Poverty

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that extends well beyond the absence of earnings and income. Poverty refers to the overall person’s experience of rights’ deprivation including limited access to education and other basic services, unemployment, disempowerment and social marginalization.

The most affected are boys and girls, young people and women. Poverty is passed on from one generation to the next: children from poor families are more likely to become poor adults themselves. The ISTAT estimates for 2020 see the incidence of poverty among people under the age of 18 to rise to 13.6%, the highest value since 2005. Finally, gender affects the poverty rates, being closely linked to the incidence of female unemployment.

Poverty reduction policies

Poverty reduction policies take many forms including promoting economic growth, reducing unemployment and providing benefits to the poor. Italy is one of the European countries where social spending has the least impact on reducing poverty.

ActionAid works to ensure the effective implementation of poverty reduction policies by monitoring institutional accountability and transparency and strengthening the capacity of all stakeholders involved from the recipients of these policies to the decision-makers. To maximize its impact, ActionAid has joined two important national networks working on public policies: Forum Inequalities Diversity and Alliance Against Poverty.

Youth poverty

Youth living in poverty have access to poor quality education opportunities, are at higher risk of early school leaving and drop-out, and have less opportunities to access the job market. Youth poverty may produce ‘scarring effects’ in their later life that involves material deprivation, limited social participation as well as inadequate access to social, economic and political rights.

ActionAid implements projects aimed to address and combat school drop-out, youth unemployment, social exclusion and marginalization by improving the cooperation between schools, families,  communities and private sector actors and strengthening the active role of youth.

Welfare community

The idea of welfare community is born from the acknowledgement that the welfare state has limited resources. In this regard, it complements State’s responsibility and improves the collaboration between social actors and the State in the provision of services.

ActionAid works to create spaces where communities are active in co-designing policies and co-managing resources for public services through capacity building, empowerment and lobbying.

Food poverty and the right to food

Food insecurity represents a serious violation of a fundamental human right namely access to adequate food. Institutions have an obligation under international law to respect, protect and promote the right to food. Yet, the political response to the problem of food poverty focuses mainly on the distribution of food, underestimating the importance of intervening on other dimensions, such as the promotion of active policies capable of guaranteeing sufficient income and promoting consumption patterns and diets that are sustainable and nutritionally adequate.

ActionAid is committed to promoting a comprehensive approach to combating food poverty, capable of responding to the different dimensions of the problem and intervening on the structural causes of the phenomenon, with the active involvement of institutions, local solidarity bodies and those who receive food assistance.

Projects

• The OpenSpace project
• TEAMWORK in Milan
• Teamwork – Bari and Reggio Calabria