Dimensions of poverty and gender policies

This article holds that poverty is multidimensional in nature, and that the ways to measure it and the policies to fight it are determined by how it is defined. After reviewing various definitions, the article notes that there is some consensus that poverty means the deprivation of the basic assets and opportunities to which all human beings are entitled; it examines concepts related to poverty, such as vulnerability, inequality, marginality, exclusion and discrimination, and analyses specific forms of gender-based poverty. It then discusses the link between the definitions of poverty and some of the policies being implemented; it compares poverty reduction policies with gender policies; and it proposes a typology that distinguishes four types of policies involving various actions, projects and programmes aimed at fighting gender-based poverty.