Critically evaluate an urban poverty programme you are familiar with. In particular discuss a) the approach/definition to urban poverty and b) the implicit logic through which poverty will be addressed.

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Critically evaluate an urban poverty programme you are familiar with. In particular discuss a) the approach/definition to urban poverty and b) the implicit logic through which poverty will be addressed.

1.0 Introduction

Latin America is most urbanised of all the developing regions (Skinner and Steinberg, 2003). Urban poverty is different from that in rural areas, and as such has brought new challenges to international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Plan International who have traditionally focused on rural settings.

This paper will assess Plan’s Anti-Child Labour Program which is part of Plan’s wider Integrated Urban Program. These programs have been written in order that they might be applied in many different cities and counties.  Therefore this paper will be illustrated from the author’s experience in regards to Plan’s Anti-Child Labour Program in Quito, Ecuador. Plan’s strategy for urban poverty reduction relies upon local partnerships (Skinner and Steinberg, 2003) and thus the manifestation of their Anti-Child Labour Program in Ecuador is through an independent Ecuadorian NGO located in the south of Quito called the Centre for the Working Girl (CENIT). I worked at CENIT for the duration of June to September in 2004 and thus many of the details in this section will be based on personal knowledge of the program or from unpublished documents received while volunteering at the centre.

The aim of this paper will be to critically evaluate Plan’s Anti-Child Labour Program. It will first evaluate Plan’s approach to urban poverty in context of child poverty; the importance of its definition and its place within a societal context. The next section will then focus more specifically upon the relationship between child labour and child poverty and the ways in which this mould’s Plan’s approach and implicit address of poverty. The final section will focus upon the implicit logic through which Plan’s Program’s identify the children they would like to target and discuss what may be understood in regards to Plan’s address of poverty. Although the sections are titled to indicate different sections are answering different elements of the essay question please note that there is some overlap.

2.0 Plan’s Definition and Approach to Poverty

Children make up a large percentage of the world’s population and numbers are particularly high in developing countries.  In fact, estimates suggest that up to one half of all people in many developing countries are under 15 (Leavy et al, 2002). This means that child welfare is an important factor in the overall welfare of a country. This, combined with other more emotive factors, such as belief in a child’s innocence and vulnerability, leads non-governmental organisations such as Plan to target children with their urban poverty programs.  This leads Plan to define and approach poverty in the context of children and the specific experiences of poverty that children may have.  However, Plan’s approach to poverty also embraces the idea that children’s problems are closely related to those experienced their parents and community (Skinner and Steinberg, 2003).  In this way Plan approaches poverty from a more sociological standpoint that acknowledges that no one sector of a community operates alone.  

Implicit in the approach of any children’s NGO, or indeed in any NGO that targets a specific section of a population, is that the targeted beneficiaries require special attention.   Plan acknowledges the importance of childhood poverty and the fact that poverty experienced in childhood and youth differs from poverty experienced in adulthood (Plan International, 2004, Gordon et al, 2003a).  This is mainly in relation to the extent to which current wellbeing is critical in determining future wellbeing, given that the former affects their physiological, mental and social welfare in a manner that determines the latter (Leavy et al, 2002). The logic implicit in this argument is that poverty in childhood is likely to lead to poverty in adulthood, thus in order to reach the goal of long term poverty elimination childhood poverty needs be addressed. This is reflected in Plan’s approach to urban poverty. They believe in enabling children to break this ‘cycle’ of poverty, thus taking both a preventative and curative approach to urban poverty (Plan International, 2004).

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3.0 Plan’s Anti-Child Labour Program; Approach and Implicit Address of Poverty

Program documents claim that “Plan works for long lasting change by addressing the underlying poverty and discrimination that forces many children into hazardous labour” (Plan International, 2004, p.12). Child labour is identified as a problem that affects children in both rural and urban areas, with the main differences being in the type of work expected of children. However, in an urban context anti-child labour programs need to deal with further complicating factors street children, child prostitution, begging and street crime which are not so prevalent in rural areas ...

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