Orí and Ẹlédàá in poverty conceptualization in traditional Yorùbá religion: challenging developmental and aid organizations’ understandings of poverty.

This paper explores and analyses understandings of poverty in the Yorùbá traditional belief system, based on the concept of Orí and Ẹlédàá. The paper focuses on questions such as: how are the concepts of Orí and Ẹlédàá used in understanding, interpreting and addressing poverty? What implications do these belief systems have for the quest for poverty eradication in contemporary Nigerian societies? This belief system seems to be at variance with the World Bank and other international organizations' notions of poverty and suggested measures to eradicate it. I argue that the contribution of local belief systems to development discourses cannot be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]