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The article discusses the move by African countries to improve their welfare state schemes. Some governments have developed their social safety-nets to expand the number of people covered by their welfare programmes. The effect of welfare state schemes on poor Africans' expectations of their governments is discussed, as well as the challenge of removing the schemes in the future.

The article focuses on the financial services offered to the poor of developing countries. Financial services for poor people in developing countries--a business known as "microfinance"--have mostly been awful or absent. The poor have been hurt by massive market and regulatory failure. In recent years, at least in some parts of the world, this bleak picture has begun to change, first in credit, then in savings and more recently in remittances. A World Bank report by Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Soledad Martinez shows a correlation between lack of financial access and low incomes. A World Bank report by Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Soledad Martinez published last month shows a strong correlation between lack of financial access and low incomes. The poor attach great value to having a safe place to keep money and some means of providing for life's risks, either through savings or, better still, through insurance.

The article argues that the Indian government should replace the nation's welfare schemes with a universal basic income (UBI) single payment plan as of 2017, and it mentions how India offers subsidized food, fuel, and electricity to the country's poor residents. The impacts that artificial intelligence and automation are having on employment in places such as India are examined, along with India's economic conditions and the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), and bank accounts.

The article focuses on U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign aid program known as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). George W. Bush's flagship foreign-aid programme is under fire. Since 2002, when the president promised to set it up, the Millennium Challenge Corporation has found only four relatively small poor countries to give money to. Last week, the MCC's chief executive, Paul Applegarth, announced that he was quitting. The MCC is unloved by both left and right. A Republican-led House of Representatives sub-committee has just recommended nearly halving its budget, to $1.75 billion next year. American liberals suspect it is part of Bush's conspiracy to conservatise the world. And Europeans mock the MCC as slower, meaner and more ideological than their own aid programmes.

Discusses the attitude towards reforms related to the benefits of sick and poor in Great Britain. Rise in the spending on benefits for the sick and disabled in the past 20 years; Stance of Great Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair on welfare; Expectation that the Labor Party would vote against government proposals to reform disability benefits; Rise in the number of people claiming some sort of disability benefits; View that the government's principles are misplaced; Sensitivity of reform politicians; Advantages and handicap of the Labor government; Change in strategy.

Declares that U.S. President Bill Clinton has said he would sign away the federal guarantee of welfare to poor families that has existed since 1935. Reasons behind the welfare program; Information that poor Americans to get help only for limited periods; Impact of reforms on single mothers and children in the country who depend on the existing system; President's declaration that the existing system encourages a cycle of dependency; Argument on the political risk associated in the president's decision; Polls suggesting that most Americans dislike the welfare system.

The article discusses whether United States President George W. Bush means what he says about being a compassionate conservative. Back in 2000, Bush defined himself as a compassionate conservative. This was partly a matter of branding: he softened the image of his party by talking about spending more money on education and health. But compassionate conservatism was also presented as a new way to help the poor: its aim was to use public money and private donations to involve churches, temples and mosques in America's social policy. Yet compassionate conservatism has been inadequately financed, not supported by any real political commitment and representative of a huge gap between the president's rhetoric and practice. David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, argued in Beliefnet.com, a religious website, that Bush's "promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact."

The article focuses on the growth of homelessness in Vancouver, British Columbia. Most Vancouverites love it when, as frequently happens, their city gets rated as one of the nicest places in the world in which to live. But to its poorer residents such seals of approval can seem like a sick joke. The Downtown Eastside, a scene of battered and boarded-up buildings, is the most concentrated pocket of poverty and crime in Canada. Vancouver's homelessness rate, though lower per person than in some of British Columbia's other cities, has doubled in the past three years: in summer up to 1,800 people are sleeping rough or in shelters, according to a plan presented by the city council's homelessness coordinator. Most critics blame British Columbia's Liberal government for social-service cuts in its three-year drive to eliminate its deficit.

Reports on the success of welfare reform in the United States as of summer 2001. Importance of the social policy change encompassed by reform which has rekindled the nuclear family; Data on the economic success of reform; Challenges for America and Europe in the treatment of the poor.