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The cardinal point to note here is that the development (and unfortunately the likely potential) of area policy is intimately related to the actual character of British social policy. Whilst area policy has been strongly influenced by Pigou's welfare economics, by the rise of scientific management in the delivery of social services (cf Jaques 1976; Whittington and Bellamy 1979), by the accompanying development of operational analyses and by the creation of social economics (see Pigou 1938; Sandford 1977), social policy continues to be enmeshed with the flavours of Benthamite utilitatianism and Social Darwinism (see, above all, the Beveridge Report 1942; Booth 1889; Rowntree 1922, 1946; Webb 1926). Consequently, for their entire history area policies have been coloured by the principles of a national minimum for the many and giving poorer areas a hand up, rather than a hand out. The preceived need to save money (C.S.E. State Apparatus and Expenditure Group 1979; Klein 1974) and the (supposed) ennobling effects of self help have been the twin marching orders for area policy for decades. Private industry is inadvertently called upon to plug the resulting gaps in public provision. The conjunction of a reluctant state and a meandering private sector has fashioned the decaying urban areas of today. Whilst a large degree of party politics and commitment has characterised the general debate over the removal of poverty (Holman 1973; MacGregor 1981), this has for the most part bypassed the ‘marginal’ poorer areas (cf Green forthcoming). Their inhabitants are not usually numerically significant enough to sway general, party policies (cf Boulding 1967) and the problems of most notably the inner cities has been underplayed.

The purpose of this paper is to ground in serious empirical evidence the debate on whether the post-reform acceleration in growth has helped bring poverty down for all economic, social and religious groups and in all state or has left certain groups or states.

The paper uses unit-level data from the so-called thick rounds of expenditure surveys by National Sample Survey (NSS) in the years 1993-1994, 2004-2005, 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 and estimates the proportion of the population below the official Tendulkar line. Adequate care is taken to address the issue of sample size in reporting the estimates.

Whether we slice the data by social, religious or economic groups, by states or by rural and urban areas, poverty has significantly declined between 1993-1994 and 2011-2012 with a substantial acceleration during the faster-growth period from 2004-2005 to 2011-2012. Poverty rates among the disadvantaged social groups and minorities have declined faster so that the gap in poverty rates between them and the general population has declined. In 7 of the 16 states with large Muslim populations, the poverty rate for them is now below that for the Hindus.

Use of survey data has its limitations, especially when the sample sizes are small. The paper also does not assess the direct contribution of growth in relation to that through redistribution.

The paper presents implications for identification of the poor for the purpose of designing targeted interventions.

This is the first paper to offer up-to-date estimates of poverty by social, religious and economic groups, by states and by rural and urban areas.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the regional profile of poverty in Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populated and impoverished states of India. It also identifies the factors underlying the inter-regional differences of poverty in the state.

Regional estimates have been evaluated by dividing the state into four economically classified regions (Western, Central, Southern, and Eastern), using the unit-level records of two latest available Consumption Expenditure Surveys of NSSO representing the period 2009-2010 and 2011-2012. Poverty has been defined by the latest available Rangarajan Expert Groups’ poverty line and aggregated in terms of headcount ratio and share of below poverty line population. Furthermore, to investigate the correlates of poverty, a survey-based logistic regression has been estimated specifically for each region and for both rural and urban areas.

Estimates reveal that though overall poverty in the state has declined, inter-regional poverty trends witness rise in the level of impoverishment particularly in urban Southern Region (SR), rural Eastern Region (ER), and in both rural and urban areas of Central Region. Nevertheless, the inter-regional disparity in poverty has observed a decline; it can further be eliminated if such high poverty reduction in urban ER and rural SR is sustained along with a similar progress in their impoverished counterparts.

The study recommends that poverty alleviating policies in the state should focus more on reducing the household size, development of socially excluded sub-groups (Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes), delivery of basic facilities (education and health care), and enhancement of employment prospects for casual laborers, with special emphasis on identified impoverished regions.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the inter-relationship between the multi-dimensional poverty and water poverty using household level data for Indian states.

A modified water poverty index (MWPI) for both rural and urban households was created using the five components approach and various quantifiable proxies. Principal component analysis (PCA) has been used for the construction of MWPI. Multidimensionality of poverty (MPI) is measured using the Alkire and Foster methodology. Further, the study has utilized correlation and Tobit regression analysis to show the relationship between MWPI and MPI.

The empirical findings suggest that there is a positive and significant relationship between multidimensional poverty and water poverty, with the extent of relationship being greater in rural areas. The results show that in rural areas all the components of water poverty has significant impact on multidimensional poverty, whereas in urban areas except use component all others have significant impact on multidimensional poverty. Further, components of multidimensional poverty were also found to be significantly impacting water poverty.

The study suggests that policymakers cannot treat both forms of poverty in isolation. If India aims to reduce poverty, then it needs to pay significant attention to improving water conditions.

This is a pioneering attempt to construct water poverty index at the household level while accounting for micro-level differences for Indian economy. It highlights that water poverty leads to multi-dimensional poverty and vice-versa.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2021-0731.

Poverty alleviation is a global challenge. Human society has never ceased to fight against poverty. China was once the developing country with the largest rural poor population in the world. Remarkable achievements have been made in China’s antipoverty program over the past decades, shaping a unique poverty reduction strategy with Chinese characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to first review the history of China’s rural reform and antipoverty, and then analyze the related policy systems, mechanism innovations and future challenges in poverty alleviation and development. At last, some specific policy implications were provided.

Literature on China’s antipoverty history was reviewed and mechanism innovations on targeted poverty alleviation strategy were investigated.

Along with the deepening of the rural reform, the poverty alleviation and development in new China have undergone six stages, and experienced a transformation from relief-oriented to development-oriented poverty alleviation. The object of poverty alleviation has gradually targeted with a transformation from poor counties/areas to villages/households, and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation is also gradually improved. However, the increase in the difficulty of antipoverty, fragile ecological environment, rapid population aging and rural decline poses challenges to the construction of a well-off society in an all-round way in China. Specific antipoverty measures were put forward based on the investigation. Finally, the authors emphasize the importance of strengthening the study of poverty geography.

This study investigates the history of China’s antipoverty policy and analyzes the future challenges for implementing targeted poverty alleviation policy. These findings will lay a foundation for the formulation of China’s antipoverty policies after 2020, and provide experience for poverty alleviation in other developing countries around the world.

Poverty alleviation has been a major theme of China's modernization process since the founding of New China. This paper points out that China's poverty alleviation process presents three stylized facts: “Miraculous” achievements of poverty alleviation have been made on a global scale; the poverty alleviation achievements mainly occurred in the high growth stage after reform and opening up; the poverty alleviation process is accompanied by the structural transformation of the urban–rural dual economy.

Therefore, a logically consistent analytical framework should form among the structural transformation of the dual economy, economic growth and the achievements in poverty alleviation. In logical deduction, the structural transformation of the dual economy affects rural poverty alleviation through the effects of labor reallocation, agricultural productivity improvement, demographic change and fiscal resource allocation.

The first two refer to economic growth, and the latter two are alleviation policies. The combination of economic growth and poverty alleviation policies is the main cause for poverty alleviation performance. China's empirical evidence can support the four effects by which the structural transformation of the dual economy affects poverty alleviation.

China's socialist system and its economic system transformation after reform and opening up provide an institutional basis for the effects to come into play. After 2020, China's poverty alleviation strategies will enter the “second-half” phase, namely, the phase of solving the problems of relative poverty in urban and rural areas by adopting conventional methods and establishing long-term mechanisms. This requires the facilitation of the reconnection between poverty alleviation strategies and the structural transformation of the dual economy in terms of development ideas and policy directions.

This study aims to examine the current state of academic research pertaining to the role played by artificial intelligence (AI) in the achievement of a critical sustainable development goal (SDG) – poverty alleviation and describe the field’s development by identifying themes, trends, roadblocks and promising areas for the future.

The authors analysed a corpus of 253 studies collected from the Scopus database to examine the current state of the academic literature using bibliometric methods.

This paper identifies and analyses key trends in the evolution of this domain. Further, the paper distils the extant literature to unpack the intermediary mechanisms through which AI and related technologies help tackle the critical global issue of poverty.

The corpus of literature used for the analysis is limited to English language studies from the Scopus database. The paper contributes to the extant research on AI for social good, and more broadly to the research on the value of emerging technologies such as AI.

Policymakers and government agencies will get an understanding of how technological interventions such as AI can help achieve critical SDGs such as poverty alleviation (SDG-1).

The primary focus of this paper is on the role of AI-related technological interventions to achieve a significant social objective – poverty alleviation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of a critical research domain such as AI and poverty alleviation.

Entrepreneurship has increasingly become a subject of interest for scholars and policymakers in an attempt to reduce poverty in agricultural communities across the world, especially in Africa. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of entrepreneurship in reducing poverty in agricultural communities of Lower Gweru, Zimbabwe.

Exploratory research design informed the data collection and analysis in this study. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 owners of agribusinesses from various socio-economic backgrounds. The collected data from the field were analyzed using thematic analysis.

The results revealed that entrepreneurship plays a catalytic role in poverty reduction in agricultural communities through food security, skill transfer, employment creation, income generation and a decrease in food costs.

This study focused on four agricultural communities in Lower Gweru which can limit the generalizability of the results to other contexts. Furthermore, this inquiry is a cross-sectional study that did not capture the longitudinal factors that can affect entrepreneurship and poverty reduction in agricultural communities.

The research outcomes have some practical implications for the Zimbabwean government and microfinance institutions in designing policies and programs to reduce poverty in marginalized agricultural communities. The findings are also useful for non-governmental organizations in designing, monitoring and evaluating poverty reduction programs in agricultural communities.

This study advances, contextualizes and enriches the body of knowledge concerning agricultural entrepreneurship and poverty reduction in the under-researched setting of agricultural communities. Notably, this study captures the African flavor in the agricultural entrepreneurship and poverty reduction discourse by focusing on the unique Zimbabwean context.