Looking at the World’s Most Deprived

At the turn of the millennium seven years ago, the international community made a commitment to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015. Now, at the halfway point between the millennium declaration and the deadline, it is clear the world has achieved considerable progress. However, though poverty [...]

Participant Reactions: Bernard Njonga

Bernard Njonga, Secretary General, Service d’Appui aux Initiatives
Locales de Developpement (SAILD), Cameroon
Mr. Njonga gives a brief overview of lessons learned from the last day of the conference and directions for future efforts.

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Participant Reactions: Roy Steiner

Roy Steiner, Senior Program Officer for Agricultural Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
“There really is momentum gathering around agricultural development in particular…In an area that’s really been neglected for two decades, I think the world is recognizing that agriculture is critical to poverty and there’s going to be real sustained, serious investment and thought into [...]

Participant Reactions: Tom Arnold

Tom Arnold, Chief Executive Officer, Concern Worldwide
“The ultra poor are a category that need particular policy interventions…and building on that insight and working out the policy implications of that is of crucial importance.”

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Participant Reactions: Kamal Hyat

Kamal Hyat, Chief Executive, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund
Mr. Hyat reflects on several lessons learned from the conference, stressing the importance of the “human side” (of development), reminding us that “people only respond to good initiatives.”

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Participant Reactions: John Joseph Otim

John Joseph Otim, president, Agricultural Council of Uganda
“In the context of Africa, issues are coming out very clearly that there is need to focus more closely to help Africa come out of poverty and hunger because that is where at the moment the highest level of ultra poor and medial poor populations exist. It is [...]

Participant Reactions: Yin Yin Nwe

Yin Yin Nwe, Representative, UNICEF China
Ms. Nwe discusses the challenges ahead for alleviating the suffering of children in China, even while acknowledging that China has made “remarkable progress in reducing child poverty.”

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Participant Reactions: Diana Rivington

Diana Rivington, Director, Equality between Men and Women, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Ms. Rivington uses a case study illustrating the importance of gender analysis in development work. “For successful action for the poor,” she says, “you don’t just need good intention. You really need to understand the communities in which they work…”

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Participant Reactions: Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere

Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere, Director, International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR)
Mr. Asenso-Okyere discusses the importance of innovation systems not only for sharing information with poor farmers in developing countries but also for empowering them to be able to apply this knowledge on their own farms in order to increase productivity and income.

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Participant Reactions: Vijay Kumar

Vijay Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Society for the Elimination of
Rural Poverty
Mr. Kumar discusses his impressions of the conference following the first day of presentations, citing the value of having the “large participation of all the countries of the world.”

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IFPRI Issues Call for A Way Forward

Concerned that millions of the world’s poorest and hungry people remain in poverty and hunger, we at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) facilitated a consultation process, which includes the conference “Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People” on October 17–19 in Beijing, to examine what new and different action is required [...]

Putting a Spotlight on “Invisible” Groups

Marginalized people—disabled people, women, minorities, and indigenous peoples—are among those who are most entrenched in poverty, but they often don’t show up in poverty statistics and analysis. Frances Stewart pointed out that discrimination based on group identity reduces people’s well-being (it has been associated with depression, for instance), leads to inefficiency, is highly associated with [...]

Ban Ki-Moon: “The proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day has fallen”

Message from UN Secretary-General delivered by Mr. Khalid Malik, UN Resident Coordinator in China
I am delighted to send warm greetings to all participants in this conference on “Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People”. I commend the organizers for addressing this theme as we work to step up our efforts to reach the [...]

Microfinance Programs Help Poorest of the Poor

At the parallel session, “Creating and Enhancing Assets of the Rural Poor,” Fazle Abed, founder and chairperson, BRAC, Bangladesh highlighted his 30 years of experience with microfinance programs. BRAC was started with a $30,000 USD grant, and funding has expanded as the programs have had great success. As the conference is [...]

Participant Reactions: Fezile Makiwane

Fezile Makiwane, Chief Executive Officer, South African Social Security Agency, South Africa
Mr. Makiwane shares a brief answer to the question he posed during his presentation: How can social security schemes be designed for low income countries to effectively provide for the poorest?

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Participant Reactions: Peter McPherson

Peter McPherson, President, National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges; and Chairman of the Board, Dow Jones, USA
“The need to focus on rural people and agriculture increases. The need to focus on Africa…has refined for me the issues we need to look at.”

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Opening Ceremony Panel Takes Stock of Progress, Challenges for Reducing Poverty and Hunger

Khalid Malik, reading a statement on behalf of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, declared “(o)ur global scorecard is mixed. The proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day has fallen, and we remain on track to meet the MDG target of halving extreme poverty. But progress has been uneven, and some regions [...]

Conference Welcomes Doctoral Students Competition Winners

An international competition was held by IFPRI’s 2020 Vision Initiative from June to September 2007 to identify and invite leading doctoral students working on poverty and hunger to participate in the conference “Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People”. Ten doctoral students were selected and will be presenting their research in a workshop [...]

2020 Focus Briefs on the World’s Poor and Hungry People

The conference organizers have commissioned 36 policy briefs on key issues concerning Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People. Together, these briefs address who the poorest and hungry are, what the pathways out of extreme poverty and hunger are, and how to implement and scale up action for the poor and hungry.
The first [...]

Building a collaborative bibliography on global poverty and hunger

In anticipation of the upcoming conference, the IFPRI Library and Knowledge Management Team has set up a new platform for assembling a reading list of the leading research articles, working papers, books and other Web-based content related to reducing poverty and hunger throughout the developing world. You can view recently suggested resources by visiting the [...]

Looking beyond the Millennium Development Goals

Even if the poverty and hunger Millennium Development Goal is achieved, millions of the world’s poorest and hungry people will be left behind. New and different action is required to improve the welfare of these people.
When the Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000, 1.3 billion people were living in poverty and 800 [...]