Poverty Reduction

This course is available on-campus & online. All students participate in interactive, real-time classes. 2025 dates: Feb 17, 24; Mar 3, 17 & 24 Poverty remains one of the most significant policy challenges facing the world today. In countries across the global South and the global North there is a need for urgency in addressing poverty, reflected in the first of the Sustainable Development Goals. While there was progress in addressing extreme poverty in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the global coronavirus pandemic has resulted in that trend being reversed, with tens of millions – perhaps billions – of people being plunged into poverty. Poverty constrains, and sometimes destroys, the lives of individuals. It is a denial of basic human rights and undermines the development of human capital and the progress of well-being. Yet even the definition of poverty is contested and ways of measuring and addressing it are intensely debated. This course will equip students to understand those debates. It will examine the policies and programs that have achieved success and those that have missed the mark. It will cover:- - Conceptualisations and definitions of poverty. - Debates around poverty measurement and various approaches. - Intersections of gender, age, disability, location, ethnicity and poverty. - The relationship between inequality, marginalisation, and poverty. - The ongoing implications of colonisation and global maldistribution. - Policy and programs to reduce poverty. - The evolution of global thinking around poverty reduction, including the Sustainable Development Goals and SDG1.