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This essay critically examines the discourse of participation in development finance directed at the poor in the Global South from national and international development agencies. This discourse, often termed financial inclusion, posits the ability of development actors to reach the poor involving them in important economic decisions affecting their lives, provides access to products that improve their material conditions, and ensures their credit worthiness through highly nuanced information technology and social media tools. The paper presents evidence from two ethnographically inspired studies undertaken by the author in India and Kenya to ascertain the ways in which the participatory discourse in finance is understood among societal participants themselves. The paper presents relevant epistemes for analyzing what 'grassroots' actors understand as their participation in development-oriented financial inclusion projects. The study forwards two major conclusions: (1) 'habits of authority' among various development actors thwart effective participation; (2) technology platforms that allow for successive innovations and interconnections from businesses and other organizations encourage financial inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores assets for health and well-being for women in extremely poor rural areas in Ghana, Haiti, India, the Philippines, and Tanzania. Data were collected through individual interviews and focus group interviews with local women. The paper asks (i) which assets women draw on for well-being in resource-poor settings, and (ii) whether an assets approach, as understood in the Salutogenic Model, is appropriate and meaningful in the most deprived areas. Low levels of natural, material and infrastructural resources were reported by the respondents to cause stress, and assets of a human, social and cultural character were identified as being important in coping with this stress. By mobilizing the capacity and assets of people and places, local development initiatives will make sense logically (comprehensibility), they will be perceived to be practically realistic (manageability), and they will be motivating because they are meaningful, based on involvement in decision-making (meaningfulness). The assets focus must co-exist with initiatives to improve distributional justice. We conclude that an asset approach to well-being is not only appropriate, but also necessary, in even the poorest contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until recently, the only way for the population of developing countries to access the Internet was through expensive smartphones, designed in and for developed countries. In the past few years, however, a major new innovation has emerged, the smart feature phone with Internet connectivity, which was specifically designed for those with low incomes in developing countries. This paper explains the development process for the smart feature phone, how this has influenced the nature and extent of adoption, and its use by low-income groups, including their demonstrated preference for uses related to entertainment rather than more traditional "work-related" goals. The focus is on the case of India, where the JioPhone has already reached millions of people with low incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key agenda of policy-makers in both the developing and the developed worlds is to have an inclusive growth. Financial services have been recognised as one of the fundamental services that have the potential to achieve this objective and help move towards a more just and equitable society. This paper attempts to assess the impact of three information and communication technology-driven initiatives in the field of financial services by differentiating them on the basis of service design. This study goes beyond the stated objective of these services and uses Sen’s capability perspective to study their impact across three non-economic outcome variables viz. literacy, service-specific well-being and empowerment. The data for the study are collected from the urban poor across different locations in a large metropolitan city in South India where the three different services are being offered. The study follows a quasi-experimental design (field study) and ensures matching of the treatment and control groups through propensity score matching. The matched data are analysed using an independent samplet-test. The result of the analysis shows that service design plays a key role in increasing service literacy, improving service-specific well-being and empowering end users. The study suggests that the true challenge for providers (government and partner agencies) of these services is in designing a service that ensures a balance of structure and flexibility without constraining the choice of end users through innovative service blueprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global policy attention has begun to focus on young people in developing countries and much of the discourse is framed around notions of ‘transition to adulthood’ based on the idea that individuals develop in linear ways, separate from family and community. This idea has already been widely critiqued in western contexts. This article explores the lives of children growing up in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, who are no longer in formal schooling, drawing on data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of children in four developing countries. Analysis combines descriptive statistics and qualitative longitudinal research. This article suggests that many of the assumptions underpinning the international discourse fail to match with the realities of young people's everyday lives in rural India. It suggests that young people's obligations to family, combined with a sense of destiny, constrained by gender norms, help to explain their ‘transitions’ – transitions that are interconnected and depend on each other. This article concurs that the concept of transition may be useful as a heuristic device, but that it must be used critically and not simply be imposed on contexts that are themselves in transition and in process of rapid social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using recent poverty data for developing countries, elasticity of $2 poverty headcount with respect to the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is directly calculated for the 1990s and the 2000s. The global estimate is around -0.84, which is much smaller in absolute magnitude than what some highly influential studies have reported or used. For the poverty-dense South Asia region, the elasticity is of the order of -0.22, which is a dramatic contrast from the previous estimates. For India, where the number of poor people is by far the largest of any country, and where the poverty rate is higher than even in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the elasticity is of the order of -0.13, which is an even bigger contrast from earlier studies. Policymakers and researchers are urged to keep these estimates in mind while judging the likely effect of income growth on poverty, and to discount poverty-reduction claims based on higher elasticity estimates that have been reported or used in many influential studies. In particular, the elasticities shown in this study for South Asia and India seem to be a grim reminder of how unrealistic the existing estimates might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary socioeconomic and political scenario in India hinders the disadvantaged communities from expanding their capabilities. Lack of opportunities deters these communities from having equitable access to the fruits of ongoing development. In India the farming population (70%) in general, and small and marginal farmers (63.0%) in particular, are the worst affected by this asymmetry of opportunities. While India heavily depends on agriculture, the distressed farmers resort to suicide for want of livelihood security. There is an urgent need to build the capacities of farmers to enhance their bargaining power and ensure a minimum standard of living. Life Long Learning (L3) aided by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a unique attempt that facilitates this capacity building process by providing horizontal, vertical and self-directed learning. By enhancing the cognitive social capital of the farmers, Life Long Learning improves their negotiating skills and expands their access to livelihood resources. Since 1998, Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) in partnership with groups of farmers has demonstrated this in rural Tamil Nadu, India. This article describes the process and outcome of this intervention where L3 has become an effective tool. We are deeply indebted to CoL for supporting this initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's work in developing economies, such as India, does not necessarily present an opportunity to fight poverty. On the contrary, though women are contributing enormously to the social and economic product at national and global levels, they remain at the bottom in the hierarchy of power and rewards in the work place. The primary thesis of this article is that there is a need to examine women's association with work beginning from the point of accessing work to its outcome on women's well-being and identity. The article proposes examining work as a key variable in place of gender, while undertaking examination of women and work relationships across occupational sectors. In doing so, the article reinforces the need to identify the right research questions to address issues of structural inequality and divergence in outcomes for working women's well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]