Download title in all caps

Poverty
• Condition of: ...
–
–
–
–
–
hunger,
inadequate income,
lack of food security,
lack of or insecure access to assets,with
informal and formal access rules biased against the poor
• Lack of power and voice to:
– influence rules that determine access to productive
assets (productivity of and returns to assets)
– influence the organizations that govern these rules
Institutions
• Organizations are instrumental for empowerment of the
poor:
– securing access to assets
– influencing the rules
• Rules (informal and formal) are crucial for access to assets:
– reduce uncertainty in exchange;
– define choice set;
– determine transaction costs, production costs,
profitability and feasibility,
– provide incentive structure
• Institutions = organizations and rules of the game
• Institutions matter, particularly for rural people and women
• Institutions are political and socio-economic
Investing in Organizations
Strategic Objectives/Sub-Component Type
% of Total
Strengthening the capacity of the rural poor and
their organizations
26.77
Enabling the poor
12.61
local capacity-building
support to local institutions
communication
community development
irrigation management
Enabling the enabler
6.23
0.03
1.62
4.26
0.47
14.15
institutional support
management/coordination
monitoring and evaluation
training
3.02
9.19
0.80
1.14
Based on PPMS
Policy Environment
• Liberalization
• Decentralization
• Globalization
• Empowerment, Freedoms
Implications
• Markets become predominant institutions:
– private entrepreneurship and self-help are key drivers
– market oriented and inclusive institutional design (rules and
organizations) critical mission for policy makers
• Governments play their role differently
– role (focus on policy, disengagement from direct economic
activities, public goods), and
– structure (decentralization)
• Organizations of the poor:
– play different role: access to markets, assets
– play the role differently: influence rules, enforcement of rules
– nature of the organizations: demand, the poor as citizens
– structure of the organizations: voice, participation
• Institutional transformation matters (dysfunctional institutions)
Access to Common Property Resources:
Oxbow Lakes in Bangladesh
• Institutional transformation:
– new fisheries management policy:
from medium-term lease to long-term license
– empowerment of genuine fishermen and women :
lake area management group
– wage labour to self-management of assets (stocking,
harvesting, marketing)
– technology services: markets, pluralistic approach, women
Access to Water: WUAs
• Institutional transformation:
– water resource management (irrigation) policy
– from governmental/parastatal organizations to water
users associations (WUAs)
– participation in decision-making, investment and
management (operation and maintenance)
– from consumers of services to asset managers
– associations that ‘buy-in’ services, on competitive basis
Access to Technology: Extension
• Institutional transformation:
– policies for agricultural technology development and
dissemination
– departments of agricultural extension (training and
visit)
to pluralism (including, farmer field schools,
vouchers…)
– informal groups, pluralism in supply
– research responsive to demand
– competition among suppliers
Access to Financial Services
• Institutional transformation:
– financial sector reform: inclusive of rural and
microfinance
– from supply of credit by government-controlled
organizations
to rural finance systems development (organizations of
the poor linked into financial organizations)
– sustainable membership-based organizations
– rules of membership and access to services
Conclusion
• Inclusive institutions enable poverty reduction, within growth
• Secure access to assets determined by rules
• Organizational diagnosis, design and transformation is critical to
influence rules:
– inclusiveness
– pluralism: choice (competition), voice, exit
– build on traditional organizations, change existing organizations, add
windows to existing organizations, new organizations
– learning curve
– political economy of organizational transformation: interest groups, elites
• Organizations help improve the rules, internal and external
• Design of rules and organizations key policy concern
Issues
• Effective models of organizational
transformation: best practices, lessons learned
elsewhere
• From targeting the poor to inclusion
How to deal with elites, interest groups?
• Building organizational transformation into
poverty-reduction strategies
• Partnerships for institutional transformation