Understanding Rural Extreme Poverty Today: Challenges and Solutions

2. Who are the (rural) extreme poor today? • There are still 736 million extreme poor people - 10% of global population (using the $1.90 a day poverty line) • About 80% live in rural areas and 40% of live in forest and savannahs (SOFO 2018) • They live in different agro-ecological and population density contexts • They are often not ‘smallholders’ but landless, wage workers, forest dependent • Most of them engage in agriculture, but not only – they diversify due to seasonality, work conditions, income levels of agriculture • Most of them live in sub-Saharan Africa • The ‘double bottom’ • Institutional fragility and conflict trap them in poverty

3. Hunger and extreme poverty often go hand in hand, reinforcing the intergenerational transmission of poverty Extreme poverty: • is a key determinant of hunger and nutritional status (access) • is linked to minimal or inadequate access to essential health services and basic infrastructure (utilization) Hunger: • reduces labor productivity in short and long terms • affects children’s future through learning difficulties, poor health, lower productivity (the first 1000 days) • higher mobility associated with lower rates of stunting (WB, 2018) Gender: • About ¾ of underweight women and children are not in the poorest 20% of households in Africa (Brown et al., 2017) • Poor rural women in particular suffer from anemia, especially indigenous and tribal women (SOFI 2018) However, hunger and extreme poverty are two distinct phenomena: different factors affect hunger and poverty

4. What have we learned in reducing (rural) extreme poverty? Reaching the extreme poor requires broad-based interventions… • a country’s priority – from political leadership to all sectors of society: • clear policy direction and adequate means of implementation • effective and democratic institutions • incentives for multi-sectoral coordination • monitoring and evaluating progress • stimulating pro-poor economic growth and income generation opportunities – the role of equality of resources • minimum set of investments (in rural areas): infrastructure, basic services, education, health …

5. What have we learned in reducing (rural) extreme poverty? …but also dedicated effort and comprehensive approaches: • social assistance (i.e.: cash transfers and other instruments) • linking social assitance with other types of support (livelihoods interventions, microfinance, skills building, nutrition interventions…) • E.g. Cash+plusprogrammes – combining cash with asset transfers, training and extension • Integrated, complementary or overlapping • using behavioral science techniques to uncover key psychological, cultural, social, and non-material barriers to the extreme poor’s participation and inclusion • low social status, time burdens … scarcity affects decision-making and take-up

6. Meeting SDGs 1 and 2: the role of food and agriculture In developing countries, growth in agriculture has proven to be more poverty reducing than growth in other sectors, having bigger impacts on the extreme poor of LICs (Ligon and Sadoulet, 2007). Four key roles: • ensuring food security and nutrition for extreme poor people in rural areas • promoting economic inclusion • fostering environmentally sustainable livelihoods • strengthening resilience against shocks and restoring livelihoods

7. Meeting SDGs 1 and 2: the role of food and agriculture Ensuring food security and nutrition for extreme poor people in rural areas through: • the right to adequate food • nutrition-sensitive social protection, home and school gardens, school food programmes • nutritious food systems and employment enhancing food systems Promoting economic inclusion by: • recognizing the economic potential of the extreme poor – food and agriculture is (or should be) part of poverty reduction strategies • articulating agricultural policies with poverty eradication and decent work promotion strategies (non-ag) – seasonality of agricultural work • promoting double inclusion schemes (social protection and economic/productive inclusion)

8. Meeting SDGs 1 and 2: The role of food and agriculture Fostering environmentally sustainable livelihoods by: • improving governance of tenure and preservation or revitalization of natural resources • fighting climate change, land degradation, pollution, the depletion of natural resources and biodiversity loss, which are major impediments to the sustainability of livelihoods of indigenous peoples, pastoralists, forest people, and fisher folks who also tend to be the poorest and most marginalized communities in society Enhancing preparedness, strengthening resilience against shocks and restoring livelihoods: • especially of people who have been affected by conflict or climate-related shocks - famine, earthquakes and extreme weather events • by carrying out vulnerability and conflict assessments, shock responsive social protection and rehabilitation of agricultural livelihoods as part of humanitarian response

9. Discussion • lessons learned for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger • successful broad and dedicated interventions • contribution of food, agriculture and the sustainable management of natural resources • “off-farm” interventions in rural areas • the role of different sectors of society