Poverty reduction in the context of Poverty

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations, headquartered in Washington, D.C. It consists of 191 member countries, and its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." The IMF acts as a lender of last resort to its members experiencing actual or potential balance of payments crises.

Established in July 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference based on the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, the IMF came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. For its first three decades, the IMF oversaw the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rate arrangements. Following the collapse of this system in 1971, the Fund's role shifted to managing balance-of-payments difficulties and international financial crises, becoming a key institution in the era of globalization.

In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and objectives.

The term has been used frequently in the 20th and 21st centuries, but the concept has existed in the West for far longer. "Modernization", "Globalization", and especially "Industrialization" are other terms often used while discussing economic development. Historically, economic development policies focused on industrialization and infrastructure; since the 1960s, it has increasingly focused on poverty reduction.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is an international financial institution, established in 1944 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States; it is the lending arm of the World Bank Group. The IBRD offers loans to middle-income developing countries. It is the first of five member institutions that compose the World Bank Group. The initial mission of the IBRD in 1944, was to finance the reconstruction of European nations devastated by World War II. The IBRD and the concessional lending institution, the International Development Association (IDA), are collectively known as the World Bank as they share the same leadership and staff.

Following the reconstruction of Europe, the Bank's mandate expanded to advancing worldwide economic development and eradicating poverty. The IBRD provides commercial-grade or concessional financing to sovereign states to fund projects that seek to improve transportation and infrastructure, education, domestic policy, environmental consciousness, energy investments, healthcare, access to food and potable water, and access to improved sanitation.

The International Development Association (IDA) (French: Association internationale de développement) is a development finance institution which offers concessional loans and grants to the world's poorest developing countries. The IDA is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It was established in 1960 to complement the existing International Bank for Reconstruction and Development by lending to developing countries which suffer from the lowest gross national income, from troubled creditworthiness, or from the lowest per capita income. Together, the International Development Association and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development are collectively generally known as the World Bank, as they follow the same executive leadership and operate with the same staff.

The association shares the World Bank's mission of reducing poverty and aims to provide affordable development financing to countries whose credit risk is so prohibitive that they cannot afford to borrow commercially or from the Bank's other programs. The IDA's stated aim is to assist the poorest nations in growing more quickly, equitably, and sustainably to reduce poverty. The IDA is the single largest provider of funds to economic and human development projects in the world's poorest nations. From 2000 to 2010, it financed projects which recruited and trained 3 million teachers, immunized 310 million children, funded $792 million in loans to 120,000 small and medium enterprises, built or restored 118,000 kilometers of paved roads, built or restored 1,600 bridges, and expanded access to improved water to 113 million people and improved sanitation facilities to 5.8 million people. The IDA has issued a total US$238 billion in loans and grants since its launch in 1960. Thirty-six of the association's borrowing countries have graduated from their eligibility for its concessional lending. However, nine of these countries have relapsed and have not re-graduated.

The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS, French: Organisation des États d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique) is a group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands that was created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. Formerly known as African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), the organisation's main objectives are sustainable development and poverty reduction within its member states, as well as their greater integration into the world's economy. All of the member states, except Cuba, are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement with the European Union.

The Cotonou Agreement (signed in Cotonou, Benin, in June 2000) is the successor to the Lomé Conventions. One of the major differences from the Lomé Convention is that the partnership is extended to new actors such as civil society, private sector, trade unions and local authorities. These will be involved in consultations and planning of national development strategies, provided with access to financial resources and involved in the implementation of programmes.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towards long-term self-sufficiency and prosperity.

Based at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, it is the largest UN development aid agency, with offices in 177 countries. The UNDP is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from UN member states.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is a forum to discuss issues surrounding aid, development and poverty reduction in developing countries. It describes itself as being the "venue and voice" of the world's major donor countries.

The Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) is the Secretariat of the DAC and is the OECD Directorate within which the DAC operates.

Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education (primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It is frequently called girls' education or women's education. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education. The education of women and girls is important for the alleviation of poverty. Broader related topics include single-sex education and religious education for women, in which education is divided along gender lines.

Inequalities in education for girls and women are complex: women and girls face explicit barriers to entry to school, for example, violence against women or prohibitions of girls from going to school, while other problems are more systematic and less explicit, for example, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education disparities are deep rooted, even in Europe and North America. In some Western countries, women have surpassed men at many levels of education. For example, in the United States in 2020/2021, women earned 63% of associate degrees, 58% of bachelor's degrees, 62% of master's degrees, and 56% of doctorates.

Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz (25 October 1920 – 14 February 2002) was a member of the French Resistance in World War II, during which she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. After the war, she was a human rights defender and president of the charity organisation ATD Quart Monde for poverty reduction. Her uncle was General Charles de Gaulle, who served as President of France from 1959 to 1969.

An aid agency, also known as development charity, is an organization dedicated to distributing aid. Many professional aid organisations exist, both within government, between governments as multilateral donors and as private voluntary organizations or non-governmental organisations. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the world's second-oldest humanitarian organisation and is unique in being mandated by international treaty to uphold the Geneva Conventions. The Sovereign Order of Malta, established in 1099 as the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, has an unbroken tradition of over 900 years of hospitaller activities, continuing to this day. Even in its modern guise under international law, it was recognized at the Congress of Verona of 1822, and since 1834 headquartered in Palazzo Malta in Rome, decades before the Red Cross.

Aid can be subdivided into two categories: humanitarian aid (emergency relief efforts, e.g. in response to natural disasters), and development aid (or foreign aid), aimed at helping countries to achieve long-term sustainable economic growth, with the aim of achieving poverty reduction. Some aid agencies carry out both kinds of aid, whilst others specialise on one aspect.

International Human Solidarity Day (IHSD), observed on December 20, is an international annual unity day of the United Nations and its member states. Its main goal is to recognize the universal value of solidarity by making member states aware of global objectives and initiatives to reduce poverty and to formulate and share poverty reduction strategies of independent nations around the world. IHSD is promoted by the World Solidarity Fund and United Nations Development Programme, which are focused on achieving goals set for worldwide poverty eradication. An individual can participate or celebrate the day, either by contributing to education or by helping the poor or physically or mentally disabled. Governments are instead encouraged to respond to poverty and other social barriers through the Sustainable Development Goals.

Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, ecology, earth science, atmospheric science, mathematics, and geography.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that EE is vital in imparting an inherent respect for nature among society and in enhancing public environmental awareness. UNESCO emphasises the role of EE in safeguarding future global developments of societal quality of life (QOL), through the protection of the environment, eradication of poverty, minimization of inequalities and insurance of sustainable development.

Social protection, as defined by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, is concerned with preventing, managing, and overcoming situations that adversely affect people's well-being. Social protection consists of policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by promoting efficient labour markets, diminishing people's exposure to risks, and enhancing their capacity to manage economic and social risks, such as unemployment, exclusion, sickness, disability, and old age. An emerging approach within social protection frameworks is Adaptive Social Protection, which integrates disaster risk management and climate change adaptation to strengthen resilience against shocks.It is one of the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 aimed at promoting greater equality.

The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union Address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty. The forty programs established by the Act were collectively aimed at eliminating poverty by improving living conditions for residents of low-income neighborhoods and by helping the poor access economic opportunities long denied from them.

As a part of the Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the federal government's roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies. These policies can also be seen as a continuation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1937, and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms of 1941. Prior to John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Kennedy planned on proposing anti-poverty legislation in the 1964 State of the Union address that Johnson ended up giving. In that address, Johnson stated, "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it".