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This chapter critically examines the causes and effects of continuous poverty in two sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, despite various poverty alleviation strategies adopted by each country. It reveals the theoretical framework and the accompanying set of programmatic and policy tools for poverty alleviation in SSA.

Objective – This chapter assesses the extent to which previous economic and financial crises had a negative impact on health outcomes and health financing. In addition, we review evidence related to the effectiveness of different policy measures undertaken in past crises to protect access to health services, especially for the poor and vulnerable. The current global crisis is unique both in terms of its scale and origins. Unlike most previous instances, the current crisis has its origins in developed countries, initially the United States, before it spread to middle- and lower-income countries. The current crisis is now affecting almost all countries at all levels of income. This chapter addresses several key questions aimed at helping inform possible policy responses to the current crisis from the perspective of the health sector: What is the nature of the current crisis and in what ways does it differ from previous experiences? What are some of the key lessons from previous crises? How have governments responded previously to protect health from such macroeconomic shocks? How can we improve the likelihood of positive action today?

Methodology/approach – The chapter reviews the literature on the impact of financial crises on health outcomes and health expenditures and on the effectiveness of past policy efforts to protect human development during periods of economic downturn. It also presents analysis of household surveys and health expenditure data to track health seeking behavior and out-of-pocket expenditures by households during times of financial crisis.

Findings – Evidence from previous crises indicates that health-related impacts during economic downturns can occur through various channels. The impact in households experiencing reductions in employment and income could be manifest in terms of poorer nutritional outcomes and lower levels of utilization of health care when needed. Households may become impoverished, reduce needed health services, and experience reductions in consumption as a result of health shocks occurring during a time when their economic vulnerability has increased. Women, children, the poor, and informal sector workers are likely to be most at risk of experiencing negative health-related consequences in a crisis. Real government spending per capita on health care could decline due to reduced revenues, currency devaluations, and potential reductions in external aid flows. Low-income countries with weak fiscal positions are likely to be the most vulnerable.

Implications for policy – Past crises can inform policy-making aimed at protecting health outcomes and reducing financial risk from health shocks. Evidence from previous crises indicates that broad-brush strategies that maintained overall levels of government health spending tended not to be successful, failing to protect access to quality health services especially for the poor. It is particularly vital to ensure access to essential health commodities, which in many low-income countries are imported, in the face of weakening exchange rates. Focused efforts to sustain the supply of lower-level basic services, combined with targeted demand-side approaches like conditional cash transfers may be more effective than broader sectoral approaches. Low-income countries may need specific short-term measures to ensure that health outcomes do not suffer.

The paper analyses the effects of individual and household characteristics on current poverty status, while controlling for initial conditions, past poverty status and unobserved heterogeneity in 14 European countries for the period 1994–2001, using the European Community Household Panel. The distinction between true state dependence and individual heterogeneity has important policy implications, since if the former is the main cause of poverty it may be crucial to break the ‘vicious circle’ of poverty using income-supporting social policies, whereas if it is the latter anti-poverty policies should focus primarily on education, training, development of personal skills and other labour market oriented policies. The empirical results are similar in qualitative terms but rather different in quantitative terms across the EU countries covered in the paper. State dependence remains significant in all model specifications, even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity or when removing possible endogeneity bias. Higher poverty rates and higher poverty persistence are associated with particular welfare state regimes, although the link is substantially weakened when other explanatory variables are included in the analysis.

The global recession has strongly affected the credibility of the international banking system, damaging also the real economy.

Developing countries, not fully integrated with international markets, seem less affected and local microfinance institutions might also allow for a further shelter against recession, even if foreign support is slowing down and collection of international capital is harder and more expensive.

Intrinsic characteristics of microfinance, such as closeness to the borrowers, limited risk and exposure and little if any correlation with international markets have an anti-cyclical effect. In hard and confused times, it pays to be little, flexible and simple.

In the absence of new policies, global trends in energy supply and consumption are unsustainable all around. Today, roughly 2.6 billion people use fuelwood, charcoal, agricultural waste and animal dung to meet most of their daily energy needs for cooking and heating. There are 1.6 billion people in the world without electricity, equal to over a quarter of the world population. The purpose of this paper is to present pro‐poor solutions for addressing the crippling impacts of current global energy use on the world's poorest people.

The paper lays out scenarios for global energy demand and greenhouse‐gas emissions and highlights the impact of these trends on developing countries. Based largely on publications and research from the International Energy Agency, it shows that better targeted subsidies, capacity building, integrated policy approaches and improvements in data collection can help to alleviate the impacts of current energy use on health and the environment.

Decisive action is needed to expand energy access and to arrest the potential impacts of climate change in poor countries. It is demonstrated here that investments in programs that are tailored to promoting development and addressing climate change simultaneously can be successfully deployed.

There is an urgent need for policymakers in rich and poor countries to join together and tackle the global energy and climate challenges, and, as this paper shows, pro‐poor foresight is needed to ensure that these challenges are met in an equitable and sustainable way.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

Country of origin (COO) effect refers to the influence of COO on consumers' perception and evaluation of a product. This research explores the impact of consumers' power distance on COO effect.

We conducted two experiments to test the relevant hypotheses.

The results indicate that power distance has a polarizing influence on COO effect. That means, for products from countries with good images, the higher the consumers' power distance, the better their evaluation of the products; while for products from countries with poor images, the higher the power distance, the worse their evaluation of the products. The research also finds the moderating effect of consumers' competence–related country-related affect (CRA). When holding positive competence–related CRA, for products from countries with good images, the higher the consumers' power distance, the better their evaluation of the products; for products from countries with poor images, consumers' power distance has no effect. When having negative competence–related CRA, for products from countries with poor images, the higher the consumers' power distance, the worse their evaluation of the products; for products from countries with good images, power distance has no effect.

This study finds that depending on the perception of COO image, power distance not only improves the evaluation of products but also lows such evaluation, reflecting a two-way polarizing feature.

Unequal Exchange (L'échange inégal) by Arghiri Emmanuel attempts a Marxist treatment of trade between poor and rich countries. Published with it are four appendices in which Charles Bettelheim and Emmanuel debate the issues raised by the main work, and a fifth appendix in which Emmanuel replies to other critics. Emmanuel aims, he says, to address himself “to economists of all tendencies in a common language” (p.323). This aspiration, which is reprehended by Bettelheim (p.349) — either you stand on Marxist ground or you don't — makes the book a particularly interesting one for the non‐Marxist interested in the same range of issues. Though some of the terms used are Marxist or have a peculiarly Marxist meaning, the approach — again to Bettelheim's dismay (p.284) — is through analytical models whose internal logic and empirical realism can be rigorously discussed.

In contrast to the MDGs' top-down approach, the SDGs took the bottom-up approach of participants, creating an open space for soliciting their aspirations, efforts, creativity, and commitment. Inclusive business (IB), identified as the key means to alleviate poverty and inequality in developing countries, undeniably struggles in this space to find new ways of thinking and management to achieve a suitable balance between serving social needs and achieving business sustainability. However, multinational corporations have not yet made significant achievements, due to a biased orientation of including the poor into their system of developed countries' institutions. From a neutral position, not asking who includes or yields to whom, this research project proposes to use the concept of institutional interconnections and its various analytical factors to examine how diverse partners are interconnected to overcome institutional differences. Differences in interconnections are hypothesized to differentiate IB's socioeconomic effects and poverty alleviation.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the major long‐term role that hands‐on entrepreneurship training could play in poverty alleviation and job creation in one of the poorest regions of South Africa – the Eastern Free State (EFS). This is done against a background of frequently occurring violent protests against the inadequacy of the government's hand‐out poverty alleviation strategy of social grants, free houses and free social services.

The paper uses desk research and quantitative analysis of survey data collected from the Phuthaditjhaba area of Qwaqwa in the EFS.

The poverty indicators confirm the accepted view of the Free State as one of the poorest provinces in South Africa, which makes Qwaqwa, the poorest part of the Free State, a real human plight. While government hand‐out poverty alleviation measures, with their unintended consequences of violent protests and demonstrations, may only help some of the poor in the short term, training in entrepreneurship and provision of other facilities could give poor owners of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) opportunities to grow their businesses and get themselves and other out of poverty. Furthermore, as a result of a huge communication gap, MSE operators in Phuthaditjhaba, the commercial hub of Qwaqwa, do not even know of government agencies charged with the responsible of assisting small business operators in the area. Though they lack the finance and other endowments required to grow their businesses, the experience has given MSE operators some ideas about the kind of assistance that may help in this regard and even make it possible for them to provide employment for others – finance, government support, infrastructure and premises, training, etc.

As shown by the findings of a study sponsored by the Maluti‐A‐Phofung local municipality, there is potential for growth of small businesses in many areas of the EFS economy. Training of survivalist entrepreneurs and other poor persons with potential could open their eyes to opportunities around them which they could take advantage of to improve their economic situation and that of other poor persons in the area through job creation.

In addition to highlighting the shortcomings of the current poverty alleviation strategy of the South African Government, this is the first study that brings entrepreneurship training to the fore in the fight against poverty in the EFS.