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Pathways out of poverty in western Kenya and the role of livestock
How households escape poverty: can cows contribute?
Authors:
P. Kristjanson; A. Krishna; M. Radeny; W. Nindo; ILRI; PPLPI
Publisher:
Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative , 2004
This paper is based on a study exploring households' pathways into, and out of, poverty, with poverty defined from the communities' own perspective. Using a community-based methodology known as the "stages of progress" approach to assess household poverty dynamics, the authors were able to ascertain the proportion of households that escaped poverty over the last 25 years as well as the proportion of households falling into poverty during the same period, and cite reasons for this being completely different, and hence having different policy implications. They also refer to "cargo net" versus "safety net" interventions. Cargo nets help poor people climb out of poverty; safety nets stop people from falling into poverty.
Summarily, they recommend that redistributive programs to build up the assets of poor people (such as giving heifers to poor households) may be effective in achieving long-term reductions in chronic poverty, but will have to be complemented by safety net policies.
