Human Development Report , With proper implementation of the poverty alleviation schemes, India can reduce poverty by empowering the rural poor with optimal use and management of resources.
These schemes focus on targeting the multidimensional deprivations the poor face by providing them with food security, employment, housing and wages. Finally, the driver of these schemes is the objective to create sustainable mechanisms leading to rural development.
Blog - Latest News. NRLM aims to create an efficient and effective system for the rural poor to access financial services. To that end, the objective is to create sustainable opportunities by empowering and enabling the poor to increase their household income. In addition to income-generated assets to the poor — they would also be facilitated to achieve increased access to rights, entitlements and public services, diversified risk and better social indicators of empowerment. The complexity index of a cognitive map is the ratio of receiver concepts R to transmitter concepts T.
Higher complexity indicates more complex systems thinking [ 60 ]: 4. The density index of a cognitive map is an index of connectivity showing how connected or sparse the maps are.
It is a product of the number of concepts C and the number of links W. Here the number of existing links is compared to the number of all possible links. Higher the density, greater the existence of potential management policies [ 60 ]: 5. The scenarios formed through FCM-based simulations can serve to guide managers and policy-makers during the decision-making process [ 62 — 64 , 66 , 69 , 82 , 88 — 90 ]. An FCM is formed out of the adjacency matrix and a state vector, representing the values of the connections between the concepts and the values of the system concepts [ 62 , 63 , 69 ].
The weighted adjacency matrix of an FCM forms a recurrent neural network, including concepts and interconnections for processing the information and feedback loops [ 88 , 91 ].
These have been used to analyse system behavior by running FCM-based simulations in order to determine possible future scenarios. Knowledge and experience of stakeholders regarding the system determine the type and number of concepts as well as the weights of the links in FCMs.
The value A i of a concept C i , expresses the quantity of its corresponding value. With values assigned to the concepts and weights, the FCM converges to an equilibrium point [ 71 , 91 ]. At each step, the value A i of a concept is calculated, following an activation rule, which computes the influence of other concepts to a specific concept. We have used an increasingly popular activation rule [ 61 — 64 , 90 , 91 ] introduced by Stylios [ 94 ], which is as follows: 6. The simulation outcomes also depend on the type of transformation function used.
When the values of concepts can only be positive, i. Following is the mathematical equation of the sigmoid transformation function: 7.
Hence, the derivative becomes higher when increasing the activation value [ 95 ]. Identifying pivotal concepts is a traditional approach in scenario planning that helps linking storylines to the quantitative model [ 96 ]. We identified four input vectors for four poverty alleviation policy scenarios based on existing literature on poverty alleviation strategies.
The fifth input vector is based on the concepts with the highest weights identified by the participants. In the sixth input vector, the concept representing entrepreneurship is replaced by the concept representing livelihood diversification considering its importance based on existing literature [ 15 , 40 ].
All six scenarios are explained below:. Scenario 1 : High-quality community organisation based micro-financing —Input vector 1: C2, C3, C4, C5, C11, and C12 strong institutions of the poor, community heroes driving the programme, capacity building of the community organisations, mainstream financial institutions supporting community organisations, need-based finance, and developing repayment culture.
This scenario tries to examine how high-quality community organisation based micro-finance could alleviate poverty. Scenario 2 : Capabilities and social security —Input vector 2: C19, C20, C21, C22, and C23 affordable and approachable education and healthcare, social inclusion, building personal assets, adequate knowledge base, and vulnerability reduction.
This scenario tries to estimate how improving the capabilities of the poor and providing them social security would help alleviate poverty. Scenario 3 : Market-based approach —Input vector 3: C13, C14, C15, C16, and C17 livelihood diversification, entrepreneurship, multi-sectoral collective enterprise, value addition by collectives, and market linkages.
This scenario tries to evaluate how a market-based approach could alleviate poverty. This scenario tries to evaluate how good governance is crucial for poverty alleviation.
This scenario tries to assess how the most critical concepts, identified by the participants, are crucial for poverty alleviation. This scenario tries to assess how the most important concepts, including livelihood diversification, are critical for the alleviation of poverty.
Based on the relative weights, scenarios 4 to 6 also had alternative input vectors incorporating sensitive support structure C1 without any demonstrable results. Each concept in the system has an initial state vector A 0 that varies from 0 to 1.
A new state of the concepts can be calculated by multiplying the adjacency matrix with the state vector [ 69 ]. Self-loops and feedback cause a repeated activation of concepts, introducing non-linearity to the model [ 61 , 70 , 88 ]. The resulting concept values may be used to interpret outcomes of a particular scenario and to study the dynamics of the modeled system [ 61 — 63 , 70 ].
The simulation process is carried out with the initial state vector of the input vectors, identified in each scenario 1 to 6 , clamped to 1 A 1 and the initial state vector of all the other concepts clamped to 0 A 0. We applied the activation rule proposed by Stylios [ 94 ], to run simulations because of its memory capabilities along with the sigmoid transformation function as the links have only positive values.
The sensitivity of the system was analysed by clamping the concepts of each input vector to 0. The social cognitive map built by combining the individual FCMs comprises 23 concepts and 51 links Fig 2 and S1 Table.
This FCM system has a density index of 0. The FCM system has a complexity index of 0. However, unless the density and complexity values of the FCM system are compared to those of other FCM systems representing a similar topic, interpretation of these figures is challenging [ 75 ].
There are some autonomous concepts virtually disengaged from the system. Some dependent concepts although have a relatively low degree of influence, exhibit strong dependence. The contribution of a concept in a cognitive map can be understood by its degree centrality, which is the summation of in-degree and out-degree. Table 1 illustrates the in-degree and out-degree and degree centrality of the FCM system. Concepts have been depicted such as C2: strong institutions of the poor, C multi-sectoral collective enterprise development, C livelihood diversification and C entrepreneurship have higher degree centrality.
These concepts should be interpreted as the greatest strength of poverty alleviation strategies. The most influential concepts i. Scenario analysis results will later help us gain a deeper understanding of the connectivity and influencing concepts of poverty alleviation. The participants also provided the state vector values A of all the concepts C based on their understanding of the relative significance of these concepts regarding poverty alleviation in India Fig 1.
The results show that participants assigned greater significance to the following concepts- C3: community heroes driving the programme, C1: quality support structure, C affordable and approachable education and healthcare, C6: good governance systems and processes, C2: strong institutions of the poor, C developing repayment culture, and C7: robust monitoring mechanisms.
The results acknowledge that building strong institutions of the poor for a community-demand-driven and community-managed poverty alleviation programme is likely to enjoy greater success.
They also confirm that developing robust monitoring mechanisms can ensure better functioning of the community-based organisations CBOs.
Robust governance systems and processes are essential for vibrant CBOs. They can empower communities to have better access to affordable education and healthcare facilities. Better access to micro-finance for these CBOs could help alleviate the economic poverty of the poor and vulnerable communities.
This section summarises the views of participants across the concepts based on the presentations made by them to the researcher during both the stages of knowledge capture. Fig 2 illustrates the cognitive interpretive diagram formed using the social cognitive map. The concepts, represented by each node in the diagram, are connected by several links. These links establish relationships between the concepts representing the basis of degree centrality.
The central concept is people coming out of poverty, which is depicted with yellow color in Fig 2. Participants indicated that setting up a quality and dedicated support structures at multiple levels national, state, district, and block is essential for poverty alleviation Fig 2 : C1. The support structures should be staffed with professionally competent and dedicated human resources.
The crucial role of these support structures is to build and nurture strong institutions of the poor Fig 2 : C2 at multiple levels and evanesce when community heroes start driving the programme. Building and sustaining strong, inclusive, self-managed, and self-reliant institutions of the poor at various levels such as self-help groups SHGs , village organisations VOs , and cluster-level federations CLFs through training, handholding, and systematic guidance are crucial to the success of a poverty alleviation programme.
However, superior CBOs are required to ensure the quality of primary-level institutions and their sustainability. Adherence to the five principles regular meetings, regular savings, regular inter-loaning, timely repayment of the loans, and up-to-date books of accounts , co-ordination, and cohesiveness between the members would go a long way in building strong institutions of the poor.
Participants emphasised the importance of community heroes in driving the poverty alleviation programme Fig 2 : C3. The poverty eradication programme is likely to meet with greater success if it is entirely operated and managed by the community. Involving experienced community members for social mobilisation, capacity building and scaling-up of various processes within the project will ensure effective functioning and implementation of the programme.
Participants believed that the capacity building of the CBOs, community resource persons, community cadres, and community service providers Fig 2 : C4 are essential for poverty alleviation.
Apart from training in social and financial inclusion, these community members should be provided with knowledge, skills, and tools to improve their existing livelihoods and for managing innovative livelihood collectives and micro-enterprises. It also serves to foster their faith towards the banking system. Good governance systems and processes are crucial to building sensitive support structures and strong institutions of the poor Fig 2 : C6. A well-structured process for participatory identification of the poor by the community helps identify very poor, poor, vulnerable, tribal, differently-abled, and other marginalised communities in a village.
A robust process for grading the quality of SHGs and their federations could help maintain a high standard for these institutions.
Strong, robust, and transparent monitoring mechanisms Fig 2 : C7 could ensure good governance systems and processes. The process-oriented approach of the programme needs to undergo continuous review, assessment, and course-correction from the qualitative and quantitative progress achieved at various levels.
Hence, participants suggested that a robust ICT-based monitoring and evaluation system remain in place for facilitating informed decision-making at all levels. The participants also indicated the urgency of robust implementation of institutional accountability and a self-monitoring process in institutions of the poor at all levels, including peer internal review mechanisms, external social auditing, public expenditure tracking, and community scorecards, in order to build stronger institutions of the poor Fig 2 : C8.
Transparency in the functioning of human resources at all levels aided by regular meetings, reviews, and monitoring of progress could ensure effective implementation of the programme. Maintaining equity and transparency in releasing finances and ensuring effective fund utilisation across all eligible groups could also help focus on the most vulnerable groups.
The participants believed that a poverty alleviation programme should have a strong convergence with other welfare programmes Fig 2 : C9. Stronger emphasis should be placed on convergence for developing synergies directly and through the institutions of the poor. Participants suggested that the programme recognise the importance of engaging with industries to set up platforms for public-private-partnerships in farm and non-farm sectors while developing various sector-specific value chains to harness the comparative advantage of the micro-enterprise sector.
The political will to support and encourage CBOs, enabling policies for smooth and efficient working of the institutions of the poor, diminished political influence in the decision-making of CBOs, and timely and adequate resource allocation on the part of government institutions is critical for poverty alleviation programmes Fig 2 : C Participants acknowledged that livelihood augmentation requires customised need-based financing for the poor and vulnerable Fig 2 : C Access to micro-finance at affordable rates of interest coupled with desired amounts and convenient repayment terms are needed for the poverty reduction of communities.
Providing interest subvention for all SHG loans availed from mainstream financial institutions, based on prompt loan repayment, helps develop a healthy loan repayment culture Fig 2 : C Participants opined that diversification of livelihoods would ensure steady incomes for households Fig 2 : C The development of micro-enterprise in farm and non-farm sectors could encourage institutions of the poor in the aggregation of produce, value-addition, and marketing of finished goods.
Therefore, it is imperative that more and more sustainable enterprises be created by the poor to improve their livelihood security. The demand-driven entrepreneurship Fig 2 : C14 programmes could be taken up through public-private-partnerships.
Provisions could be made for incubation funds and start-up funds for the development of multi-sectoral livelihood collectives Fig 2 : C15 to foster a collective entrepreneurship spirit.
Livelihood activities, in order to be commercially viable, would require economy of scale, enabling the adoption of available technologies while providing better bargaining power, offering a more significant political clout, and influencing public policy over time.
These livelihood institutions could carry out participatory livelihood mapping and integrated livelihood planning as well as build robust livelihood clusters, supply chains, and value chains. They could also identify gaps in the supply and value chains, create backward and forward linkages, and tap market opportunities for intervention and collectivisation for chosen livelihood activities Fig 2 : C16; C Developing adequate and productive infrastructure for processing, storage, packaging, and transportation is crucial for value addition Fig 2 : C The demand-based value chain development is currently evident in micro-investment planning processes.
Identifying non-farm activities to support enterprises in a comprehensive way could also be crucial. Adequate market linkages and support services like branding, market research, market knowledge, market infrastructure, and backward linkages would go a long way in deriving optimum returns from the chosen livelihood activities Fig 2 : C Several eco-friendly, climate-smart, and innovative approaches in agriculture production systems will ensure the sustainability of production systems even in the context of climate change Fig 2 : C Contemporary grassroots innovations supplemented by robust scientific analysis, mainly supported by various government programmes, are likely to ensure enhanced and efficient production systems.
Focus on developing adequate infrastructure for processing, storing, and transporting for value addition would serve to reduce post-harvest losses. Participants believed that affordable and approachable quality education up to the secondary level as well as affordable and quality healthcare facilities are crucial for poverty alleviation Fig 2 : C Convergence with mid-day-meal schemes will not only encourage communities to send their children to schools but also help curb malnutrition.
An affordable and approachable healthcare system is likely to help reduce health-related vulnerabilities of the poor. Crucial is an approach that identifies all needy and poor households while primarily focussing on vulnerable sections like scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, particularly vulnerable tribal groups, single women and women-headed households, disabled, landless, migrant labor, isolated communities, and those living in disturbed areas.
Equally crucial is including them in institutions of the poor Fig 2 : C Customised micro-financing coupled with adequate instruments on healthcare and education could aid vulnerability reduction Fig 2 : C The social, human, and personal assets created by developing institutions of the poor are crucial for sustaining and scaling-up of the poverty alleviation programme Fig 2 : C This will also allow women to articulate their problems and improve their self-confidence, enhance their respect in society, develop leadership qualities, inspire them to speak and express their feelings unhesitatingly, and empower them economically and socially.
Developing an academic understanding of the factors that support community institutions is crucial for the social infrastructure developed to facilitate the social capital building of the poor and vulnerable communities Fig 2 : C In order to evaluate critical factors responsible for poverty alleviation, we used six input vectors for FCM-based simulations.
For each scenario, causal propagation occurs in each iteration until the FCM system converges [ 62 — 65 , 67 , 70 , 91 ]. This happens when no change takes place in the values of a concept after a certain point, also known as the system steady-state; the conceptual vector at that point is called the final state vector [ 62 — 65 , 67 , 70 , 91 ].
Values of the final state vectors depend on the structure of the FCM system and concepts considered for input vectors. The larger the value of the final state vectors, the better the selected policies [ 62 — 65 ].
Comparisons between the final state vectors of the alternative simulations are drawn in order to assess the extent of the desired transition by activating each set of input vectors. The initial values and final state vectors of all the concepts for every scenario are presented in Table 2. The graphical representation of various scenarios for poverty alleviation is provided in the S5 Fig. The first scenario highlights the effects of high-quality community organisations based micro-financing approach.
If strong institutions of the poor are built and community heroes start driving the poverty alleviation programme, capacity building of the CBOs gets underway.
In the case of successful micro-financing, there will be opportunities for livelihood diversification, entrepreneurship, multi-sectoral collective enterprise development, value addition by collectives, and market linkages.
The second scenario highlights the effects of the capabilities approach and social security. In this case, affordable and approachable education and healthcare, social inclusion, the building of personal assets, adequate knowledge base, and vulnerability reduction are ensured.
Efforts will also be required for a quality support structure and customised need-based finance. The capability and social security enhancement could have prospects for strong institutions of the poor, better implementation processes, livelihood diversification, entrepreneurship, value addition by collectives, multi-sectoral collective enterprise development, and vulnerability reduction. The third scenario highlights the outcomes of the market-based approach.
Here, livelihood diversification, entrepreneurship, multi-sectoral collective enterprise development, value addition by collectives, and market linkages are activated. Efforts will also be required for continuous capacity building of the CBOs, customised need-based finance, affordable and approachable education and healthcare, and vulnerability reduction. The fourth scenario highlights the outcomes of good governance. In such a situation, plentiful efforts will be required for mainstream financial institutions to lend their support to CBOs and for the building of personal assets.
Efforts will also be required for developing a repayment culture, climate-smart production systems, and vulnerability reduction.
Good governance is likely to ensure strong institutions of the poor, development of collective enterprises, livelihood diversification, entrepreneurship, value addition by collectives, and market linkages. In the fifth and sixth scenarios, we activated the most important concepts identified by the participants. The sixth scenario is similar to the fifth one except that the concept C entrepreneurship has been replaced by the concept C livelihood diversification.
The participants judged a relatively higher weight for the concept C1 sensitive support structure Fig 1. This could be attributed to a conflict of interest on the part of the participants. Even after activating the concept C1 across policy scenarios 4 to 6, the outcome does not change. This also justifies the fact that any community-demand-driven and community-managed poverty alleviation programme has to be self-sustainable in the long-term.
Therefore, while a poverty alleviation programme may make use of a support structure in its initial phase, it should persist at thriving even after the support structure has been withdrawn. This section deals with contributions of the paper to FCM and poverty literature while offering a practical approach to address multi-dimensional poverty.
The paper makes a two-fold contribution to FCM literature: i knowledge capture and sample adequacy and ii robustness of the dynamic system model. The saturation of FCM sampling is formally measured by tracking the number of new concepts introduced in subsequent exercises and estimating an accumulation curve of concepts.
When the point of saturation is reached data collection is stopped. In most studies, the saturation of FCM sampling is reported at 30—32 maps [ 60 , 62 , 63 , 66 , 72 ]. Most FCM-based case studies published in scientific journals have taken weights of the causal interactions between the concepts.
This study has not only obtained weights of the causal interactions between the concepts but also obtained weights of each concept. Results of the FCM-based simulations, by and large, match with the most critical concepts identified by participants represented by higher relative weights. This demonstrates in-depth understanding of participants of the subject matter and robustness of the system.
It also represents uncertainty as a range of plausible futures. Hence, in order to establish proper causal pathways of various poverty eradication approaches, it may be necessary to design random control trial experiments along each of the poverty eradication approaches and carry out the efficacy of each approach delineated above using the difference-in-difference micro-econometric model. The results of our FCM-based simulations reveal that in order to eradicate poverty one needs to provide micro-finance through high-quality community organisations, enhance capabilities of the poor while providing social safety nets to the poor and vulnerable, ensure good governance within community organisations and institutions supporting them, continue to diversify livelihood options, and provide market linkages to small producers.
Our findings confirm that various approaches to poverty alleviation are rather complementary and need to be implemented simultaneously for a comprehensive poverty alleviation drive. However, in relative terms, factors like good governance within community organisations and supporting institutions, high-quality community organisations based micro-financing, and enhancement of capabilities coupled with social security assurance seem to work better than a market-based approach.
There is rich literature available on radical approaches like land reforms, decentralisation and poverty alleviation that have not been evaluated in this study. Nevertheless, findings of the study lead us to conclude that in order to address multi-dimensional poverty an integrated and multi-dimensional poverty alleviation approach is needed.
Findings of the study are likely to help improve the design, management, and implementation of poverty eradication programmes in developing countries. Indrani Talukdar is acknowledged for language editing. We thank the Academic Editor and the two anonymous reviewers for providing insightful comments and constructive suggestions.
Browse Subject Areas? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. Abstract A slew of participatory and community-demand-driven approaches have emerged in order to address the multi-dimensional nature of poverty in developing nations. Funding: The World Bank and the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India Competing interests: We hereby declare that none of the authors have any conflict of interest on this paper. Introduction 1. Poverty alleviation strategies Although poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, poverty levels are often measured using economic dimensions based on income and consumption [ 1 ].
Proposed contribution of the paper Several poverty alleviation programmes around the world affirm that socio-political inclusion of the poor and vulnerable, improvement of social security, and livelihood enhancement coupled with activities including promoting opportunities for socio-economic growth, facilitating gender empowerment, improving facilities for better healthcare and education, and stepping up vulnerability reduction are central to reducing the overall poverty of poor and vulnerable communities [ 1 , 11 ].
Methodology We conducted the study with the aid of the FCM-based approach introduced by Kosko in [ 58 ]. Coding individual cognitive maps into adjacency matrices The individual FCMs were coded into separate excel sheets, with concepts listed in vertical and horizontal axes, forming an N x N adjacency matrix. Aggregation of individual cognitive maps There are various methods of aggregating individual FCMs; each method has advantages and disadvantages [ 83 ].
The following equation illustrates the augmentation of individual adjacency matrices: 1 M FCM is the aggregated adjacency matrix, where, k represents the number of participants interviewed; w i is the decisional weight of the expert i , where, ; and m i is the adjacency matrix written by the participant i.
Structural analysis of the system Structural analysis of the final condensed social cognitive map was undertaken using the FCMapper software. Higher complexity indicates more complex systems thinking [ 60 ]: 4 The density index of a cognitive map is an index of connectivity showing how connected or sparse the maps are. Fuzzy cognitive maps-based simulations The scenarios formed through FCM-based simulations can serve to guide managers and policy-makers during the decision-making process [ 62 — 64 , 66 , 69 , 82 , 88 — 90 ].
Development of input vectors for policy scenarios. In universal poverty alleviation programmes in India, the benefits of the programme can be available to all rural households and are not hugely dependent on exact estimates of poverty. In targeted programmes information on poverty is necessary and expenditure allocations are sometimes made on alternative criteria that do not depend on estimates of the poverty line used. Many of these schemes are quite nascent and performance evaluations of these schemes are rather difficult.
The policy aims to improve opportunities for rural people in gaining employment by providing guaranteed wage employment for unskilled manual work.
By , 1. The Public Distribution System PDS is another programme that helps in improving the quality of life of impoverished populations in India. The Act has been implemented in all of the states and union territories in India and the government claims that out of a coverage target of There are some discrepancies however, over the implementation of certain provisions of the Act by some states ET, The policy came into force in and aimed to help micro-enterprises by extending loans to beneficiaries for the purchase of assets and by subsidizing asset costs by between 25 and 50 per cent.
Although some of the poor made moderate progress as a result of the policy, the IRDP has succeeded in helping only 1 in 5 people in crossing the poverty line Saxena, Some rural poverty alleviation programmes in India are listed below:. With greater revenue available for social programmes, policy-makers can now look forward to more far-reaching poverty alleviation programmes in India.
The NitiAayog constituted a task force for the elimination of poverty on March 16, headed by Dr. Arvind Panagariya, the vice chairman at the NitiAayog. Using the methodology described by the recommendations of the Tendulkar Committee, the task force fixed that those earning less than Rs The estimate was controversial and generated much debate in policy circles.
Based on these estimates which fixed the poverty line in urban areas at Rs Many believed that the proportion of the poor can be much larger in India while others questioned the extremely low income cited as the poverty line. For example, after the budget, insurance schemes were introduced that made use of bank accounts linked to the Adhaar scheme.
New poverty alleviation programmes in India such as the Jan Dhan Yojana make use of Adhaar identification. The UIDAI in poverty alleviation can be important given that many of the target beneficiaries do informal work.
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