This book, co-published with the UN's Dept of Economic and Social Affairs, offers a critical appraisal of the conventional measures and analysis of poverty as well as of poverty reduction policies. It is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com.
Despite greater efforts in reducing poverty since the early 1980s, poverty remains stubbornly high in many parts of the world. This collection argues that the mainstream perspectives on poverty and deprivation have contributed to considerable distortion and misunderstanding and that is not unrelated to ineffectual policy perscriptions. In particular it highlights the World Bank's dollar-a-day measure of poverty and exposes the inadequacies of Bretton Woods-inspired poverty reduction programmes.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram has been Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) since 2005, and G24 Research Coordinator since 2006. He was awarded the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.
Rob Vos is Director of the Development Policy and Analysis Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations.
Anisuzzman (Anis) Chowdhury is Professor of Economics, University of Western Sydney and currently works as Senior Economic Affairs Officer in the Office of the Under Secretary General, UN-DESA. He has published widely on macroeconomic and developmental issues and was founding managing editor (1995-2008) of the Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy.