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This paper aims to critically assess digital finance as a pro-poor intervention in the development finance space.

Using critical policy discourse analysis, this paper explains the turn from microfinance to digital finance, and thereafter discusses four issues: the lack of evidence that digital finance for poor people actually promotes socioeconomic development; the risks that poor people are exposed to, which arises from their exposure to digital finance technology; the lack of evidence that digital finance actually brings poor people immediate benefits; and the weak business rationale for digital finance.

The expectation for digital finance serving as a major pro-poor private sector intervention lacks justification.

The paper reflects on the effect of digital finance for poor people.

Purpose – The study reported here analyzed the meanings that 8-year-old children of different demographic backgrounds constructed about poverty.

Methodology/approach – Six children with different demographic profiles were selected from a larger study for closer examination of their conceptions of poverty (Chafel & Neitzel, 2004, 2005). Content analysis was used to arrive at an in-depth interpretation of the children's ideas expressed in response to a story about poverty and interview questions.

Findings – The children communicated perspectives about poverty that appear to reflect their demographic profiles. Yet, they also shared a common ideology about the poor different from the dominant societal view.

Research implications – By selecting typical children, recognizing the interrelatedness of sources of influence, and considering the data holistically, it was possible to achieve an in-depth understanding of the children's conceptions.

Originality/value of paper – With insight into the more humane conceptions that children have about the poor, adults can take steps to nurture these ideas so that as they grow older children continue to oppose discrimination and challenge the status quo.

The association between income distribution and measures of health has been well established such that societies with smaller income differences between rich and poor people have increased longevity (Wilkinson, 1996). While more egalitarian societies tend to have better health, in most developed societies people lower down the social scale have death rates two to four times higher than those nearer the top. Inequities in income distribution and the consequent disparities in health status are particularly problematic for many women, including single mothers, older women, and women of colour. The feminization of poverty is the rapidly increasing proportion of women in the adult poverty population (Doyal, 1995; Fraser, 1987).

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the idea that poor people are generally risk averse and that risks are predominately created by structural conditions and outside forces (Wisner et al., 2004, p. 11; Cardona, 2004, p. 39). It aims to show that some categories of poor people regularly take risks and that they can have good reasons for that. For people living at the edge of Indonesian society, taking risks on a regular basis has become something normal. The possibility that people can actively involve themselves in risky practices needs to be taken into account in risk assessments by government and civil society.

The material presented in this paper has been collected during long, intermittent periods of ethnographic fieldwork in East Java and East Kalimantan between 1999 and 2014. The data were mostly collected “at the side” of research on poverty, social security, social welfare and livelihood security. It also makes use of a case study on oplosan in Pati, Central Java, written by Frans Hüsken, of newspaper reports, online sources, talks with police officers and online news items.

In many of the current day risk studies, livelihood risks of the poor are perceived as “externally induced” resulting from outside influences such as disasters, living at dangerous places or as resulting from structural factors such as social and economic inequality. Little attention has been paid to poor and vulnerable people who actively take risks themselves and the reasons to do this. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Java and East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in this paper some risky practices of poor (young) people are explored. Examples are several forms of extreme risk-taking such as drinking parties with potent or even poisonous mixtures (oplosan), gambling and competition (often referred to as trek-trekan).

So far, little attention has been paid to the fact that people often actively involve in risks and deliberately may opt for risky lifestyles and opt to live in risky environments as this offers opportunities for poor people to gain money, prestige and jobs otherwise not accessible.

This chapter reflects on the approach and learning of an innovative project in Bangladesh that addresses drinking water security issues of the poor and marginal communities through participatory research, innovation, and social mobilization. The people, living in the most difficult geophysical areas, are facing severe crisis of drinking water and associated health risks due to remoteness, seasonality, social isolation, and poor institutional links. The geophysical constraints such as growing salinity, arsenic, flood and drought, and drawdown of groundwater tables have aggravated the problems. The existing government services hardly reach to the most unserved and needy people because of remoteness and lack of responsiveness of the government departments. A participatory action research project led to collective understanding about the severity of the problems and associated health risks and vulnerability. This again built greater awareness and motivated the poor, women, and marginal communities to establish links with key actors and take various local and collective actions toward ensuring their greater access to drinking water, sanitation facilities, and health services from the relevant government departments and development agencies.

Reducing health inequalities between the poor and the rich is one of the challenges that the Iranian healthcare sector is facing. One of the goals of the Iranian Government in the Healthcare Sector Evolution Plan (HSEP) is claimed to be creating an opportunity for the poor to use inexpensive services. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the status of the poor in the HSEP. Based on this evaluation, the authors will provide policy recommendations to improve the benefits of the HSEP for the poor people.

This paper is based on a qualitative study conducted in 2017. The research sample includes policymakers, experts and scholars at the macro-level of the Iranian healthcare system who were well-aware of the financial support for the poor. Overall, 35 semi-structured interviews were carried out. Data were analyzed based on the thematic analysis method.

The effects of the HSEP on the poor were studied in terms of their positive outcomes and challenges. Despite the achievements of the HSEP for all people, the most important challenge was the lack of targeted state subsidies for the poor. These subsidies should have included free insurance coverage, reducing inpatient payment and allocation of a separate budget for the poor.

Adopting some policies to target public health subsidies toward the poor such as free insurance specific for the poor (based on means testing), as well as user fee exemption and waivers could improve access to health services for them in Iran. In addition, separate funding for such policies, strengthening health prevention and health care services for marginalized populations, and improving their health literacy could help ensure the poor’s benefiting more from the health care services.

Though microfinance has been working for many years as a tool to eradicate poverty from its root, most of the least developed and developing countries are yet to significantly alleviate it from the society. The purpose of this paper is to focus on Shariah-based microfinance products in the context of sustainable poverty alleviation approach and provide them financial benefits to enhance their livelihoods.

Here, this qualitative study critically analyzes the basics of the sustainable Islamic microfinance to exterminate the level of poverty.

Islamic microfinance is a more ethical practice than the traditional motives of profit maximization, and it encourages extending the time of repayment if the debtors are in hardship. In some case, it suggests to give charity if the creditor has capability.

Most importantly, research scholars and experts have already criticized the concept of conventional microfinance on the basis of various points, especially for its high rate of interest.

Islamic microfinance is provided with a view to fulfill two tools simultaneously, i.e., social and financial inclusion. In this case, credits and Zakah can be given to the extreme poor people for satisfying basic needs. In terms of social responsibility, Islam encourages the people to be soft in case of collecting the lending money.

The study discoursed that sustainable Islamic Microfinance (IM) may be a promising future option to draw the attention of the religiously sensitive people toward the Shariah-based microfinance which can, in turn, mitigate the poverty level.

This paper investigates the interrelationship between the poor people's perception of poverty and its implication on Islamic development strategy based on a research in Kelantan, Malaysia. The findings of the survey reveal that there are three dominant perceptions of the poor individuals (respondents) in the study: perceptions toward poverty; perceptions toward the implementation of Zakat; and perceptions toward the local rich. Given the nature of the respondents who are homogeneously poor, this paper will address the implications of the above mentioned perceptions on Islamic development strategy, particularly in Kelantan supposedly the only Islamic state in the Federation of Malaysia, ruled by Pan‐Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). This paper concludes that imposing an Islamic development strategy will become an almost impossible task in Kelantan considering the existence of the following situations: 1) the ‘top‐down approach’ to Islamic development adopted by Kelantan government itself is not effective enough to be realized, and 2) there is no ‘rigorous’ effort to disseminate information and Islamic values to the general population leading to a true practice of Islam.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issues and challenges in providing financing to the poor people based on the experience of Baitul Maal Wa Tamwil (BMT) in Indonesia.

A series of structured interviews were conducted with the chairman and staff of the Central BMT (Induk Koperasi Syariah) in Jakarta which is the head-quarter of 382 BMTs throughout Indonesia, with additional chairman and shari’ah supervisory in Central BMT (Pusat Koperasi Syariah) in Makasar. Subsequently, the results from the structured interviews were analyzed using qualitative analysis to arrive at the model of the peculiarities of financing the poor in Indonesia.

The findings show that the Central BMT has built specific products and empowerment mechanisms for the poor and has an ideal product to be applied in 382 BMT in Indonesia. There are two schemes of financing source in BMT, namely, social ministry (Kelompok Usaha Bersama) and private financing (national and international donor). Specifically, the peculiarities of financing given in BMT are not only in the term of capital but also in the term of providing infrastructure and training for the poor. Moreover, collateral must be provided as a screening process for the poor people to secure any form of financing. If there is no collateral, potential borrowers must opt for joint-liability financing. Furthermore, if the poor could not repay the financing, endowment coming from charity and compulsory Islamic tax (zakat, infaq and sadaqah) would play a vital role to cover for the financing default. Lastly, religious capacity building is also provided as a part of risk management aspect.

This study was only conducted in Indonesia which focussed on the peculiarities of financing for the poor people in Indonesia BMT. Despite this limitation, the findings of this study enable the construction of a model that highlights the issues and challenges that might arise in financing the poor in general.

The paper adds to the literature on Islamic microfinance by enabling researchers and practitioners to understand the model of Islamic microfinance in Indonesia. It also contributes toward enriching the knowledge in the Islamic microfinance area.

The system of government-run poor relief in England, dating from the sixteenth century, was not replicated in Europe until the mid- to late 1800s. In order to understand why, poor relief must be placed within the socio-economic framework of capitalism, a system of surplus appropriation which originated in the novel class relations of English agriculture. The English way of dealing with poverty was distinctive and this distinctiveness was rooted in the unparalleled expansion of capitalism in that country in the early modern era. Assistance to the poor in England emerged alongside a qualitative social change, wherein an economy rooted in custom was transformed into one based on the competitive social relations of capitalism. The main conclusion of this article is that the welfare state was not a product of industrialization but of the class structure of agrarian capitalism.