Deepa Narayan

Measuring Social Capital : An Integrated Questionnaire

The idea of social capital has enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence in both the theoretical and applied social science literature over the last decade. While lively debate has accompanied that journey, thereby helping to advance our thinking and to clarify areas of agreement and disagreement, much still remains to be done. One approach that we hope can help bring further advances for both scholars and practitioners is the provision of a set of empirical tools for measuring social capital. The purpose of this paper is to introduce such a tool-the Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital (SC-IQ)-with a focus on applications in developing countries. The tool aims to generate quantitative data on various dimensions of social capital as part of a larger household survey (such as the Living Standards Measurement Survey or a household income/expenditure survey). Specifically, six dimensions are considered: groups and networks; trust and solidarity; collective action and cooperation; information and communication; social cohesion and inclusion; empowerment and political action. The paper addresses sampling and data collection issues for implementing the SC-IQ and provides guidance for the use and analysis of data. The tool has been pilot-tested in Albania and Nigeria and a review of lessons learned is presented.

Empowerment and poverty reduction - a sourcebook

Poverty will not be reduced on a large scale, without tapping into the energy, skills, and motivation of the millions of poor people around the world. This book offers a framework for empowerment, that focuses on increasing poor peoples freedom of choice, and action to shape their own lives. This approach requires three societal changes: a change in the mindset, from viewing poor people as the problem to viewing them as essential partners in reducing poverty; a change in the relationship between poor people, and formal systems, enabling them to participate in decisions that affect their lives; and, a change in formal, and informal institutions to make them more responsive to the needs, and realities of poor people. Based on analysis of experiences from around the world, the book identifies four key elements to support empowerment of poor people: information, inclusions/participation, accountability, and local organizational capacity. This framework is applied to five areas of action to improve development effectiveness. These are: provision of basic services, improved local governance, improved national governance, pro-poor market development, and access to justice, and legal aid. The book also offers tools and practices, focusing on a wide range of topics, to support poor peoples empowerment. These range from poor peoples enterprises, information and communications technology, and, community driven development, to diagnostic tools such as corruption surveys, and citizen report cards.

Voices of the poor : poverty and social capital in Tanzania

This study reveals the power and utility of participatory methods for policy research. It demonstrates practices and processes that can tap the knowledge the poor have about their own reality. By comparing and contrasting findings from participatory methods with findings from more conventional household consumption and expenditure surveys, the study identifies poverty indicators used by local people at the village level. It also shows how using these measures leads to different conclusions about the causes and nature of poverty and reveals the policy and institutional methods that can best address the problem and how development policies must take gender differences into account if they are to be effective. The study also demystifies the concept of social capital at the local level and provides quantifiable evidence that village-level social capital -- membership in groups with particular characteristics -- significantly affects household welfare.

Moving Out of Poverty : Volume 2. Success from the Bottom Up

The global moving out of poverty study is unique in several respects. It is one of the few large-scale comparative research efforts to focus on mobility out of poverty rather than on poverty alone. The study draws together the experiences of poor women and men who have managed to move out of poverty over time and the processes and local institutions that have helped or hindered their efforts. It is also the first time that a World Bank report draws on peoples own understanding of freedom, democracy, equality, empowerment, and aspirations-and how these affect poor people in different growth, social, and political contexts. By giving primacy to peoples own experiences and how they define poverty, the study provides several new insights to develop more effective strategies to reduce poverty. The study finds that poor people take lots of initiative, in many cases even more than those who are better off. There are millions and millions of tiny poor entrepreneurs. The investment climate of these tiny entrepreneurs has not been a centerpiece of poverty strategies. Too often, poor people do not face a level playing field. Despite the micro credit revolution, poor people remain outside of most financial services; and large lenders remain reluctant to lend to micro enterprises and micro entrepreneurs. New institutional models and financial instruments are needed to serve poor peoples financial needs and give them the capital they need to expand their businesses and connect to markets.

Ending Poverty in South Asia : Ideas That Work

The case studies in this book were developed as part of a year-long learning process initiated by the World Bank in 2003-4 to examine large scale poverty reduction programs in a wide range of developing countries around the world. This volume presents 12 of the case studies from South Asia. . The last two decades saw substantial change in the countries of South Asia. All countries of the subcontinent experienced more rapid growth than in the earlier decades and also saw a definite reduction in the incidence of poverty, resulting in the improvement of the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people. One common element was the adoption of broad based economic reforms involving rethinking of earlier approaches to development. The reforms in South Asia were notable in that they were homegrown, gradual, and accompanied by continual redesign and fine tuning. Individuals can make a difference in fighting poverty when ways are found to institutionalize creative ideas and apply them on a scale extending beyond pilot projects. This book recounts 12 such cases from a range of countries and sectors in the South Asia region, with a focus on how these programmes scaled up and on the potential for applying lessons in other settings. These case studies do not offer a blueprint or model for poverty reduction; there is no single model. Nor do they cover every issue that is important. But they suggest the range of ideas that can be successful and the underlying principles that cut across these diverse initiatives. All the programmes tap the imagination and ingenuity of the South Asian people- in government offices, in civil society organizations, in the private sector, and in the villages and urban neighborhoods. All seek to empower poor people to access the economic opportunities and basic services so necessary to human dignity. The lessons are complex, and applying them will undoubtedly require redesign and fine-tuning to fit the initiatives to the local context. What is important, however, is that the experience of the last two decades has shown that reforms and scaling-up innovations can work in South Asia-and if these examples can be strengthened and expanded in the coming decades, the dreams of a subcontinent free of poverty may be realized.

Moving Out of Poverty : Volume 4. Rising from the Ashes of Conflict

Lifting people out of poverty is one of the great challenges facing the international community today. It has become still more daunting in the context of the global financial crisis, which has severe implications for the poorest people in the world. Almost 1.4 billion people in developing countries live in poverty, according to recent estimates by the World Bank, and a significant part of this population lives in chronic poverty. This is the fourth in a series of volumes emerging from the global moving out of poverty study, which explores mobility from the perspectives of poor people who have moved out of poverty in more than 500 communities across 15 countries. The research on conflict-affected countries was managed by the global development network in partnership with the World Bank. This volume examines the social, political, and economic institutions facing poor people in post-conflict environments, where lives have been turned upside down by violence and instability. Based on original evidence from over a hundred communities in seven countries, the study documents the strategies that poor people use to cope with and move out of poverty, and it concludes with important policy recommendations.

Moving Out of Poverty: Volume 3. The Promise of Empowerment and Democracy in India

This study focuses on people who moved out of poverty during the decade from 1995 to 2005 in rural areas of four Indian states: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. It also considers people who have fallen into poverty, those who have remained poor, and some who have never been poor but who live alongside poor people in the same communities. The author started by setting aside official and expert opinions, ideologies of the right and left, and, to the extent possible, the beliefs and assumptions of the rich and the middle class, including the own preconceived notions. The study is unique in four ways. First, it examines changes in poverty status of the same households over time. Most poverty studies are snapshots of the poor taken at a particular point in time, with extrapolations made by comparing them with the rich at that same point in time. In the study, the author focus on understanding the dynamics of change by asking individuals to recall their life stories, particularly what happened to them over the past decade? Second, most poverty studies are conducted at the national, state, or district level. The author focuses on local communities, mainly villages, as the unit within which individuals and households are embedded. There is much variation between villages, even within a district, and our sampling strategy enables us to examine these community-level differences. Third, the author relies primarily on nonstandardized data collection methods, including life stories and discussion groups. The author complement these with data the author gather using household and community-level questionnaires. Finally, since the author deliberately adopted an open-ended approach, the author uses inductive methods to systematically aggregate data from life stories and individual discussions over 50,000 pages of notes. The author started with broad questions rather than a particular conceptual framework, but the author did impose a framework after six months of inductive data analyses, before starting the quantitative data analyses.