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INCOME GENERATION PRINCIPLES

by Phil Bartle, PhD

Introduction to the Module (Hub)

While not theoretical, this module looks at the reasons behind this IG scheme

The Need for Understanding Principles:

All field workers involved in the empowerment of low-income communities and low-income members of those communities, are encouraged to analyse the causes of poverty, and the factors that will contribute to its elimination.

The inhumanity of poverty is becoming more known in the world day by day. As more concerned people become aware of its pervasiveness, more people of good will are calling for programmes to fight that poverty.

Along with the rapid increase in number of poverty fighting programmes, unfortunately, there have been made many non-viable and incorrect assumptions about how to remove poverty or what to do about it. Many people in power (directing poverty reduction programmes) have agreed with those incorrect assumptions, and actions based on them may contribute to the continuation of poverty rather than its reduction.

The training material on this web site is aimed at community field workers, and fights poverty along two fronts, (1) community poverty which is the absence of communal or community utilities and services, and (2) personal poverty which is the absence of wealth (and all the social characteristics which act to perpetuate that poverty). Income generation belongs to the second.

This training material, in general, emphasizes techniques and skills for the field worker. Because of the many incorrect assumptions about poverty and income generation, however, it is necessary to arm the field worker with the important principles that lie behind the techniques and skills.

This module, therefore is aimed at giving the field worker the principles that can be used to counteract the incorrect assumptions. This is not a theoretical exercise, as none of the training material on this site is theoretical in nature, but it does call upon the principles of sociology and economics which relate to the causes of poverty and the factors and actions that are needed to remove that poverty.

The documents in this module show why this Income Generation (wealth creation) scheme calls for loans rather than grants, calls for a fair market rate of interest for the loans, provides management training to accompany the loans, aims at participants who are at the lowest levels of income in their communities, and provides and guides the organizing which results in effective groups (like co-operatives) that handle the credit and loans, but not the productive activity, which is carried out by the individual participants (and perhaps their closest family members).

The training documents in this module include the following:

Income Generation, Poverty and Wealth is composed of trainers' notes on principles of wealth creation, based upon an understanding of wealth as something other than money, the need to investment to create new wealth, and the nature of poverty as a social problem.

Income Generation Illustrations include graphic images of the income generation programme, which you can download and use in preparing training material in your local languages.

Grants, Credit and Poverty Reduction are notes for the mobilizer, showing how an empowerment approach requires that loans are needed, not grants, and they should be provided at fair market levels of interest.

Understanding these principles will aid the field worker in explaining (to local leaders, people in authority, journalists and the beneficiaries) why the charity attitude contributes to the perpetuation of poverty, and that an empowerment approach will sustain the reduction of poverty, towards its ultimate elimination.

Edible Oil Production = Creating Wealth = Generating Income:

© Copyright 1967, 1987, 2007 Phil Bartle
Web Design by Lourdes Sada

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Last update: 2011.10.04