Sanjeev Prakash , Norwegian Research Center in Organization and Managament, University of Bergen, Norway. The emphasis at this symposium is on poverty and whether poverty reduction can be obtained through a strategy of increased social capital. The emphasis is not on social development in general or the broader relationship between the state and social capital. Our goal here and now is to focus on poverty reducing strategies and to discuss whether the latest construction of poverty reduction through social capital formation is likely to achieve the UN goal of massive poverty reduction world-wide.
Social capital is defined in several ways and the learned people disagree on the definitions.
The major problem is that it is not a very precise concept and that makes it difficult to use social capital as an analytical tool. As a social scientist I would rather throw it overboard. However, lately it has turned into a very important political tool, in particular in relation to poverty reduction, and as such we shall need to relate to it in order to understand better its usefulness, or lack of such, in poverty reduction. In its simplest forms social capital is the sum of participation in informal networks, registered organisations, associations of different kinds and social movements that an individual experiences. Some will argue that only participation in formal organisations can be defined as social capital.