At the root of this entitlements approach is an understanding that poor people s livelihoods are more likely to depend upon a mix of skills, assets, access to natural resources, social capital, and income-generating activities than on any single income source. Thus, improving their lot will require holistic rather than sectoral interventions Development practitioners are increasingly searching for ways in which policy interventions can achieve multiple objectives and thus more effectively address the livelihood needs of people living in poverty. The goal of the Poverty and Environment Initiative is to provide a forum for practitioners, policy-makers and researchers working in this area to share their experiences and identify solutions. They are resulting from the absence of property rights, high transaction costs and strategic behavior Presence of negative externality is indicated by divergence between private cost and social cost, or private benefit and social benefit. Activities with negative externalities will be carried out at a level which is too high from a social point of view.
Negative externalities represent or reflect 'market failure'.
Technological externalities arise when the activity of one actor directly affects another actor without operating through the price system. As said before, negative externalities represent or reflect market failure. This market failure can be a persuasive reason for government intervention. But this optimistic point of view is not supported by existing world conditions. Because knowledge now available is more than adequate to solve most of the world's major environmental problems, the problems are not those of science and technology but of the arrangements and functioning of human institutions and of the attitudes of individuals.