The most direct way to help the chronically poor exit poverty through private sector development is by providing them secure, decent wage employment. This is particularly true for the most vulnerable categories, such as the poorest women and young or disabled people. However, most developing countries are not creating sufficient wage employment, or fast enough, to provide a secure job to all the poor in the near future, and the poorest people may not easily take them up. The proportion of decent jobs among all jobs created by growth has increased since 1990, but still over half of all new jobs created are insecure. Some of these jobs have created opportunities for the working poor, but many others have not enabled the poor to escape poverty.

This policy guide aims at identifying those interventions that best promote entrepreneurship among the poor in a way that puts them on trajectories out of poverty. For some, these interventions can contribute to sustained poverty escapes; for others, they mean faster upward mobility to the poverty line.

Authors: Andrew Shepherd and Chiara Mariotti

Click here to download the Getting to Zero: Tackling Extreme Poverty through Private Sector Development Policy Guide

The Getting to Zero: Tackling Extreme Poverty through Private Sector Development Policy Guide has been funded by the Australian aid program.