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Poverty Alleviation : Cash Or Non Cash Assistance? Essay

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Poverty alleviation: cash or non-cash assistance?

Alleviating poverty has never been an easy task for both developed and developing countries. Alongside the debate of who are considered poor, the public has never come to a conclusion whether cash or non-cash assistance should be prioritized for poverty alleviation. This essay explores the benefits and challenges of both types of approaches. Additionally, the country context is also discussed to analyze how the level of countries’ economic development affects the effectiveness of any poverty alleviation programs.

Who are the poor?
According to the World Bank, the poor are those whose income is under the international poverty line, USD1.90/day. Aside from that statistical explanation, though, this essay focuses on the more interesting descriptive explanation of poverty. It explains that poverty should also be defined by the poor people’s lack of assets and difficulties of accesses including the access to high-paid employment, goods, and services which their livelihood is based upon (Ghosh, 2011). Poverty alleviation programs are mainly divided into cash and non-cash approaches which commonly aim to enhance poor societies’ capacity to increase their well-being, social security and stability. Even though both seem to have common objectives, their approaches for alleviating poverty are quite different.

Cash assistance: benefits and challenges
Cash assistance proponents believe that this type of program aims to alleviate

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