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Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) , Quality Education is one of the 17 SDGs by United Nation, to ensure ensure inclusive and quality education for all community. It is a priority objective of 2030 Agenda Sustainable development can be applied in various educational contexts, formal and non-formal, and can also produce multiple benefits for the public. Through education, the community members will have a sense of equality when it comes to development. The Malaysian Ministry of Education have come out with the Malaysian Education Blueprint for both the primary schools and higher education and have incorporated SDG 4 in its strategic plan. This paper will discuss some of the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Education and also selected Foundations in achieving SDG 4. It has been shown that these initiatives do offer a positive impact to achieve Quality Education. This paper concluded that when children are offered the tools to develop to their fullest potential, they become productive adults and are ready to give back to their communities and break the cycle of poverty.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the whole world, affecting the econ-omy of many societies, increasing poverty and inequalities. The lockdown measures heavily affected vulnerable social groups, including persons affected by Hansen’s disease (PaHd) and their families. Stigma, late diagnosis and related disability make PaHd a population in a situation of vulnerability. Poor sanitary and socio-economic conditions, lower levels of education and food insecurity are risk markers for Hansen’s disease. Before COVID-19, PaHd were refused employment or lost their jobs due to physical impairment or discrimination. Job losses worldwide are hitting hardest on poor and vulnerable populations, therefore pushing millions of people to extreme poverty. Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, is only endemic in the poorest areas of the world. Although specific data regarding PaHd are scarce, we traced a parallel between the impact of the current pandemic on the labour market on various excluded and marginalized populations, such as persons with disabilities and PaHd. Our objective was to understand the current scenario and also to gather strategies and good practices to guarantee and promote the right to work as an instrument of inclusion and social advancement, to break the cycle of poverty for PaHd. © The author(s).

Poverty, poor housing and poor health are complexly interconnected in a cycle that has proven resistant to intervention by housing providers or policy makers. Research often focuses on the impacts of the physical housing defects, particularly upon rates of (physical) illness and disease. There has been comparatively little research into the ways in which housing services can underpin the generation of positive health and, especially, wellbeing. Drawing on qualitative data from 75 tenants in the social and private rented sectors, this paper describes the findings of a research project that tracked tenants’ experiences across their first year in a new tenancy in Greater Glasgow, Scotland. The project collected data on tenants’ perceptions of housing and housing service quality, financial coping and health and wellbeing, which was analysed using the principles of Realist Evaluation to elucidate impacts and causal pathways. Being able to establish a sense of home was key to tenants’ wellbeing. The home provided many tenants with a recuperative space in which to shelter from daily stressors and was a source of autonomy and social status. A sense of home was underpinned by aspects of the housing service, property quality and affordability which are potentially amenable to intervention by housing providers. These findings raise questions about the extent to which social housing providers and the private rental market in the UK are able to meet the needs of vulnerable tenants. They suggest that approaches to housing provision that go beyond providing a basic dwelling are needed to successfully intervene in the cycle of poverty, poor housing and poor health.

The present research used a field survey data of 2020 rice cropping season to determine yield gap by gender among rice farmers in North-Central Nigeria. A total of 376 farmers were drawn from a sampling frame through a multi-stage sampling technique and a structured questionnaire coupled interview schedule was used for information elicitation. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The empirical evidences showed that most of the farmers have negative attitudes towards risk and this owes to poor resource capital base, thus hinders cultivation of economic holdings. Besides, women farmers were more averse to risk than the men farmers which owes largely to gender discrimination and stereotype induced by culture and religion, thus hindered their access to and control over productive resources. Furthermore, neither gender nor risk attitudinal differentials have impact on the average yield of the farmers. However, it was established that yield gap was largely due to gender and risk attitudinal discriminations. Therefore, the study enjoins the farmers, especially the women folk to harness social capital viz. participation in co-operative association- pecuniary advantages, thus enable them to have access to and control over productive. In addition, the policymakers are advised to create an enabling agricultural environment for the women folk viz. gender budget mainstreaming, thus tackling women farmers’ susceptibility to the vicious cycle of poverty.

Este estudio tuvo como objetivo evaluar los efectos del Programa de Alimentación Escolar del Ecuador -PAE- en cuanto a eficiencia y efectividad. Para ello, se consideró variables relacionadas con el nivel de asistencia y sus determinantes así como la cantidad de inversión en contraste con el número de beneficiarios del programa. El intervalo temporal para este trabajo se ubicó en el periodo 2000-2013. Se realizó también un análisis de eficiencia de gasto social, siguiendo la línea de dos trabajos enfocados en la evaluación de este programa social donde se usó el método de Variable Instrumental. La fuente principal de los datos necesarios para realizar este trabajo fue la Encuesta de Condiciones de Vida de 2013-2014 (INEC, 2014). Dentro de los principales resultados se concluyó que el PAE, en el periodo estudiado no fue eficiente puesto que el número de beneficiarios no aumentó en la misma proporción que el presupuesto destinado para su financiamiento. En cuanto a la efecitividad, se demostró que sólo los niños que viven más alejados de la escuela y que por lo tanto tardan más tiempo en llegar, son los favorecidos por el programa por lo que el PAE no alcanzó resultados óptimos de efectividad. Esto evidenció la necesidad de restructurar el PAE en el sentido de focalizarlo hacia los más necesitados utilizando diversas variables socio-económicas. De esta manera, la política pública cumpliría con su objetivo y aportaría de forma más contundente a la reducción de la desnutrición infantil rompiendo el círculo vicioso de la pobreza.

How to break the vicious cycle of poverty and ecological degradation is widely concerned and discussed. In the poverty alleviation practices in China, ecological poverty alleviation (EPA) is regarded as an important way to synthesize the dual goals of poverty reduction and environmental protection and to achieve the win-win outcomes. Many Chinese researchers have fruitful research achievements on EPA yet they do not recognize that EPA is not a simple combination of various policies, but a complex system involving multiple policy instruments, governmental agencies, social forces, and agents. However, few studies abroad illustrate EPA in detail. They focus more on specific components of EPA such as payment for ecosystem services while overlooking the integral concept of EPA and practices from China. Based on field research in Guizhou Province, China, this paper proposes a framework of EPA with an effective multi-agent and co-government system, for demonstrating the concept and practice of EPA. With case analysis, we illustrate key elements in this system and their relationships, and how they play a vital role in pursuing win-win outcomes in environmental protection and poverty alleviation. The three dimensions of this EPA system have been discussed. The first is to strengthen the interaction among the agents. Many efforts should be made for establishing an efficient communication routine and a stable relationship among their interests. The second is to reinforce the connection between diverse elements in each policy subsystem, such as the systematization and coordination of the ecological industry development, the systematization of the links before, during, and after the relocation of ecological immigrants, etc. The third is to promote the interactions between the three subsystems, so that ecological enhancement, ecological compensation, and industrial development, and migration and relocation can promote each other, and ultimately promote the coordination of poverty alleviation and ecological protection in poverty-stricken areas. Thus, this paper analyzes how to establish the communication routine among the relevant agents of EPA, the interaction among the internal elements of the subsystems, and the relationship between the subsystems in series, trying to reveal the basic operating mechanism of the system.

Higher education increases the likelihood of a healthy and successful life. This study investigated the association between relative deprivation and aspiration for college education in adolescents in Japan. The data of the 2016 survey of the Longitudinal Survey of Newborns in the twenty-first Century, a nationwide birth cohort study following infants born in Japan in 2001, was analyzed (the participants were 15 years old; n = 17,662). Their relative deprivation at 12 years of age, that is, the Yitzhaki index using the same municipality as the reference group, was derived from another national survey. Three-level multilevel logistic regression with random intercepts (level 1: individual; level 2: municipality; level 3: prefecture) was modeled to investigate the association between the Yitzhaki index and having an aspiration for college education, adjusting for gender, parents' educational attainment, absolute household income, perceived social support, and the size of the city of residence. Sixty-six percent of adolescents had an aspiration for a college education. A higher Yitzhaki index was significantly positively associated with having aspirations for college education after adjusting for all covariates (odds ratio: 1.18 per interquartile range-change scale; 95% confidence interval: 1.09, 1.28). The positive influence of relative deprivation was more substantial in adolescents with higher household income. The findings suggest that relative deprivation could motivate adolescents' educational aspirations, but it was more prominent among those with high income. Policies that support adolescents under poverty by converting their aspiration into higher educational achievement are required to break the cycle of poverty.

Based on primary data collected from the households of Dangs district in South Gujarat, India, the paper shows that every year a third of young adults migrate to Surat district and neighbouring areas for half a year to work as sugarcane harvesters. The data show that they live in temporary shelters in harsh conditions with bare minimum necessities and amenities. A large share of their earnings, much lower than the minimum wage rate for agricultural labour, is used to pay the labour contractors who provide cash advances during the lean post-monsoon months. Paying back the principal amount with hefty interest on it traps generations of migrant workers in the vicious cycle of poverty and indebtedness.

University education enables people to have better socio-economic return, engage in critical reflection of political affairs, social practices, and inequalities which subsequently strengthens democracy. The educational opportunities for disadvantaged people help them to break the vicious cycle of poverty, marginalization, and discrimination by enabling them to improve the social and economic status. The Government of Nepal has enacted the National Higher Education (HE) Policy, but it lags ensuring equitable opportunities for the marginalized community, particularly the Dalit community. Despite the constitutional commitment to provide equitable opportunities for educational development, Dalits who comprise above 13% population have been facing multitudes of exclusion in HE opportunities. Venanzi’s social exclusion perspective has been used to analyze the underrepresentation of Dalits in HE. The ethnocentrism-historically developed ethnic perspective manifested by the National Code of Conduct of Nepal in 1854; the discursive formation-micro-stories that explained the derogatory origin of Dalits and the hegemonic discourse-subtle form of power perpetrated by non-Dalit in system implementation curtail Dalit’s equitable participation in HE. Consequently, Dalits fail to move upward to the socioeconomic status which has impacted the overall development of the country. Mass advocacy and awareness campaign to deconstruct hierarchy-based caste system, data/evidence-based gender and social inclusion policy, increased participation of Dalits in decision-making positions, exploration of caste-related issues through periodic academic research and enactment of subsequent actions, inclusion of Dalit-related issues in HE curriculum, and arranging alternative education for geographically excluded Dalit community may enable Dalits to get HE. Key words: Equity, higher education, social exclusion, historicity, Dalit.

Objectives Emergency contraception (EC) is the only noninvasive form of contraception available after risk exposure and is an important tool for preventing unintended pregnancy resulting from unprotected sex, sexual assault, or contraceptive failure. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed age restrictions on levonorgestrel EC and made it available over-the-counter to everyone in 2013. Despite improved availability and accessibility since the change in FDA regulations, community pharmacies have not uniformly embraced the policy. West Virginia is a rural state with high rates of poverty and teen pregnancy. Design The investigators called community pharmacies in West Virginia to assess the availability and accessibility of levonorgestrel EC in addition to the pharmacy staff’s knowledge of effectiveness for this cross-sectional study. Setting and participants The study sample consisted of 509 community pharmacies throughout the state. Outcome measures A structured script was employed to conduct phone calls to community pharmacies with items assessing availability, accessibility, and knowledge of effectiveness. Results At the time of the phone calls, levonorgestrel EC was reported to be available in 48.9% of the community pharmacies in West Virginia. Chain pharmacies were more likely to report EC as being in stock (0.76) than independent pharmacies (0.15.). Other measures of accessibility also favored chain pharmacies versus independent pharmacies. The overall accessibility of EC at West Virginia community pharmacies was derived from a binary composite variable of “completely accessible” or “not completely accessible” by combining 5 predetermined items. Overall, EC was completely accessible to callers in 0.27 of all pharmacies with significant differences by pharmacy type (0.47 of chain pharmacies as compared with 0.03 of independent pharmacies). Conclusion Accessible EC could reduce unintended pregnancy and help break the state’s generational cycle of poverty and poor educational, social, and health outcomes. Pharmacists will be instrumental in expanding access to EC.

Purpose: The study investigated the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on poverty and if education enhanced the influence of ICT in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Design/Approach/Methodology: Fixed effects, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) were used with data ranging from 1994 to 2015. Findings: ICT was found to have alleviated poverty only under the fixed effects approach whilst education had a reduction effect on poverty across all the three econometric estimation techniques used. Although not statistically significant, ICT and the interaction term were found to have reduced poverty under both the pooled OLS and FMOLS. Moreover, consistent with others education was found to be important in enhancing the impact of ICT on poverty alleviation under the fixed effects in BRICS nations. Practical Implication: BRICS nations are therefore urged to invest more in strengthening education and ICT systems in order to disentangle the people from the vicious cycle of poverty. Originality/Value: The study is unique because to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first paper to explore the effect of the complementarity between ICT and education on poverty alleviation. The paper is also unique in the sense that it considered the dynamic characteristics of poverty data, commonly referred to as the vicious cycle of poverty.

The footbridges in rural areas have been crucial as the only mean to overcome the rural isolation and allow breaking the cycle of poverty by providing access to such development facilities like education opportunities, markets, medical clinics and other basic services. In Rwanda, under collaboration with Engineers without Borders from German, and International Non-Government Organization Bridge to Prosperity (B2P, some footbridges are already built. In line with the agreement with B2P around 355 bridges are also planned in 5 years. The key challenge is to optimally allocate resources in order to maintain this number of bridges, especially under the current financial constraints. The purpose of this paper was to investigate and propose a pedestrian footbridge management system for Rwanda (PFBMS) which should allow the efficient bridge management, through the analysis of condition data, determination of the ranking and priority of bridge maintenance activities, as well as evaluation of the alternatives of preservation or replacement. The methodology comprises of the use of interview and discussions with district engineers in charge of bridge management, local community using the constructed footbridges as well as bridge builders from B2P. Microsoft Excel analysis tool has been used to developing the deterioration model, and therefore the PFBM was proposed. It is concluded that this system can accurately predict optimal maintenance planning as well as bridge rating.

Lack of public awareness of the importance of education makes many families caught in the vicious cycle of poverty which will ultimately affect the health sector, especially health reproduction. This research aimed to find out the depth information on the Internalisation of Understanding of Poor People Reproduction Health. This study uses a qualitative design with the research type of case study. The informants of this study are key informants (Health Officers), ordinary (the poor people), and the supporters (head of RW, Health Cadre). The data collection was conducted through observation, interview, and documentation. The data were then analyzed by triangulation analysis. The results showed that there is still a lack of knowledge on reproductive health in most of the poor people due to ineffective socialization activities conducted by parties related to the poor is still less so that the acceptance of society's poor reproductive health is still very limited. It is suggested that the increase of knowledge on the poor by regularly counseling on the poor by involving the role of parents, family, a community of peers. All poor people should find information on the health workers and people around them. The health workers further improve program promotion and education through reproductive health education.

Objectives Arkansas has the highest incidence of teen pregnancy in 15- to 19-year-olds in the United States, and Latinas remain one of the cultural groups that are most at risk of becoming adolescent mothers. Teen mothers and their children are more likely to face poor socioeconomic conditions and negative health sequelae that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Tailored interventions meant for families, communities, and/or churches should address both abstinence and other types of contraception to educate young people how to stay healthy, prevent unwanted pregnancy, and empower them to make informed decisions. To develop effective educational interventions, it is essential to understand the current knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes toward teen pregnancy among Latino parents in Arkansas. Methods Adult Latino parents were surveyed at two clinical sites, one church and one school in Little Rock between January 16, 2019 and February 23, 2019. The survey instrument was conducted in Spanish and included questions on demographics, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about teenage pregnancy. Response frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistics were calculated for the dataset. Results A total of 181 individuals completed the survey. Participants almost unanimously agreed with the statement that it is important to talk about sex with their children for their sexual health development. Nearly all respondents, 96.1%, believe that it is important to prevent teenage pregnancy. Most respondents agreed that they speak with their sons and daughters differently on the topic of sexual health. In our sample, only 17.8% of parents believed that abstinence-only education should be the primary focus of reproductive health education. "My family values" was most frequently cited as the predominant factor in shaping participants' beliefs about teen pregnancy, followed by a desire for their child to attend college or be economically stable before having a child. Conclusions Our findings indicate that based on attitudes toward sexual health, interventions should be tailored to certain groups based on children's sex and age and to parents who had children as teens themselves. Educational materials should emphasize the strengths of Latino culture, such as family values and desire for children to attain a college degree and economic stability before bearing children.

This paper contributes to the debate on the link between poverty and artisanal and small‐scale mining (ASM) – low‐tech, labour‐intensive mineral extraction and processing – in sub‐Saharan Africa. It specifically seeks to advance discussion on the idea that throughout the region, the sector’s operators are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty. Drawing upon ongoing research being conducted on marginalized women engaged in ASM in Ghana, an attempt is made to further nuance the ‘poverty trap‐ASM’ narrative. In the context of sub‐Saharan Africa, debates on this issue should focus on the challenges faced by marginalized groups such as women, in particular how their growing dependence upon monies earned from the sector for their livelihoods has increased their vulnerability.

It has been argued that one dimension of the cycle of poverty is that poverty is a state of chronic stress and that chronic stress impairs decision-making. These poor decisions, made under chronic stress, might include carrying high-interest loans, failure to buy health insurance, gambling or drug use. As such, these decisions can contribute to the cycle of poverty. More specifically, a few studies suggest that increased stress may lead to more risk-aversion and steeper delay-discounting. While the deleterious effects of chronic stress on brain function are well established, much less is known about how chronic stress influences financial decision making specifically. Here, in a longitudinal design within six weeks period we aimed to incorporate biological mechanisms to improve our understanding of how stress influences economic decisions. We used a combination of decision-making tasks, questionnaires, saliva and hair samples within-subject (N=41). We assessed time and risk preferences using hierarchical Bayesian techniques to both pool data and allow heterogeneity in decision making and compared those to cortisol levels and self-reported stress. We found only weak links between endogenous variation in stress and model-based estimates of risk and time preferences. In particular, we found that fluctuations in the stress level measured via hair sample were not only positively correlated with time preferences in the short delay task and risk preferences, but also the decision noise in the risk task. However, relationships for the risk task disappeared when an outlier was removed. Also, we found model-free task measures in the short delay task to be moderately related to both hair cortisol as well as the stressful life events questionnaire measure. For example, we observed that endogenous stress fluctuations and the life change units were negatively correlated with the proportion of later choices. Finally, we established that for the reaction times the curvilinear relationship was preferred to the linear one for those with increase in biological stress level compared to the baseline: when cortisol level increased slightly, participants decided slower, but when stress increased to higher levels, they decided quicker.

Poverty is a decisive risk factor for poor health and well-being, and its negative consequences could be more severe and substantial among children. Understanding the factors associated with improvement in well-being is vital to design interventions. This is a prospective cohort study of 546 youth growing up in families in poverty in Hong Kong. All participants were assessed twice, in 2016 and 2019, in regard to their physical and mental health, as well as for different economic, social, and psychological variables. The results show that approximately 41% experienced an improvement in their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Findings from the logistic regression analyses suggest that the health and development of youth in poverty may be restored by promoting social support, a sense of hope, future orientation, job stability, and money management practices, such as savings, during childhood and adolescence. The findings shed light on future policy making and forms of service development that could help to end the vicious cycle of poverty and hampered health.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, food is considered a basic physiological need and higher-ordered needs can only be achieved if the basic needs are met. In the education context, for learners to concentrate on learning and for educational institutions to achieve high-quality learning, learners’ physiological needs i.e. food and water must be met before delivering teaching and learning activities. Therefore, different countries introduced ‘Food for Education’ in a form of ‘School Feeding Programme’ and ‘Food For schooling Programme’ to achieve quality education and to redistribute food to poor families. While both programmes might have advantages, this essay argues that a ‘School Feeding Programme’, that practises ‘Onsite Feeding’ can achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4, i.e. quality equitable life long learning for all learners. Conversely, a ‘Food for School Programme’ can increase enrolment of both boys and girls, however, it might fail to achieve quality learning and, furthermore, can develop a dependency mentality. Moreover, food delivered as aid is often used to pursue donors’ interests so recipient countries should be monitored, to ensure such aid is carefully directed to priority areas to achieve maximum benefit. Failure can result in recipient countries facing unintended consequences. This essay concludes that the School Feeding Programme should be used for achieving quality learning and to avoid unintended consequences and break the cycle of poverty faced by the underprivileged.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. However, it is still a developing country which is trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. Nobel Laureater Professor Mohammad Yunus introduced the concept of Grameen Bank which focuses on providing small loans to poor people especially women in the rural areas of Bangladesh. Due to the huge success of Grameen Bank more micro finance institutions are replicating this model and hence more poor people are relying on this kind of projects. Therefore, it is important to know how sustainable Grameen Bank is and its true impact on social development and women empowerment. We have tried to assess the performance of Grameen Bank through different variables such as number of members, total deposits, loan to deposit ratio, capital adequacy ratio, scholarship schemes, beggars’ loan, house loan, micro enterprise loan, net income etc. For evaluating the performance of Grameen Bank 26 different trend equations and square of correlation coefficients have been tested with its different types of activities. The square of the correlation coefficient has also been calculated for all trend equations, out of which 21 shows r square is closer or more than 0.5 meaning well fitted trend lines. With the positive trend equations in most of the aspects this study proves that Grameen Bank has a better scope to grow in the future which will support the social and economic status of rural poor, particularly women.

We explore whether early childhood human-capital investments are complementary to those made later in life. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts who were differentially exposed to policy-induced changes in pre-school (Head Start) spending and school-finance-reform-induced changes in public K12 school spending during childhood, depending on place and year of birth. Difference-in-difference instrumental variables and sibling- difference estimates indicate that, for poor children, increases in Head Start spending and increases in public K12 spending each individually increased educational attainment and earnings, and reduced the likelihood of both poverty and incarceration in adulthood. The benefits of Head Start spending were larger when followed by access to better-funded public K12 schools, and the increases in K12 spending were more efficacious for poor children who were exposed to higher levels of Head Start spending during their preschool years. The findings suggest that early investments in the skills of disadvantaged children that are followed by sustained educational investments over time can effectively break the cycle of poverty.

The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a statistical relationshipbetween land degradation, poverty, and the PRODUZIR program in the municipalitiesof Goias state, Brazil. Based on the understanding of this relationship, knowledge ofthe factors that may cause and feedback into the cycle of poverty can be gained.Thus, interventions can be proposed to minimize the negative impacts on theenvironment. The estimated results of the logit model show that the municipalitieswith a high Gini index have on average a higher probability of having incidence ofland degradation compared to other municipalities in the state, i.e., in Goias state,income inequality suggests greater land degradation. However, municipalities inGoias that use tax incentives through the PRODUZIR program have on average alower probability of experiencing land degradation compared to other municipalitiesthat do not use this program.

Poverty is one manifestation of inequality: it is often a consequence of an unequal distribution of social resources, especially in urban settings. The lack of resources can impact people's quality of life and provoke a spiral that reinforces the cycle of poverty. The concept of resilience can be a useful framework for understanding a person's positive adaptations to urban poverty's environmental stressors. This paper seeks to comprehensively understand how urban poverty influences the social functioning and well-being of individuals in urban areas. We conducted a systematic review to identify the risk factors that limit or increase vulnerability and the resilient responses that promote development and psychological functioning among those experiencing urban poverty. We explore how resilience can help overcome the vulnerabilities urban poverty creates and identify the coping strategies some families experiencing urban poverty use. We encourage researchers and practitioners to take a strengths-based approach to understanding individuals' resilient responses and community involvement as they socially adapt to unequal conditions in diverse and myriad ways.

We explore the impacts of Malawi's national unconditional cash transfer program targeting ultra-poor households on youth mental health. Experimental findings show that the program significantly improved mental health outcomes. Among girls in particular, the program reduces indications of depression by about 15 percentage points. We investigate the contribution of different possible pathways to the overall program impact, including education, health, consumption, caregiver's stress levels and life satisfaction, perceived social support, and participation in hard and unpleasant work. The pathways explain from 46 to 65 percent of the program impact, advancing our understanding of how economic interventions can affect mental health of youth in resource-poor settings. The findings underline that unconditional cash grants, which are used on an increasingly large scale as part of national social protection systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, have the potential to improve youth mental wellbeing and thus may help break the vicious cycle of poverty and poor mental health.

Background: Heart failure (HF), which is an emerging public health issue, adversely affects the strained health system in India. The adverse impact of HF on the economic well-being has been narrated in various anecdotal reports from India, with affected individuals and their dependents pushed into the vicious cycle of poverty. There is limited research quantifying how HF impacts the economic well-being of households from low- and middle-income countries. Methods: We describe the methods of a detailed economic impact assessment of HF at the household level in India. The study will be initiated across 20 hospitals in India, which are part of the National heart Failure Registry (NHFR). The selected centres represent different regions in India, stratified based on the prevailing stages of epidemiological transition levels (ETLs). We will collect data from 1800 patients with acute decompensated HF and within 6-15 months follow-up from the time of initial admission. The data that we intend to collect will consist of a) household healthcare expenditure including out-of-pocket expenditure, b) financing mechanisms used by households and (c) the impoverishing effects of health expenditures including distress financing and catastrophic health expenditure. Trained staff at each centre will collect data by using a validated and structured interview schedule. The study will have 80% power to detect an 8% difference in the proportion of households experiencing catastrophic health expenditures between two ETL groups. After considering a non-response rate of 5%, the target sample size is approximately 600 patients from each group and the total sample size is 1800 patients. Potential Impact: Our study will provide information on catastrophic health spending, distress financing and household expenditure in heart failure patients. Our findings will help policy makers in understanding the micro-economic impact of HF in India and aid in allocation of appropriate resources for prevention and control of HF.

It is widely recognized that the vast wealth of Australia’s First Nations was destroyed through dispossession of their lands. Since then, treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under settler colonialism has been such that, except to a limited extent, it has been quite impossible for Indigenous peoples to achieve socioeconomic equality or justice. Drawing on theories of “settler common sense” that seek to address how the “concrete effects” of settler governance get renewed and recreated, this chapter analyzes how dominant mainstream media representations of Indigenous people in Australia help to perpetuate a cycle of poverty. It presents research that shows governments and journalists regularly report on indicators of Indigenous disadvantage, including mortality and incarceration rates and inadequate health, housing, education and employment. However, they rarely refer directly to poverty or its causes. Instead, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are routinely framed as not part of the “real economy,” viewed through the prism of “welfare dependency” or the “myth of privilege” that they get special economic benefits. Ultimately, the chapter argues that such news representations of poverty as a socially irresponsible choice are a powerful form of colonial control in Indigenous lives.

The present study exhibits a critical outlook on the poverty and livelihood vulnerability of the fisherman community in the context of persistent water pollution of the Churni River. The logistic regression model has identified eight factors influencing the poverty of the study area while the entropy weight method identifies the livelihood vulnerability of the fishermen. The livelihood vulnerability index of the upper stretch of the river is higher (0.65-0.67) compared to that of the lower stretch (0.46-0.57). The typical spatiality in poverty and livelihood vulnerability is triggered by the fragility of fishing livelihoods in the wake of lower concentrations of dissolved oxygen (DO), and higher BOD, COD, ammonia, nitrate and phosphate mainly due to industrial water pollution. For example, average DO ranges from 1.65 mg/l (upper stretch) to 2.50 mg/l (lower stretch) while the average BOD ranges from 5.44 mg/l (lower stretch) to 9.42 mg/l (upper stretch). This pollution induces acute ecological stress concerning declining fish diversity (from 41 to 16 fish species at the upper stretch and 41 to 23 fish species at the lower stretch during 1980-2018) as well as productivity of the existing fish species. Therefore, paralysed fishing economy and high dependency of the fishermen on the Churni River have forced them to revolve into the vicious cycle of poverty and enduring fragile livelihoods. Thus, the fishermen adopt few coping strategies like access to the nearby wetland for fishing, diversity in earning strategy and environmental movements against pollution to reduce the intensity of vulnerability. The present study would help the regional planners to frame the participatory plans for the sustainability of the riverine ecology and economy.

Illness and poverty have been identified to be mutually influential, thereby forming a vicious cycle. Cutting off this vicious circle will be of great significance in the long-term planning of rural poverty reduction. Most of the existing studies have been conducted in proposing medical policies. Thus, these policies neglect the ability of the poor themselves. In oasis agricultural areas, the land is the critical resource, and improving land-use efficiency has been proposed as the key entry point for breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and illness. This article summarizes the success achieved in fighting health-related poverty in South Xinjiang, China, which can be attributed to a three-pronged approach that addresses the construction of the living, production, and ecological spaces. (1) Construction of the living space should be the first step in breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and illness since it can improve the medical and basic living infrastructure. (2) Construction of the production space is critical for breaking the vicious cycle since it can directly increase the income of the poor. Specifically, the profit can be improved by increasing crop yields, developing animal husbandry, and participating in land circulation and rural cooperatives. Additionally, the construction of township enterprises can provide employment to the poor. (3) In regard to the construction of the ecological space, preventing and controlling desertification, as well as renovating the village environment, is essential for providing a good living environment that is conducive to the improvement of physical fitness. Constructing the multi-spaces of “living–production–ecological” has important implications in terms of transforming the vicious cycle into a virtuous one, which is crucial for designing national poverty reduction policies.

La AUH (Asignación Universal por Hijo), en su diseño y estructura, constituye un mecanismo igualador de oportunidades, ya que no sólo garantiza el estipendio de dinero en sectores vulnerables intentando romper el ciclo de transmisión de la pobreza; sino que procura mejorar la calidad de vida de los beneficiarios en materia de salud, con los controles sanitarios correspondientes, y de educación. Pero cuando se traslada la AUH a un contexto de encierro, se denotan vacíos en el diseño y discrecionalidad administrativa en su otorgamiento e instrumentalización, que impiden el efectivo acceso de los destinatarios al programa en algunas regiones o limitan los efectos pretendidos por dicho programa en otras regiones subnacionales, donde los sujetos beneficiarios pueden gozar del acceso. Es por ello que en este trabajo de diseño cualitativo con recolección de información jurisdiccional, doctrinal, normativa y empírica, a través de observación participante y entrevistas semi-estructuradas, se pretende contestar los siguientes interrogantes: ¿Cuáles son las principales problemáticas que este contexto plantea para este programa?; ¿Se debería cualificar un régimen diferencial para este supuesto?. The UAC (Universal allocation per child), within its design and structure, constitutes an equalizing mechanism of possibilities, as it not only guarantees the stipend of money for vulnerable sectors by trying to break the cycle of poverty transmission, but seeks to improve the quality of life for the beneficiaries in health, with the corresponding sanitary controls, and education. However, when UAC is taken to a context of confinement, gaps are denoted in the design and administrative discretion of grant and instrumentalization, which impede the effective access of the recipients to the program in some regions or limit the effects intended by it in other subnational regions where the beneficiary subjects may enjoy access. That is why in this qualitative design work with a collection of jurisdictional, doctrinal, normative and empirical information, through participant observation and semi-structured interviews, which intends to answer the following questions: What are the main issues which this context poses for the program? Should a differential regime be qualified for this scenario?. Fil: Rezzoagli, Luciano Carlos. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales del Litoral. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales del Litoral; Argentina Fil: Mallo, Carla. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales. Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales; Argentina

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) trap individuals in a cycle of poverty through their devastating effects on health, wellbeing and social–economic capabilities that extend to other axes of inequity such as gender and/or ethnicity. Despite NTDs being regarded as equity tracers, little attention has been paid toward gender dynamics and relationships for gender-equitable access to NTD programs in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper examines the impact of NTDs on women’s health and wellbeing in SSA using Kenya as a case study. This research is part of a larger research program designed to examine the impact of NTDs on the health and wellbeing of populations in Kenya. Thematic analysis of key informants’ interviews (n = 21) and focus groups (n = 5) reveals first that NTDs disproportionately affect women and girls due to their assigned gender roles and responsibilities. Second, women face financial and time constraints when accessing health care due to diminished economic power and autonomy. Third, women suffer more from the related social consequences of NTDs (that is, stigma, discrimination and/or abandonment), which affects their health-seeking behavior. As such, we strongly suggest a gender lens when addressing NTD specific exposure, socio-economic inequities, and other gender dynamics that may hinder the successful delivery of NTD programs at the local and national levels.

As a result of its history, South Africa faces many structural issues, the most common of which is unemployment, which reinforces issues related to poverty and social and economic inequality within its borders. Organisations such as the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) provide a method of solving for this by convening a network of intermediaries who believe in their vision; to propel entrepreneurship in emerging markets to eradicate poverty. Organisations based in South Africa who are part of the ANDE network, share this sentiment and believe their contribution will be more impactful through collaborative methods that help entrepreneurs reach their highest potential. This chapter includes insights from four of these member organisations, namely Riversands Incubation Hub, Property Point, the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation and Impact Hub Joburg. All organisations work to foster entrepreneurship. However, their interventions challenge ‘standard’ methods of business development, particularly because they place the entrepreneurs they support at the centre of their programme design. As this chapter demonstrates, there is no single way to foster entrepreneurship and break the cycle of poverty; however, interventions cannot be successful without truly placing the entrepreneur at the centre.

OBJECTIVE: Youth homelessness is a poorly-understood and complex social phenomenon. In this paper, the authors address the risk factors for homelessness among transition-aged young adults and underscore the unique mental health concerns that so often perpetuate the cycle of poverty and housing instability among these high-risk youths. The authors also discuss the gaps that exist in mental health treatment and identify potential solutions to addressing the existing barriers to care. METHODS: A review of the existing literature was conducted to evaluate the existing research on youth homelessness. RESULTS: Previous studies have demonstrated high rates of trauma and subsequent mental health problems in this population. Intervention studies are challenging to conduct and often have high attrition rates. The authors’ work suggests that homeless youths desire mental health services, and are especially enthusiastic about programs that address interpersonal difficulties and emotion regulation. Clinical outcome data suggest that future interventions should address trauma more directly in this population. Technology-based interventions are one potential avenue by which these needs can be addressed, and through which access to care can be maximized among homeless youths. CONCLUSIONS: Because youths strongly prefer technology-based platforms, the authors conclude that future research should integrate these platforms to better address the mental health needs identified as most salient by homeless youths. Proposed policy changes at local, state, and federal levels designed to better facilitate the uptake of this proposed strategy are discussed as well.

There are several books on unmarried mother in Japan. Of these, 12 were analysed because they met the following non-fiction criteria: ‘Japanese women’s case in Japan’, ‘personal experience or report instead of how-to or support guide’, ‘printed book (hardcopy)’, and ‘non-comic book’. These publications were categorised into the following themes: ‘unmarried mothers’ dependence on the adult entertainment business for livelihood’, ‘cycle of poverty’, ‘types of births outside of legal marriages’, ‘opposition to discrimination against children of extramarital relationships’, and ‘moving beyond existing frameworks’. It is logical to assume that first-hand reports have limited the effect on readers’ decision to become unmarried mothers themselves because those books describe the misery of unwed mothers or the stories of women whose lives are unconventional. Indeed, one can rationally expect a greater likelihood that people are influenced by the lifestyle choices of those around them rather than books.

Micronutrients, often referred to as vitamins and minerals are vital to healthy development, disease prevention, and wellbeing. Although only required in small amounts, micronutrients are not produced in the body and must be derived from the diet. Commonly cited micronutrients include Iron, Vitamins A, B, D, Iodine, and Zinc. Malnutrition in micronutrients tends to trap populations in a vicious cycle of poverty, causing adults to be less productive and preventing children from reaching their full potential, and exacerbating household poverty in general. Addressing the problem of micronutrient malnutrition, therefore, provides substantial benefits to the cause of development (Ara et al. 2019). The fortification of staple food items including rice to deliver vital micronutrients offers a unique opportunity to target the vulnerable populace – mostly women, young children and female adolescents – at a low cost, and importantly, without forcing a change in dietary habits.2 Although considerable investments are currently being made to improve micronutrient nutrition outcomes around the world, such efforts generally take time to provide results.

The study investigates the effect of mining on both poverty and income inequality in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) using econometric estimation methods with panel data spanning from 2009 to 2019. Another objective of this paper was to determine if the complementarity between mining and infrastructural development reduced poverty and or income inequality in CEECs. What triggered the study is the failure of the existing literature to have a common ground regarding the impact of mining on poverty and or income inequality. The existing literaturę on the subject matter is contradictory, mixed, and divergent; hence, it paves the way for further empirical tests. The study confirmed that the vicious cycle of poverty is relevant in CEECs. According to the dynamic generalized methods of moments (GMM), mining had a significant poverty reduction influence in CEECs. The dynamic GMM and random effects revealed that the complementarity between mining and infrastructural development also enhanced poverty reduction in CEECs. Random effects and pooled OLS shows that mining significantly reduced income inequality in CEECs. However, random effects and the dynamic GMM results indicate that income inequality was significantly reduced by the complementarity between mining and infrastructural development. The authorities in CEECs are therefore urged to implement mining growth and infrastructural development-oriented policies in order to successfully fight off the twin challenges of poverty and income inequality. Artykuł prezentuje wyniki badania wpływu górnictwa zarówno na ubóstwo, jak i na nierówności dochodowe w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej, przy użyciu metod estymacji ekonometrycznej z wykorzystaniem danych panelowych z lat 2009–2019. Drugim celem tego artykułu było ustalenie, czy komplementarność górnictwa i rozwoju infrastruktury zmniejsza ubóstwo lub nierówności dochodowe w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. Impulsem do podjęcia badań był brak w istniejącej literaturze przedmiotu wspólnego stanowiska w kwestii wpływu górnictwa na ubóstwo i nierówności dochodowe. Istniejąca literatura na ten temat jest sprzeczna, niejednoznaczna i rozbieżna, dlatego też otwiera drogę do dalszych badań empirycznych. Badanie potwierdziło, że błędne koło ubóstwa występuje w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. Zgodnie z dynamicznymi uogólnionymi metodami momentów (GMM), górnictwo miało znaczący wpływ na redukcję ubóstwa w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. Dynamiczna metoda momentów GMM i efektów losowych ujawniły, że komplementarność górnictwa i rozwoju infrastruktury również przyczyniła się do zmniejszenia ubóstwa w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. Metoda efektów losowych i metoda pooled OLS pokazują, że górnictwo znacząco zmniejszyło nierówności dochodowe w krajach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. Jednak wyniki uzyskane przy zastosowaniu metody efektów losowych i dynamicznej metody GMM wskazują, że nierówności dochodowe zostały znacznie zmniejszone dzięki komplementarności górnictwa i rozwoju infrastruktury. W związku z tym zachęca się władze krajów Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej do wdrażania polityk ukierunkowanych na rozwój górnictwa i rozwój infrastruktury, aby skutecznie walczyć z podwójnymi wyzwaniami związanymi z ubóstwem i nierównościami dochodowymi.

IA is the Government of British Columbia’s largest income assistance program, with an annual cost of just over $2B and reaching more than 8% of households. It is a program that is very complex to access and has complex eligibility rules and design features. It is also associated with a large amount of stigma and does not foster the financial stability and financial security of its clients. IA is also a poor tool to support those who engage in vital unpaid work (e.g., child care; caregiving for ill, disabled, or elderly family members; volunteering), not only because of the stigma associated with the program but also because the benefit levels are inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to put the IA program through the lens of BI principles to recommend reforms that would move IA closer to BI principles and away from being a “funder of last resort.” Taken together, reforms based on BI principles should make IA a more inclusive program that recognizes the worth of all people. These reforms will also help reduce income poverty rates and poverty depths, preventing poverty, and help those caught in or about to be caught in a poverty trap.

A 2500-year history of invasion, conquest, and resistance has left Afghanistan ethnically diverse and culturally rich. And yet, this storied history has bequeathed to the nation’s people a legacy of political fragmentation, economic impoverishment, and in recent times, even some international isolation. The last 40 years of relentless conflict, encompassing two superpower invasions and decades of a smoldering civil war, have placed entire generations of Afghans at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder and have pushed the nation into a cycle of poverty, reduced educational opportunity, and violence. It is the contention of this paper that several academic concepts–the neuroscience principle of propinquity, the scholarly disciplines of behavioral economics and game theory, and the blockchain technology promoted by “Satoshi Nakamoto”—can be woven together into a practical application to create business partnerships, jobs, and an entrepreneurial middle class for Afghanistan, thereby decreasing poverty and the fallout of crime and violence significantly. Based on these principles, a genuinely non-exploitative partnership structure can be built between United States and Afghan interests. The central role of military can be replaced by private sector players, to achieve through human security what could not be achieved through kinetic force. In such a diverse culture, and amidst the difficulties of Afghanistan’s geographical and topographical scenario, military dominance in Afghanistan has always failed, for thousands of years. Yet, that never would have been the true solution anyway. It seldom is. Afghanistan may utilize its vast mineral wealth as a starting place for trade, human security and national security, assisted but unexploited. And done in partnerships rather than as suppliers, they may then begin to extract the wealth of its human resources and find its future as a contributing and secure world citizen. The discussion below will sketch a broad outline of a possible path forward, employing twenty-first century innovative business structure to solve for the underlying long-standing impediments to security and prosperity. Like gravity, applications of these principles are true whenever humans compete for value or security. Anywhere self-interests have vetoed the common good, to the ultimate demise of both, these principles and guidelines that follow will prove useful for building the hope of a nation.

The Invisible Hurdles project is an integrated justice project of four partner organizations the project leader is the Hume Riverina Community Legal Service (HRCLS) a program of Upper Murray Family Care and this research was funded through them by the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioners grants program. The other three partners in this multidisciplinary and Health Justice Partnership are : Albury Wodonga Aboriginal Health Service (AWAHS) – this is an Aboriginal Community Controlled organization; North East Support and Action for Youth (NESAY) is a leading agency supporting young people and their families in North East Victoria, servicing a vast region of seven municipalities; The Wodonga Flexible Learning Centre (WFLC) – this is a campus of the Wodonga Senior Secondary College - an alternative education center was established in 2014. The project is run in the Hume Riverina region of Victoria and New South Wales focusing on ‘at risk’ young people. Numerous hurdles get in the way of young people receiving legal assistance, particularly where they face disadvantage in other forms such as poverty, family violence, drug or alcohol issues and insecure housing. Research, including from the first iteration of the project shows that young people are reluctant to trust legal professionals and to seek help, relying instead on family and friends’ advice or failing to address their legal problems at all. Pamela Taylor-Barnett (Hon. Lecturer)and Dr Liz Curran (Hon. Assoc Prof.) (in their Honorary capacities (pro bono at ANU) through ANU were commissioned to conduct and produce this Second Stage Research and Evaluation in July 2019 having done the initial study over three years for Stage One which was completed on 14 June 2021 The first report (also on SSRN) recommendations from Stage One led to the further funding of Stage Two (and expanded service project from Stage 1 to include greater focus on community development and systemic work) and they were retained again to build on the longitudinal nature of the research. Findings and conclusions based on the data for this Stage 11 research & evaluation (quantitative and qualitative data collected) include: Over five years of funding from multiple sources, the Invisible Hurdles team has delivered a first-class, fully integrated legal practice despite threats to the end to its funding presented by short term funding from time to time. This uncertainty makes it hard to reassure partners and young people that the service is there for the long haul and to retain staff as was highlighted in Stage 1. The extensions of funding for Stage 2 saw a more consistent staff that enabled traction. Longer term funding certainty should be a priority to ensure the projects significant gains are not lost and momentum continues to build. Such long term 5-8 year funding (with evaluation to ensure and test ongoing effectiveness) should form part of governments’ stated commitments to family violence, regional people, to closing the gap and to breaking the cycle of poverty. The Invisible Hurdles team has made excellent contributions to systemic work by young people. The most important advancement about this work is that some of the young people involved have started to use their voice to self-advocate. The evaluators would like to see this aspect of the project to continue. Collaboration in systemic advocacy that enables multiple voices, varied agency expertise across disciplines and perspective to occur in such partnerships (based on the outcomes of other evaluative studies and in the research literature) is especially rare. The project has the capacity to be an authoritative advocate for the needs of regional youth. There are also some useful findings around service delivery during a pandemic and the critical nature of trust and established relationships to sustain service delivery, flexibility and innovation.

Many people are still trapped in the cycle of poverty in Europe, from generation to next generation. This is reflected in the large health inequalities, which are a persisting major public health concern that persists despite numerous efforts to reduce it. This thesis is focused on socioeconomic differences in health, with education and employability as major means to combat the intergenerational transmission of poverty. It contributes to the understanding of this the cycle of poverty, but also explores ways to break it. Using the data from Slovakia, it demonstrates how health inequalities are manifest, what their major determinants are, what their impact is, and how we could tackle them. This thesis supports the evidence that poor socioeconomic conditions pose health risks. It points that education is a key mechanism. And it shows that school satisfaction has an important role to make an educational trajectory successful, with some groups at risk. In particular boys, children from low affluence families, children with learning difficulties and with a disrupted social context, deserve extra attention. This thesis also adds evidence on ways to break the cycle of poverty. It shows room for strengthening of social policies focused on deprived families and communities in general, based on a participatory approach. And it shows the importance of improving the employability of disadvantaged workers and of developing public-private partnerships to provide work for them and to support deprived communities. This thesis can greatly add to public health and to public prosperity in Central Europe and other parts of the world.