The Excluded Poor: How Targeting Has Left out the Poor in Peripheral Cities in the Philippines
Abstract
Constrained by resource limitations and challenged by the increasing incidence of poverty in the country, the Philippine government embarked on an anti-poverty programme that sought to identify where the poorest people were, what were their specific needs, and how government and other stakeholders (e.g., non-government organizations, international development agencies, and the private sector) should respond to their pressing concerns. Despite deficiencies in methodology, poverty statistics in the Philippines have recently become not only as the means of identifying the most deprived regions or provinces, but also as a weather vane that points to where resources and efforts need to be directed and how these are to be spent.
This paper scrutinizes the gains of this approach with particular reference to the urban poor in two cities: Butuan, the capital city of Agusan del Norte, once home to the largest logging operations in Mindanao, and Tagbilaran, the capital of the tourist province of Bohol.
Citation
Cañares, M.P. The Excluded Poor: How Targeting Has Left out the Poor in Peripheral Cities in the Philippines. UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland (2010) 18 pp. ISBN 978-92-9230-298-6 [WIDER Working Paper No. 2010/61]
Links
The Excluded Poor: How Targeting Has Left out the Poor in Peripheral Cities in the Philippines