Seminar 3: Assets, Poverty Traps and Rights
Part I of the seminar focused on the importance of assets for poverty reduction and prevention. It enumerated the breadth of assets that poor houses control and described how these assets can and are interchanged based on price and availability; the importance of these assets (especially natural resources) in rural households’ asset strategies; and the thresholds of asset possession and poverty traps. It provided participants with an understanding of the thresholds of asset possession and poverty traps, and how—below a certain level of asset possession—economic actors are unable to take advantage of certain economic opportunities. This part of the seminar also clarified the relationship between the thresholds of asset possession and programmatic initiatives that both protect the poor and transitorily poor from falling into chronic poverty (Safety Nets programs), and that help the chronically poor climb out of poverty (cargo nets).
Part II explored the connection between the ability to protect and to use assets. It provided seminar participants with a nuanced understanding of what makes assets usable. Participants came away from this part of the seminar understanding that simply gaining possession of assets is not enough to move out of poverty, and that the ability to make use of assets is also essential. Participants learned about the importance of the factors that limit or improve the use of assets, such as access to financing, rights to use the assets, and developed markets in which to buy and sell the assets.
Chris Barrett, Cornell University Professor of Applied Economics and Management, was the featured speaker, complemented by a disussion of the role gender plays in constraints and opportunities from Marilee Kane in USAID’s Office of Women in Development. Following their presentations, there was an open discussion on themes presented in the seminar.
At the end of the seminar, participants gained an understanding of:
- The importance of assets (especially natural resources), and the thresholds of asset possession and poverty traps.
- The role of gender in natural resource management and poverty reduction; more specifically, how men and women fare differently in terms of asset-building and asset usage, especially depending on where they live (rural/urban area).
- What makes (natural) assets usable (e.g., financing, rights to land, titling, whether assets bankable, whether markets are developed), and how women and men fare differently in terms of their ability to use their assets.
Seminar 3:
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