HRD as a Strategy to Fight Poverty

United Nations ESCAP
HRD Section

HRD as a Strategy to Fight Poverty

Developing Training Materials for Future Courses

Human resources development has long been neglected as an effective strategy to reduce poverty in Asia and the Pacific. It has been estimated that some 800 million people live below the poverty line in Asia and the Pacific. This situation is closely associated with the quality of human resources.

While rapid economic growth, based largely on investment in human resources, has helped to reduce the proportion of the poor in some parts of the region, particularly East and Southeast Asia, inadequate investment in human resources and related factors have sustained and in some cases actually increased the concentration of the poor in other parts, including sections of South and Central Asia.

With this in mind, ESCAP organized a Regional Training Seminar on Promoting HRD Services for the Poor in September 1995 in Manila. The seminar was organized in collaboration with the Manila-based Colombo Plan Staff College for Technician Education (CPSC). The objective of the seminar was to enhance the capabilities of government and NGO personnel in the planning and implementation of HRD programmes for the poor.

The seminar featured presentations by resource persons on successful rural poverty alleviation programmes in the region. It included field visits to community development projects in the Philippines, and presentations on poverty alleviation approaches of United Nations bodies and specialized agencies.

From the seminar, a set of training materials has been developed. It consists of two parts. The book "Showing the Way - Methodologies for Successful Rural Poverty Allevation Projects provides an overview of four types of strategies for successful rural poverty alleviation through HRD, which were distinguished at the seminar. The first type, planning and management strategies, includes the establishment of a lead agency, targeting of recipients, incorporation of project monitoring and evaluation, and securing of interagency coordination.

The second type, staff development, covers programme staff recruitment, training, organization and deployment. In the third type, local capacity-building, the development of local organizations and the social mobilization of potential programme recipients are considered. The fourth type deals with resource mobilization and generation. Here the funding of poverty alleviation programmes, income generation by beneficiaries and financial sustainability are dealt with.

In the second part of the series, the book "Making an Impact - Innovative HRD Approaches to Poverty Alleviation" deals with nine case studies on which these strategies have been based. This book discusses in detail the experiences of nine successful organizations in poverty alleviation. These include BRAC and BRDB in Bangladesh, Project Hope in China, a scheme from Papua New Guinea, two local-level projects in the Philippines, and Sarvodaya of Sri Lanka.

The books demonstrate that these HRD-based strategies for poverty alleviation can be carried out at different operational levels. They can be implemented at the community, project, programme and national levels, each addressing rural poverty in progressively inclusive ways. The materials will be used in future national training workshops on poverty alleviation through HRD in various countries in the region.

SEE OUR LIST OF HRD PUBLICATIONS FOR MAIL ORDER AND INFORMATION