February 23, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Reducing Poverty, Building Peace
by Coralie Bryant and Christina Kappaz
Government agencies and nonprofit organizations that fight poverty should take into account how war, ineffective welfare policies, and insufficient spending on antipoverty programs hurt the poor far more than natural disasters do, write Coralie Bryant, director of the economic and political development program at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs, in New York, and Christina Kappaz, an economic-development consultant in Chicago.
Because domestic and foreign policies influence the fate of the poor,advocacy groups must push for policy changes that can make a difference in their lives, the authors say.
The first half of the book seeks to show that poor people in the developing world share much in common with needy people in more-developed countries. That is largely because bad economic times in one country affect other countries, so poverty rates can often rise in many places at once, they say.
Such interconnected economies are a modern development, and to this end, some nonprofit organizations, such as the British chapters of Save the Children and Oxfam, have started to integrate their domestic and international programs. But more organizational change is needed, even if making such changes takes a lot of work, the authors write.
In the second part of the book, the authors present theories on which policies, programs, and projects have been most effective and hold the most promise for social change in the future. Their main hypothesis is that poverty creates an environment that encourages violence and war, which in turn leads to more people in poverty.
“Working in the social and political space available, and with whatever opportunities are at hand, grass-roots projects can often still make a difference,” they write. “Moreover, over time, they help to build awareness of what might be done and influence policy change.”
Publisher: Kumarian Press, 1294 Blue Hills Avenue, Bloomfield, Conn. 06002; (860) 243-2098; fax (860) 243-2867; kpbooks@kpbooks.com; http://www.kpbooks.com; 216 pages; $24.95; ISBN 1-56549-205-6.
