Can you help shape our future priorities? Take a five minute survey now. Survey closes on 8 July.

Opinion

Why the UK government and others need to balance ‘growth from above’ with ‘growth from below’ if it wants to reduce poverty in our crisis-ridden world

Published on 2 April 2025

Andrew Shepherd

Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network; Honorary Associate

Vidya Diwakar

Deputy Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network; Research Fellow, IDS

On the back of Covid-19, high inflation and the uncertainty of climate-related disasters and other crises, many governments – particularly in low-income countries – are reverting to old-fashioned growth strategies.

This often involves export-oriented growth and industrialisation with a primary focus of increasing GDP. In some cases, it involves supporting economic transformation through large, formal investments in infrastructure, health, education and public-private partnerships to enable workers to move from agriculture to non-agriculture (especially to manufacturing and services), and from less to more productive sectors.

This article was originally published by Bond, read the full article by visiting the link below.  

Read the full article on the Bond website

Vidya Diwakar also convenes the specialist short course ‘Poverty-focused Mixed Methods Research and Evaluation’, which is currently running with participants from around the world. You can register your interest on the course webpage to receive updates about future iterations.

Register your interest

Disclaimer
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IDS.

Share

About this opinion

Region
Zimbabwe
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.