Meaning Of Multidimensional Poverty

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The World Bank (2000, p 15) defines poverty as a “pronounced deprivation in wellbeing”. Conventionally, wellbeing is described as command over commodities and is measured in monetary terms in the form of income or consumption. In this sense, those who are not able to afford a certain standard of living are considered to be poor.

First, many factors converge to make poverty a complex,multidimensional phenomenon. Second, as expected, poverty is routinely defined as the lack ofwhat is necessary for material well-being — especially food but also housing, land, and otherassets. Poverty is the lack of multiple resources leading to physical deprivation. (World Development Report) Third, poorpeople’s definitions reveal important

(World Development Report). As a multidimensional phenomenon, poverty is defined and measured in a multitude of ways.Poverty never results from the lack of one thing but from many interlocking factors that cluster inpoor people’s experiences and definitions of poverty.

Poverty just like it’s conceptual and relative has many dimensions and manifestations. It always means a reduced (or complete lack of) access to material, economic, social, political, or cultural resources needed to satisfy basic needs. (Phillip¬_Rayan 2004).

One route for investigating the causes of poverty is to examine the dimensions highlighted by poor people (World Development Report 1990)

• Lack of income and assets to attain basic necessities— food, shelter, clothing, and acceptable levels of health and education.

• Sense of voicelessness and powerlessness in the institutions of state and society

• Vulnerability to adverse shocks, linked to an inability to cope with them.

1.2 TYPES/ CLASSIFICATION OF

Forest over history have value to the world population and their value keeps on increasing daily as people use the forest to protect themselves in form of shelter and major source of fuel wood (Tundunwada et al., 2014).

Forests are crucial for the sustenance and existence of life on earth especially for the rural poor in forest fringe communities [FFCs]. (Obodai et. al 2014) One out of four of the world’s poor depend directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihood (World Bank, 2000).The Forest contributes to poverty alleviation,thus, poverty alleviation can be defined as the successful lessening of the deprivation of well-being(Verdecchi. 2003)

Hence there are two types of poverty alleviation associated with forest resources, as seen at then household level. These are:

• Poverty avoidance or mitigation, in which forest resources serve as a safety net or fill gaps, for example by providing a source of petty cash;

• Poverty elimination, in which forest resources help to lift the household out of poverty by functioning as a source of savings, investment, accumulation, asset building and permanent increases in income and