Poverty Is Powerlessness and Voicelessness

• Author: Deepa Narayan
• Position: Lead Social Development Specialist in the World Bank's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network

"Nobody hears the poor. It is the rich who are being heard."-a discussion group of poor men and women, Egypt

"Poverty is humiliation, the sense of being dependent and of being forced to accept rudeness, insults, and indifference when we seek help."-a poor woman, Latvia

"When the poor and rich compete for services, the rich will always get priority."-a discussion group of poor men and women, Kenya

The world looks different when viewed through the eyes of a poor person. In preparation for the World Development Report 2000/ 2001: Attacking Poverty, the World Bank conducted a research study that brought together the experiences of over 60,000 poor women and men from 60 countries around the world. Using open-ended qualitative and participatory research techniques, the Voices of the Poor study aimed to understand poverty from the perspective of poor people and to illuminate the human experience behind the poverty statistics.

The study establishes, first, that poverty is multidimensional and has important noneconomic dimensions; second, that poverty is always specific to a location and a social group, and awareness of these specifics is essential to the design of policies and programs intended to attack poverty; and third, that despite differences in the way poverty is experienced by different groups and in different places, there are striking commonalities in the experience of poverty in very different countries, from Russia to Brazil, Nigeria to Indonesia. Poor people's lives are characterized by powerlessness and voicelessness, which limit their choices and define the quality of their interactions with employers, markets, the state, and even nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Institutions both formal and informal mediate and limit poor people's access to opportunities.

These findings challenge all those committed to working for poverty reduction. The realities of poor people's lives must inform policymaking at macro as well as micro levels.

Multidimensional nature of poverty

When poor people speak about well-being, they speak about the material, social, physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions, in addition to security and the freedom of choice and action. In Ethiopia, an older woman said, "a better life for me is to be healthy and peaceful and to live in love without hunger." In Russia, "well-being is life free from daily worries about lack of money." A Brazilian said well-being is achieved "when there is cohesion, no quarrels, no hard feelings, happiness, peace with life." In Thailand, well-being was simply defined as "happiness: it is found in peace and harmony in the mind and in the community."

Conversely, poverty and ill-being are the lack of material well-being, insecurity, social isolation, psychological distress, and lack of freedom of choice and action. Not having enough to eat or possessing any assets to cope with shocks were mentioned over and over again. A poor woman in Egypt said, "a poor person is a person who does not own anything that provides him with a permanent source of living. If he has a permanent source of income, he will not ask for other people's assistance." With few exceptions, poor people reported that insecurity and unpredictability of life have increased in the past few years. In Russia, a poor man said, "every day I am afraid of the next." A poor woman in a favela (slum) in Brazil said, "there is no control over anything, at any hour a gun could go off, especially at night." Poor people also stated that, unlike the rich, they did not have the luxury of long-term planning horizons. As a poor woman in Bulgaria put it, "to...