occasions FGDs and/or interviews were conducted with
the
participants/employees
of
such
employment and income generating initiatives.
III. Literature Review: Poverty Reduction Strategies in a Historical Perspective
Visits were also made to other locations of significance in terms of poverty alleviation activities such as soup-kitchens run by SSFs and/or other agencies.
The
literature
review
has
taken
into
consideration studies on poverty and related themes undertaken by, or on behalf of, international
Thus it became possible to find out about the experiences and learn the viewpoints about the poverty alleviation programmes, or lack of them, of more than 200 people in six different target areas. However, the distribution of participants were rather uneven, as about two thirds were interviewed in three target areas, namely, Diyarbak›r, Mardin and fianl›urfa, while the remaining one third in the other
agencies such as the World Bank and the UNDP, on the one hand, and the increasing number of discreet studies undertaken in Turkey which evaluate the impact of poverty alleviation policies, on the other. While the former is briefly reviewed in this section, the latter is considered in the section dealing with the main poverty alleviation agency, namely, SASF and SSFs.
three, namely, Batman, K›z›ltepe/Mardin and Suruç/fianl›urfa.
The
maximum
number
of
participants per each target area was 70 and the
To put the poverty-reduction policies into a
minimum was 15. As for the details of the
perspective, it will be apt to focus on the evolution
participants of the FGDs, it is striking that the gender
of the thinking of the World Bank in this regard. As
distribution of the participants was extremely
noted elsewhere, ‘Turkey does not have a well-
uneven mainly for two reasons. Firstly, as already
established tradition of devising policies against
alluded, women were more forthcoming themselves
poverty’
and/or encouraged by their men folk to take part in
Roundtable, December 4, 2001, UNDP, Ankara). Not
their stead. Secondly, the participants of the
surprisingly, the current poverty alleviation policies
workshops visited were mainly women and young
in the country are shaped to a great extent by the
girls. So the overall ratio was roughly three to one,
spirit, if not the letter, of the conceptual categories
that is, for each male participant of an FGD, there
developed by the international agencies. The World
were three female participants. The age distribution
Bank, poverty reduction being one of its age-old
was, however, more even as there were people from
concerns, occupies a prominent place among them.
(Summary
of
Poverty
Experts'
all age groups between 18 and 65 among the participants.
Notwithstanding the changes in the means to deal with the problem concerned, the end remained
The fieldwork was undertaken by two separate
the same for the World Bank. For the latter has
teams of researchers. One team conducted the
defined poverty as the denial of opportunities to the
fieldwork in Batman and Diyarbak›r, while the other
people to live a tolerable life, commensurate with
did the same in Mardin, K›z›ltepe/Mardin, fianl›urfa
the decency of human beings (World Bank 1999,
and Suruç/fianl›urfa. Both teams carried out the
p.31). Yet, the strategies developed to reduce
fieldwork during June 2003.
poverty have shown considerable variety over the last few decades, as already been acknowledged by the World Bank itself (World Bank 1990, p.131;
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