Reducing Poverty in Developing Countries -Some Basic Principles for Policy Designt (The Distinguishedl Lecture)

International interest in poverty and welfare in developing countries has grown visibly in the past decade – as has research on these issues.’ This growth is fueled in large part by a realization that world poverty continues to defeat the best efforts to reduce it. Over the past three decades neither direct poverty alleviation efforts nor economic growth has succeeded in stemming the rising numbers of poor in many countries. Progress has most certainly been made, but there is now a clear sense in the development community that “business as usual” is not going to better the lot of the world’s poor any time soon. This is, therefore, an opportune time to step back and review what we have learned from past attempts to reduce poverty. The following sections take a pragmatic, policy-oriented look at efforts to reduce poverty and improve the living conditions of the poor. The focus is on extracting practical lessons from experiences of both developed and developing countries. The paper’s basic message is that policy-makers and researchers concerned with poverty programmes would do well to pay attention to what already is known: