They are an improvement on 'developed and developing', terms predicated on a worn-out paradigm of modernisation. The collapse of Communism encouraged new thinking. At the same time, development practitioners began to notice that many characteristics of 'developing countries' were actually present in the 'developed world'. Last year DFID's social development advisers spent their annual conference visiting projects and programmes in the Midlands and were struck by the commonality of approaches between community-based approaches to poverty reduction in what we are now calling North and South. Now to poverty , which I conceive as multi-dimensional.
Inadequate consumption is a core dimension but many other features can be important.
I refer you to paragraph 19 in the Copenhagen Programme of Action for a comprehensive statement of the characteristics of poverty. Social exclusion is one of three new frameworks for social development policy analysis which have emerged in the last couple of years, the others being social capital and a rights-based approach to development. All three are useful for giving us ways of thinking which demonstrate that poverty is multi-faceted and that priorities for policy need social as well as economic objectives. The challenge to tackle the interaction between these and preventing them arising in the first place. This appreciation of the interaction between the various elements is crucial.