by development experts which would cost relatively little but could have a major constructive effect on world poverty. The quick wins are:

• Access to information on sexual and reproductive health.
• Action against domestic violence.
• Appointing government scientific advisors in every country.
• Deworming school children in affected areas.
• Drugs for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
• Eliminating school fees.
• Ending user fees for basic health care in developing countries.
• Free school meals for schoolchildren.
• Legislation for women's rights, including rights to property.
• Planting trees.
• Providing soil nutrients to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Providing mosquito nets.
• Access to electricity, water and sanitation.
• Supporting breast-feeding.
• Training programs for community health in rural areas.
• Upgrading slums, and providing land for public housing.

Sustainable Development Goalsedit

The first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for an end to poverty by 2030 and seeks to ensure social protection for the poor and supporting people affected by climate-related extreme events. As the decade that began in 2002, the percentage of the world's population living under the poverty line reduced by half, from 26 per cent to 13 per cent. If the growth rate during those 10 years had prevailed over the next 15 years,clarification needed it would be possible to decrease the rate of extreme poverty in the world to 4 per cent by 2030, assuming the growth will benefit all income groups of the population on an equal footing. However, if the growth rate was over a longer period of 20 years, the rate of prevalent global poverty is likely to be about 6 per cent. In other words, the eradication of extreme poverty will require a significant change from its historical growth rates.

Poverty targetingedit

Poverty reduction requires governments to identify and reach out to extremely poor and help them out of poverty through sustainable measures. One such approach supported by many international donors is of targeted poverty reduction programmes. There are several poverty targeting methods through which poor communities are identified and tracked for poverty reduction programmes. For instance, one common method of poverty targeting is 'means testing' that uses a certain income or expenditure threshold for an individual or the a household to be considered as poor and eligible for support.

Global initiatives to end hunger and undernutritionedit

An important part of the fight against poverty are efforts to end hunger and achieve food security. In April 2012, the Food Assistance Convention was signed, the world's first legally binding international agreement on food aid. The May 2012 Copenhagen Consensus recommended that efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition should be the first priority for politicians and private sector philanthropists looking to maximize the effectiveness of aid spending. They put this ahead of other priorities, like the fight against malaria and AIDS.

The main global policy to reduce hunger and poverty are the recently approved Sustainable Development Goals. In particular Goal 2: Zero Hunger sets globally agreed targets to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

In 2013 Caritas International started a Caritas-wide initiative aimed at ending systemic hunger by 2025. The One human family, food for all campaign focuses on awareness raising, improving the impact of Caritas programs and advocating the implementation of the right to food.

The partnership Compact2025, led by IFPRI with the involvement of UN organisations, NGOs and private foundations develops and disseminates evidence-based advice to politicians and other decision-makers aimed at ending hunger and undernutrition in the coming 10 years, by 2025.

The EndingHunger campaign is an online communication campaign aimed at raising awareness of the hunger problem. It has many worked through viral videos depicting celebrities voicing their anger about the large number of hungry people in the world.

Another initiative focused on improving the hunger situation by improving nutrition is the Scaling up Nutrition movement (SUN). Started in 2010, this movement of people from governments, civil society, the United Nations, donors, businesses and researchers publishes a yearly progress report on the changes in their 57 partner countries.

Poverty reduction in Taiwanedit

In spite of the intensive reduction strategies deployed in the previous two decades, poverty levels in several countries of the world has not been reduced. Recent research has demonstrated that the low wage levels of the needy families have risen gradually, although in some scenarios they have declined. While wage level is the main median pointer of welfare, such results suggest that past poverty reduction procedures have not been precise. Unless suitable reduction procedures are formulated and implemented in the near future, rustic poverty will probably be a real issue for quite some long time. Families are determined to be low-pay if their monthly income does not surpass the evaluated monthly minimum set by every city or region. To meet the family's essential needs (shelter, food, clothing, and education) in Taipei, one would need to have $337 every month. This sum changes relying upon the city's way of life; for instance, one would just need to have $171 every month to live in Kinmen County.

Sustained economic growth is noted as the main propelling agent for Poverty Reduction in Taiwan. While internal FDI has no noteworthy effect on the mean wage of poor people, outward FDI from Taiwan in the previous two decades appears to have adversely affected the poorest 20% of the populace. Poverty in Taiwan has nearly been eliminated, with under 1 percent of the populace considered as poor or earning the low-level pay. This implies more than 99 percent of the populace appreciates the advantages of Taiwan's economic flourishing and extraordinarily enhanced personal satisfaction. Beside lowly-paid families, the government offers support to other individuals, for example, the elderly and the incapacitated, who cannot work. During 1980 to 1999 Taiwanese government developed a program called National Health Insurance program. NHI mainly provides economically disadvantaged people with quality healthcare at an affordable price. July 1993, the government of Taiwan started giving a monthly sponsorship to elderly people. People beyond 65 years old whose normal family salary is not exactly, or equivalent to, 1.5 times the base monthly costs are fit to get a monthly sponsorship of $174. Private transfers also play an important role in Taiwan for antipoverty according to the date Taiwan provided to the Luxembourg Income Studies, the results indicates the private transfer has greater impact than public transfers in terms of proving welfare state.

In 1999, the government of Taiwan spent US$5.08 billion on social welfare projects and offered numerous sorts of assistance to people and families from low-pay sets. Notwithstanding money, assistance to get employment is given to the breadwinners in families, alongside educational guide for school-age children and well-being programs for women and children. In addition, there are additionally community associations, scholastic organizations, and private establishments arranged by government offices to help needy people. In principle, Taiwan is currently a liberal and elections based society. Hence social versatility ought to be the standard. Notably, as per an investigation of extra cash in Taiwan by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, families with the most astounding dispensable salaries number 2.6 people, while families with the least discretionary cash flow number 4.7 people. With rising costs of simple commodities and privatization of the training market, economically distraught families will end up in an undeniably hard position to educate their own children. However, this type of social welfare will significantly lower the Taiwan's revenue. Due to the slow economic development in the past years, this method will no longer close the income inequality or reduce the unemployment rate effectively in the future.

Business solutions to povertyedit

The concept of business serving the world's poorest four billion or so people has been popular since CK Prahalad introduced the idea through his book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits in 2004, among many business corporations and business schools. Kash Rangan, John Quelch, and other faculty members at the Global Poverty Project at Harvard Business School "believe that in pursuing its own self-interest in opening and expanding the BoP market, business can make a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development." According to Rangan "For business, the bulk of emerging markets worldwide is at the bottom of the pyramid so it makes good business sense – not a sense of do-gooding – to go after it.".

In their 2013 book, "The Business Solution to Poverty," Paul Polak and Mal Warwick directly addressed the criticism leveled against Prahalad's concept. They noted that big business often failed to create products that actually met the needs and desires of the customers who lived at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. Their answer was that a business that wanted to succeed in that market had to spend time talking to and understanding those customers. Polak had previously promoted this approach in his previous book, "Out of Poverty," that described the work of International Development Enterprises (iDE), which he had formed in 1982. Polak and Warwick provided practical advice: a product needed to affect at least a billion people (i.e., have universal appeal), it had to be able to be delivered to customers living where there was not a FedEx office or even a road, and it had to be "radically affordable" to attract someone who earned less than $2 a day.

Rather than encouraging multinational businesses to meet the needs of the poor, some organizations such as iDE, the World Resources Institute, and the United Nations Development Programme began to focus on working directly with helping bottom-of-the-pyramid populations become local, small-scale entrepreneurs. Since so much of this population is engaged in agriculture, these NGOs have addressed market gaps that enable small-scale (i.e., plots less than 2 hectares) farmers to increase their production and find markets for their harvests. This is done by increasing the availability of farming equipment (e.g., pumps, tillers, seeders) and better quality seed and fertilizer, as well as expanding access for training in farming best practices (e.g., crop rotation).

Creating entrepreneurs through microfinance can produce unintended outcomes: Some entrepreneurial borrowers become informal intermediaries between microfinance initiatives and poorer micro-entrepreneurs. Those who more easily qualify for microfinance split loans into smaller credit to even poorer borrowers. Informal intermediation ranges from casual intermediaries at the good or benign end of the spectrum to 'loan sharks' at the professional and sometimes criminal end of the spectrum.

Milton Friedman argues that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits only, thus, it needs to be examined whether business in BoP markets is capable of achieving the dual objective of making a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development? Erik Simanis has reported that the model has a fatal flaw. According to Erik "Despite achieving healthy penetration rates of 5% to 10% in four test markets, for instance, Procter & Gamble couldn't generate a competitive return on its Pur water-purification powder after launching the product on a large scale in 2001...DuPont ran into similar problems with a venture piloted from 2006 to 2008 in Andhra Pradesh, India, by its subsidiary Solae, a global manufacturer of soy protein ... Because the high costs of doing business among the very poor demand a high contribution per transaction, companies must embrace the reality that high margins and price points aren't just a top-of-the-pyramid phenomenon; they're also a necessity for ensuring sustainable businesses at the bottom of the pyramid." Marc Gunther states that "The bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market leader, arguably, is Unilever ... Its signature BOP product is Pureit, a countertop water-purification system sold in India, Africa and Latin America. It's saving lives, but it's not making money for shareholders." This leaves the ideal of eradicating poverty through profits or with a good business sense – not a sense of do-gooding rather questionable.

Others have noted that relying on BoP consumers to choose to purchase items that increase their incomes is naive. Poor consumers may spend their income disproportionately on events or goods and services that offer short-term benefits rather than invest in things that could change their lives in the long-term.