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About nine per cent of Canadians live in poverty, although the percentage is generally higher among certain groups such as single mothers and Aboriginal people. Low-income Canadians include the "working poor" - those with jobs - and the "welfare poor" - those relying mainly on government assistance.

About nine per cent of Canadians live in poverty, although the percentage is generally higher among certain groups such as single mothers and Aboriginal people. Low-income Canadians include the "working poor" - those with jobs - and the "welfare poor" - those relying mainly on government assistance. Since the 1960s numerous public programs have been created to alleviate poverty, including Employment Insurance, pension programs for the elderly and various child benefits and tax credits.

Measuring Poverty

In 2013, Statistics Canada reported that 8.8 per cent of Canadians had low incomes in 2011. That figure was down from 15.2 per cent in 1996. Statistics Canada uses a Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO), which is based on half the national median income. The government also uses a Market Basket Measure, which looks at low income based on the cost of a specific basket of goods and services. The government records data on the working poor - households where the main earner is working at least 910 hours a year and living with a low income - and breaks down low income figures by various demographics.

Poverty rates among Aboriginal Canadians are significantly higher compared to the rest of the population, according to a 2013 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It showed that half of the status First Nations children in Canada live in poverty, a figure that increases to two-thirds in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The study was based on the 2006 census data and found that children on reserves under federal jurisdiction were in the worst situation, often living with poor drinking water and in run-down homes.

Establishing an objective measure of poverty in Canada is difficult. There are two distinct and opposing methods used to illustrate the basic level of income that defines poverty - absolute and relative.

The absolute approach is based on the belief that poor people only require the absolute necessities of life that can be objectively established, such as substandard housing and the bare essentials of food and clothing. This view stems from the belief that poverty is an individual's own doing and should not be rewarded or encouraged by the provision of adequate levels of social assistance. The Fraser Institute has published poverty lines based on a limited market basket of goods designed to ensure minimal physical survival. The levels of income provided by provincial and municipal authorities for welfare recipients also ensure only absolute (or substandard) levels of living. The relative approach rejects the absolute notion that poverty can be objectively defined without reference to prevailing community standards. Rather, a poor Canadian household exists in the context of a highly interrelated, prosperous Canadian community, therefore the economic, social and political functioning of that household is relevant.

A well-known national measure based on the relative approach is the one developed by the Canadian Council on Social Development, a non-profit organization, and the special Senate committee on poverty. The CCSD poverty line is based on average Canadian family income. If a family income is less than half of average family income, it is defined as poor. Adjustments are then made for family size but not for place of residence.

Annual Survey of the Poor

Canada is one of the few countries to conduct an annual survey of the poor, and this approach has become the most prevalent and respected measure of low income. For its annual survey, Statistics Canada begins with an income line based on the actual share of income that an average Canadian family devotes to food, clothing and shelter purchases (thus the amount of income allotted to poor families is related to the expenditure standards of the community), and then adds 20 per cent to this share. Any family that must spend more than this share of its income on food, clothing and shelter has so little discretionary income that it is considered to be living in "straightened circumstances."

As the living standard of the average Canadian household has risen over time, so has the poverty line. (See standard of living.) Statistics Canada adjusts its income line for family size, and according to whether the household is located in an urban or rural setting. The poverty line for rural households is about 30 per cent lower than that for urban households.

Calculating the number of people who are poor is done through a sampling survey of Canadian households (excluding Aboriginal households on reserves, individuals living in institutions and those living in the northern territories). After sample income data is collected, and projections made for the Canadian population as a whole, family and individual incomes are ranked according to whether they fall above or below the low-income cut-offs. The published results from Statistics Canada make it possible to determine how many individuals and families are poor, as well as the characteristics of these households. (See income distribution and population.)

International Ranking

In 2008, The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) looked at how Canada ranks internationally and on that basis found that "after 20 years of continuous decline, both inequality and poverty rates have increased rapidly in the past 10 years, now reaching levels above the OECD level." It also stated: "Over the past 10 years poverty (meaning people who live on less than half the median incomes) has increased for all age groups, by around two or three percentage points to an overall rate of 12 per cent." The OECD reported a six per cent poverty rate among older people but said 15 per cent of Canadian children are living in poverty.

The OECD also said the rich in Canada are particularly rich compared to counterparts in other countries, and the poor and middle classes are also richer than the OECD average, but by less. It attributed some of the income inequality to changing demographics - more single parents and people living alone.

Among low-income families in Canada, slightly more than half are headed by a person in the labour force. These families are frequently referred to as the "working poor" because they rely primarily on employment earnings, not public assistance, for their income. The working poor include workers on the margin of the labour force. They are frequently the last hired and the first laid off, but even when they are employed they work for low wages and poor benefits. They are seldom able to accumulate savings, and rarely qualify for benefits such as sickness insurance, health and dental plans, private pensions and paid vacations. Their lives are marked by extreme economic insecurity.

The other half are referred to as the "welfare poor." They rely primarily on some form of public assistance. Lone-parent mothers make up a large portion of this category. So do Aboriginal people, although the reasons for their situations are sometimes complicated by the long history of prejudice and discrimination.

Since about 1973, the family poverty rate has stabilized around the 12 to 15 per cent level. But there have been noticeable shifts in the composition of poor households. In 1967, a family in the Atlantic provinces had almost three times the chance of being poor as a family in Ontario. However, by 1997 the poverty rate for families in Ontario was 13 per cent, and for those in the Atlantic Provinces it was 15 per cent. The economy and other factors such as changing demographics impact low income figures over time.

Poverty has also been "urbanized." In 1967, 45 per cent of all poor families were rural dwellers, but by 1997 this share had declined to 12 per cent. In the larger cities of more than 500,000 people, the proportion of poor families increased from 18 per cent (1967) to 57 per cent (1997).

For the elderly in 1967, families headed by a person 65 years of age or older constituted 27 per cent of all poor families, but by 1997 this had dropped to seven per cent. On the other hand, female-headed families constituted 15 per cent of all poor families in 1967, but 36 per cent by 1997. The shift in the composition of poverty among families has been so dramatic that poverty is less strongly associated with old age than with being female. (See women in the labour force.)

Most of the decline in poverty among the elderly has taken place in recent years, primarily as a result of gradual improvements in government-funded income retirement programs. Improvements in programs such as the Canada Pension Plan, Quebec Pension Plan, old-age pension, Guaranteed Income Supplement, Spouses' Allowance and some provincial income supplement programs have helped more elderly people escape poverty. (See Social Security.)

Duration of Poverty

Poverty is a temporary situation for approximately 60 per cent of the poor population in any year, but for the remaining 40 per cent it is a persistent problem that lasts for years. Over a 10-year period, poor persons will spend on average about five years in poverty, after counting both single and multiple episodes. About five per cent of poor persons will experience a continuous spell of poverty lasting 10 years, and 15 per cent will experience a spell of poverty longer than four years. Lone parents, persons with disabilities, recent immigrants and persons with lower levels of education are more likely to live in poverty for extended periods of time.

Efforts to Fight Poverty

National measures of poverty in Canada date to the 1960s, when poverty became a public issue. Much of the concern was generated by the appalling living conditions under which many of Canada's Aboriginal people and elderly lived, and also by large regional income disparities. This sudden "discovery" of poverty contradicted the vision of affluence that prevailed in the postwar era. In 1964 the United States launched its "war against poverty" and Canada began a more quiet campaign of study and legislation in an effort to understand the causes and remedies. In 1965, the federal Privy Council Office established a group of specialists to study and encourage greater federal-provincial co-operation in combating poverty. In the same year, the Company of Young Canadians was created to help co-ordinate and stimulate local self-help efforts. Although the CYC was later disbanded, it was a precursor of federal government programs such as Opportunities for Youth, the Local Initiatives Program and Canada Works, which attempted to provide employment and reduce poverty through local initiative efforts in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1968, Statistics Canada released a study on the incomes of Canadians that became the basis for defining and measuring low incomes in Canada. In the same year, the Economic Council of Canada shocked the nation by using this new low-income measure to estimate the extent of poverty in Canada. It concluded that 27 per cent of the Canadian population lived in poverty. In 1968, partly because of these findings, the influential special Senate committee on poverty, chaired by David Croll, began its cross-country hearings and investigations. Its widely publicized report, released in 1971, reiterated much of what had been revealed in the ECC's report and proposed a guaranteed annual income program to eliminate poverty in Canada.

Another influential commission created during this period, headed by CLAUDE CASTONGUAY, also released its report following a massive examination of social security in Québec. This commission also advocated (among many recommendations concerning health care, income security, employment and social services) a guaranteed annual income.

The concern during the 1960s also led to several new pieces of anti-poverty legislation. Negotiations between the provinces and the federal government, which began in 1964, resulted in the introduction of the Canada and Québec pension plans, which were based on the recognition that the private pension system did not provide adequate coverage to low-income retired workers and their families. (See pension.) In conjunction with these new pension plans, the Guaranteed Income Supplement Program was implemented, which assured a basic income support level to all low-income seniors.

The Canada Assistance Plan was also introduced in 1966. As a comprehensive social-assistance program it replaced the federal and provincial governments' piecemeal cost-shared programs, some of which had been in place since 1927. As well as providing a major source of funds for the disabled and unemployed, the CAP assisted other low-income persons, including the working poor. Also brought into federal cost-sharing under CAP were a wide range of Social Services, including day care, family counselling, visiting homemaker and child welfare services.

Exponents of CAP claimed it would allow for the distribution of funds to the needy who could not secure sufficient aid. In practice, however, CAP maintained the earlier tradition of only responding to poverty. In the 1995, budget, CAP was replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer. This new funding arrangement merged federal transfer payments for social assistance (previously under CAP) with those for health and post-secondary education into a single "block" fund transfer. (See equalization payments.) As a result, provinces now have greater discretion over social programs' spending, including those programs intended to alleviate or prevent poverty. (See Health Policy and Intergovernment Finance.)

During the 1970s and early 1980s, most legislative activity either represented slight improvements to, or cutbacks in, earlier legislated programs. The Unemployment Insurance Act was amended in 1971 to provide more extensive coverage to the unemployed and to the sick. The Child Tax Credit of 1978 extended federal benefits to families with children in a manner that was most beneficial to low-income families. (See Family Allowance.) Several provinces instituted income-tested payments to the aged, while Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Québec introduced programs that provided assistance to the families of the working poor. But the comprehensive federal-provincial review of Canada's social-security system, conducted in the mid-1970s, failed in its central purpose to establish a guaranteed annual income. The 1980s, meanwhile, were marked by budget cuts on income provision and social services directed towards the poor. These cuts were accelerated in the 1990s.

In an effort to combat child poverty, the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) was introduced in 1998. The CCTB had two main elements: the base benefit, paid monthly to an estimated 80 per cent of Canadian families with children, and the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCB-S) for low-income families with children.

Why So Many Poor?

The concern and legislation of the 1960s also raised the question of why there were so many poor people in a country as rich as Canada. In the prevailing ethos, poverty is perceived and treated as an individual, not a social problem - for example, individuals who are poor have themselves to blame. Therefore, it is not a country's total wealth that is relevant, but how that country distributes its wealth. A society can distribute its wealth under the laissez-faire or free-enterprise economic system, where people are presumed to get back from the marketplace what they put in. Under this system those who work at home for their lifetimes receive nothing directly. Theoretically a society can also distribute its wealth through a collective or socialist system under which the fruits of economic production are distributed according to need.

The economic and income distribution system in Canada is still evolving from the precepts of 19th-century capitalism, although government involvement in the income distribution process ensures that those in need and those without economic means do receive some assistance. Thus the Canadian system is generally described as mixed. Most wealth is distributed through a market-based economic system, under which ownership of resources and well-paying jobs are the keys to an adequate share of the country's economic benefits. Those who are unable to find a decent place within this market system - persons with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples and those with poor job skills - must rely on some combination of assistance from family, social organizations and government. But because individuals are held responsible for their inability to benefit from the economic system, the amount of aid is generally small.

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About nine per cent of Canadians live in poverty, although the percentage is generally higher among certain groups such as single mothers and Aboriginal people. Low-income Canadians include the "working poor" - those with jobs - and the "welfare poor" - those relying mainly on government assistance.

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It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day ¹. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion. Yet children die, literally in their tens of thousands, every single day - simply because they are born into situations where their parents have no opportunities to adequately provide for their health and well-being ². The extreme deprivation of such a large proportion of the world's population, in a world with more than enough resources to cover everyone's basic needs, is a grave injustice. As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to address the issue. Living out our Biblical mandate means, among other things, that we must tackle the issue of extreme global poverty.

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal 1 ³ aspires to a significant contribution towards "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." However, some questions arise from this starting point: what exactly is poverty, or extreme poverty, and what does it actually mean to go about "alleviating," reducing or eradicating it?

This think-piece discusses some of these issues through a lens of social justice, and in the context of The Salvation Army's mission. The first section outlines some different understandings of poverty, before the focus turns explicitly to a Christian social justice perspective on poverty and the consequences of this in terms of what poverty alleviation actually entails.
Understanding Poverty - Measuring Poverty
Poverty, in its most general sense, is often defined as some form of deprivation. The World Bank, for instance, has defined poverty as "pronounced deprivation of well-being." ⁴ The logically ensuing questions are: what is well-being, and what levels of deprivation are sufficiently "pronounced" to rightly be labeled poverty, or extreme poverty? These questions reveal two different needs: the need to clarify poverty on a conceptual level, and the need to operationalize this concept.

This project can, as mentioned, be seen in the context of the MDGs, and in particular MDG 1, "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." In this instance, extreme poverty is operationalized as "living on less than $1.25 a day." ⁵ In general, poverty measures often use income as an important (or as the sole) indicator, reflecting the notion that, conceptually, economic deprivation is a main defining characteristic of being poor. It is common practice to have a "poverty-line" separating the poor from the non-poor, or the poor from the extremely poor. In the case of MDG 1, this poverty-line is set at an absolute level of $ 1.25 for extreme poverty, employing a measure developed by the World Bank which has become widely used and cited. ⁶

MDG 1 links the concept of extreme poverty with that of hunger. In line with this, Amartya Sen outlines what in essence is an intuitive understanding of poverty: "If there is starvation and hunger then, no matter what the relative picture looks like there clearly is poverty." ⁷ This understanding, then, indicates that it is not necessarily the economic deprivation in itself that defines poverty, but rather the existence of hunger caused by this lack of money - i.e., deprivation of food. In light of this, measures for poverty are frequently calculated with reference to the cost of covering the daily minimum calorific needs of a human being. ⁸

Despite being both simple and easily measurable, a focus on income, or income and hunger, comes up short when one is attempting to define "poverty" as a more general construct. This is particularly so when moving away from the issue of extreme poverty, where a severe deprivation of basic necessities will generally be plainly obvious. It is easy to argue that those living on $2 a day, or $5 a day, cannot reasonably be labeled as "non-poor," even if there may not be daily starvation or hunger. Where does one set a "poverty line" in such cases?

Income is commonly used as an indicator of poverty also in situations where there is not necessarily severe deprivation. The common practice is to determine a poverty line as a certain standard relative to the average or median income in a country. The underlying concept, this time, is that poverty can mean a relative deprivation of material goods or benefits, compared to the surrounding society - an understanding that has become dominant in much of the developed world, where extreme poverty and hunger is practically non-existent. ⁹ With such an understanding, inequality becomes an element of the concept of poverty - as long as sufficient inequality exists, there will always people who are poor relative to their peers, regardless of how wealthy society as a whole becomes.

Differing operational definitions focusing on income and the establishment of "poverty lines" entail that whereas extreme poverty is defined globally as surviving on less than $1.25 a day, a person living in the USA, for example, is regarded as poor when surviving on $30 a day, ¹⁰ while a person living in Norway can be regarded as poor when earning $70 a day. ¹¹ Poverty quite clearly means different things in these different situations, and the life of a poor person in the USA or Norway will look significantly different from that of a poor person in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. In light of such disparities, it seems necessary to establish a more nuanced understanding of what poverty entails on a conceptual level.
Multidimensional understandings of poverty
It is commonly held that poverty is more than simply a question of monetary deprivation, whether this deprivation is absolute or relatively defined. Rather, it is a multi-dimensional concept, with poverty entailing deprivation of factors such as food and water, education, health, security, or basic freedoms and opportunities. A broadly applied approach to defining poverty in such a multi-dimensional understanding of the term can be found in the "capabilities-approach," attributed to Amartya Sen. This approach defines poverty as the lack of key capabilities to ensure adequate functioning in a given society - be they the capability to access food, health care, to obtain employment, or other capabilities. Poverty, in other words, can be understood as "capability deprivation." ¹² A person's capability to acquire the food necessary for survival, to achieve upward mobility, or to ensure education for one's children, determine whether or not they can be considered poor. Income will clearly be a factor influencing a person's capabilities, but so will a number of other factors, hereunder external factors such as the political and societal environment that a person is living in.

The capabilities approach broadens the understanding of poverty as a concept. It is not a lack of money in itself that constitutes poverty, but the lack of money can be one factor contributing to curtailing a person's capability to achieve an adequate standard of living. In addition to recognizing the diverse faces of poverty, the capabilities approach highlights some of the systemic factors underlying poverty. A capabilities view is, furthermore, context-specific. As such, both extreme poverty and relative poverty can be understood through this definition.

One challenge with this approach is that many capabilities, or factors influencing a person's capabilities, are hard to measure. Where a focus on monetary deprivation lends simplicity to measuring poverty, then, a capabilities approach gives a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the concept itself, but is harder to operationalize. Measuring poverty must not only look at income, but also look at other indicators - such as access to education and healthcare, or indicators for political and social freedom and corruption, all of which can influence the opportunities that low-income people have to cater to their basic needs. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to capture a multi-dimensional view of poverty in a measurable and comparable form through indexes such as the Human Development Index (HDI) ¹³ or the Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI) developed in collaboration with Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative. ¹⁴ These indexes measure development on a group-level using indicators pertaining to factors such as health and education, in addition to living standards (hereunder income). However, many of the dimensions in this understanding of poverty can only be illuminated by complex and contested measures, and are difficult to measure on the individual level.

Despite being harder to operationalize, a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty is quite widely accepted, and, as the above discussion would argue, relevant. The United Nations Development Programme, for example, lists the following description of the concept of poverty: ¹⁵ "Standard definitions of poverty usually focus on the lack of income or economic deprivation. But poverty also encompasses the lack of access to an education, basic healthcare or clean drinking water, or to influence political processes and other factors that matter to people." A similar view is proposed in introductory remarks by James Catford in The Poverty and Justice Bible ¹⁶: "The genuinely poor are those robbed of the ability to make choices for themselves - the choice for safe and clean water, the choice of an education, the choice of protection from abuse, the choice of medical care, and more."

A number of other approaches exist to defining the concept of poverty, varying in focus and in how they approach measurement of poverty. ¹⁷ A highly significant question, particularly from an advocacy perspective, is how poor people themselves understand the concept of poverty. An extensive World Bank study outlines some recurring themes in the feedback from around 40,000 people, defined as "poor," from over 50 countries who were asked to identify what poverty meant to them. ¹⁸ The following conclusions are drawn from the data, as formulated in the final report:

Hunger is always a central issue

A psychological dimension is also important - e.g. the feeling of powerlessness, shame, etc.

The lack of access to basic infrastructure, such as water facilities, is important

Education is not perceived as being as important as the economic environment

Poor health and illness are dreaded

Income is not as important as managing assets

This study reinforces the notion of poverty being a multidimensional concept - but also reflects the intuitive understanding of poverty referred to initially: where there is hunger, there is poverty. Furthermore, although it is clearly not the only aspect, the economic dimension, unsurprisingly, remains important to the poor themselves.

The above examples highlight some of the different understandings of the concept of poverty. With some of the different perceptions in mind, the following section will discuss the issue of poverty alleviation from the perspective of social justice.
Social Justice and Poverty Alleviation
As Nelson Mandela has remarked: "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils." ¹⁹ These words certainly carry some weight coming from a man who himself spent decades in prison due to apartheid. In a world with unprecedented wealth and abundant resources, poverty is social injustice - or, as Mandela says, even a "social evil."

Social justice as a mainstream concept is often linked to human rights. From a somewhat different perspective, however, social justice is a consistent theme in both Testaments of the Bible, a central theme in Christian faith, and a defining force in the historical and contemporary Salvation Army. Although the similarities to a rights-based approach are many, a Christian understanding of social justice stems from a different foundation - the God-given dignity and worth of every human being. For The Salvation Army, the foundation for a passion for social justice is based on a Biblical mandate.

The International Social Justice Commission's Jesus and Justice extracts, from a series of studies of passages of Scripture, a number of principles central to Jesus' life. The following excerpt remarks upon the general nature of Jesus' mission on earth: ²⁰

The essence of Jesus' mission is captured in a single vision - one vision with two dimensions. Jesus' hope for a restored humanity has a double focus: people who are spiritually poor and people who are socially poor.

SPIRITUALLY POOR: Jesus begins with a personal claim: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me." I have been touched by God and I am in touch with God. And the good news I bring to those of you who are spiritually poor is: You can be in touch with God, too.

SOCIALLY POOR: Jesus understands the systemic nature of social poverty. He sees people in poverty as those who are held captive. They are oppressed. They are victims of their circumstances. People living in social poverty need eyes to see beyond the barriers that imprison them. They need to be freed to explore a new future.

To relate this to the discussion above, the description of the "socially poor" can easily be understood in terms of a capabilities view of poverty. People are poor because they lack the capabilities to create for themselves an acceptable standard of living. Invariably, this is to some degree due to different forms of oppression or societal barriers. From a social justice perspective, a capabilities approach to poverty is significant in that it recognizes that it is not a mere lack of things that constitutes poverty, but rather that poverty can be the result of a complex web of oppression and systemic limitations on people's capabilities. As such, poverty alleviation, in order to be successful and sustainable, must deal with a multitude of issues on both the individual and systemic levels.

A Christian understanding, however, would add a "spiritual" dimension to a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty. As the above quote suggests, it is also possible to be spiritually poor - either in addition to, or separately from being socially poor. Based on such a view, some of the emotional and psychological aspects of poverty highlighted in the World Bank study presented above could potentially be perceived as reflecting a form of spiritual poverty. The assertion is that, as people do not only consist of a physical body, ²¹ poverty is not solely about a lack of physical goods. A Christian perspective such as that proposed above would recognize that one dimension of poverty may be being "out of touch with God."

If poverty is understood as a multi-dimensional concept, a credible assumption would be that alleviating poverty will require tackling a number of issues simultaneously. ²² As the quote above indicates, Jesus' example suggests a dual focus, on both the spiritual and the social dimensions of poverty. Inherent in such a multi-dimensional understanding is the danger that there develops a tension between focusing on the respective dimensions. The key from the passage above is that Jesus' example urges Christians to be simultaneously concerned with both dimensions. His is one "single vision" - not two separate visions. A multi-dimensional approach to poverty alleviation recognizing both the physical and spiritual dimensions has deep roots in Army heritage - foundational, for instance, in William Booth's In Darkest England and the Way Out. ²³ The way out of poverty for the "submerged tenth" that Booth describes was to involve sustainable provision for basic physical needs, such as food, shelter, and work, and the Army's initiatives to this effect involved interventions on both the individual level and the systemic level. Central to the Darkest England scheme, however, was also the offer of spiritual salvation and access to a spiritual fellowship.

Specific aspects of Jesus' example are expanded upon in Jesus and Justice. Jesus:

Included the excluded

Challenged cultural practices

Confronted the powerful

Advocated for the oppressed

These categories can serve as points of reference for how we can address poverty in light of the multi-dimensional view of it. Key goals to strive for would be inclusion, empowerment, and freeing people from repressive cultural or societal circumstances. Each of these points can encompass both physical/ social dimensions and a spiritual dimension. With reference to a capabilities understanding, for example, poverty can involve being denied the capability to speak up for oneself - evident in the sense of powerlessness highlighted by the poor themselves in the World Bank study cited above. One aspect of addressing poverty, thus, involves giving people a voice - advocating with the poor and empowering them to speak up on their own behalf. This is something that can involve both physical interventions - creating spaces and mechanisms by which the voices of the poor can be heard - and spiritual support, aimed at instilling oppressed people with self-assurance, assuring them of their God-given worth and dignity, and encouraging them to advocate on their own behalf. Similar examples could be given regarding the other bullet-points.

It should be noted that the recognition of a spiritual dimension to poverty, though being particularly central to a faith-based perspective, is not overlooked in secular circles. The Norwegian Minister for Development in late 2010 initiated a study regarding the role of religion in development work. ²⁴ Norway is an increasingly secularized society, and there are restrictions barring Faith-Based Organizations from using government money to fund religious activities as part of development initiatives. The Minister's focus in his statement presenting the study was, however, that it is important not to underestimate the importance of religion in the lives of people and communities around the world. Rather, he proposed, it is important to recognize that faith can play a significant role - both positive and negative - in development.

In keeping with this view, the following quote highlights a Christian perspective on precisely how faith can be an important positive force in a poverty alleviation setting:

The gospel speaks of social responsibility and social justice. No one has a better message to bring than the Christian. No message can deal more deeply with the fundamental causes of poverty which are rooted in human ignorance, greed, lust for power, selfishness - in evil itself. The gospel message is the one thing that elevates the mission organization from the ranks of development agencies and, in my view, positions us uniquely to deal with the problems of poverty. But our mission cannot be to the soul and the spirit alone. We must respect the realities of people's lives. ²⁵

The final sentences underline the importance of the dual focus introduced earlier, and reflect an insight that has been foundational to The Salvation Army since its inception: catering to the soul and the spirit can be of little use if the physical and social realities holding people down are not dealt with. That being said, our spiritual mission equips us to make a deeper and more sustainable impact on people's lives than mere provision would achieve.
Conclusions
In summary, the discussions above underscore the fact that even in the best of cases, provision of money or physical goods is not, on its own, poverty alleviation. Provision is not justice. In the worst case, provision can on the contrary perpetuate relationships of dependency and disempowerment. This insight is vital, and has in recent years been foundational for the development of The Salvation Army's poverty alleviation work, reflected in holistic community development projects, microfinance, advocacy training, and initiatives such as the Sally Ann fair trade project. ²⁶

Literalist interpreters of the Bible may discard goals of eradicating poverty with reference to Jesus' assertion in that the poor "you will always have with you." If poverty is defined as a relative concept, this will likely be so. But the extremely poor need not be with us always. As Jesus spent his life providing for the needs of those who were poor and disenfranchised, so too should we.

1. One of the most frequently cited statistics is the World Bank's estimate that 1.4 billion people were living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in 2005, see the World Bank's website for more information: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:22569747~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html

2. See f.ex. the website of Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/

3. See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

4. World Bank Institute (2005): Introduction to Poverty Analysis. Manual. p.9. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PGLP/Resources/PovertyManual.pdf

5. The United Nations (2010): The Millennium Development Goals. Report 2010. Report. New York. Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf#page=8

6. For more on the development of the World Bank $1.25 a day measure, see United Nations (2009): Rethinking Poverty. Report on the World Social Situation 2010. Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York, p.47-48.

7. Sen, Amartya (1983), as quoted in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. p.12.

8. United Nations (2009:49-52) describes some of the methods used to calculate such methods, and discusses some of the problems and challenges associated with these calculations.

9. Ibid.:45-47.

10. An approximate figure, based on the poverty threshold value for a 1 person household in 2009 as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. See http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html

11. An approximate figure, based on a poverty threshold established with reference to EU standards, setting the poverty line at 60 % of the median income. See http://www.ssb.no/emner/05/01/inntind/

12. As formulated in Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. P.17.

13. See United Nations Development Programme: "International Human Development Indicators." Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/. The HDI was developed partially on the basis of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (United Nations 2009:47).

14. For more information, see "Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative," available at http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/

15. United Nations Development Programme: "Development Dictionary". Available at: http://www.undp.org/poverty/devglossary_main.shtml

16. The British and Foreign Bible Society (2008): The Poverty and Justice Bible. Contemporary English Version. Bible Society: Swindon. p.2.

17. Some common categories and descriptions can be found in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

18 Narayan, Deepa; Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, & Sarah Koch-Schulte (2000): Voices of the Poor. Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford University Press, The World Bank. Available at: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/05/06/000094946_00042605311270/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

19 "In full: Mandela's Poverty Speech," BBC News. 3 February 2005. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4232603.stm

20. International Social Justice Commission: p.6.

21. A widespread Christian perspective holds that people consist of a trichotomy of "body, soul, and spirit." A discussion of this concept could be relevant in this context, but will be avoided due to space constraints

22. It should be noted that it doesn't strictly follow that a multi-dimensional problem requires a multi-dimensional response. For instance, a very basic Marxian analysis might suggest that fixing the modes of production would in turn resolve most other issues of deprivation - a similar analysis being the case for a simple capitalist analysis.

23. Booth, William (1890): In Darkest England and the Way Out. London: International Headquarters of The Salvation Army.

24. Solheim, Erik (2010): "Ta Gud Alvorlig," in Aftenposten. 12/08/10. Available at http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/ud/aktuelt/taler_artikler/utviklingsministeren/2010/kronikk_religion.html?id=612337

25. Brekke, Bo (2001): "We Are the Poor," in The Officer. April 2001. Available at: http://www.salvationist.org/poverty.nsf/vw_sublinks/915B28C7E3C54FDB80256AC40036912F?openDocument

26. See http://www.sallyann.com/home/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day 1. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day ¹. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion. Yet children die, literally in their tens of thousands, every single day - simply because they are born into situations where their parents have no opportunities to adequately provide for their health and well-being ². The extreme deprivation of such a large proportion of the world's population, in a world with more than enough resources to cover everyone's basic needs, is a grave injustice. As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to address the issue. Living out our Biblical mandate means, among other things, that we must tackle the issue of extreme global poverty.

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal 1 ³ aspires to a significant contribution towards "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." However, some questions arise from this starting point: what exactly is poverty, or extreme poverty, and what does it actually mean to go about "alleviating," reducing or eradicating it?

This think-piece discusses some of these issues through a lens of social justice, and in the context of The Salvation Army's mission. The first section outlines some different understandings of poverty, before the focus turns explicitly to a Christian social justice perspective on poverty and the consequences of this in terms of what poverty alleviation actually entails.
Understanding Poverty - Measuring Poverty
Poverty, in its most general sense, is often defined as some form of deprivation. The World Bank, for instance, has defined poverty as "pronounced deprivation of well-being." ⁴ The logically ensuing questions are: what is well-being, and what levels of deprivation are sufficiently "pronounced" to rightly be labeled poverty, or extreme poverty? These questions reveal two different needs: the need to clarify poverty on a conceptual level, and the need to operationalize this concept.

This project can, as mentioned, be seen in the context of the MDGs, and in particular MDG 1, "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." In this instance, extreme poverty is operationalized as "living on less than $1.25 a day." ⁵ In general, poverty measures often use income as an important (or as the sole) indicator, reflecting the notion that, conceptually, economic deprivation is a main defining characteristic of being poor. It is common practice to have a "poverty-line" separating the poor from the non-poor, or the poor from the extremely poor. In the case of MDG 1, this poverty-line is set at an absolute level of $ 1.25 for extreme poverty, employing a measure developed by the World Bank which has become widely used and cited. ⁶

MDG 1 links the concept of extreme poverty with that of hunger. In line with this, Amartya Sen outlines what in essence is an intuitive understanding of poverty: "If there is starvation and hunger then, no matter what the relative picture looks like there clearly is poverty." ⁷ This understanding, then, indicates that it is not necessarily the economic deprivation in itself that defines poverty, but rather the existence of hunger caused by this lack of money - i.e., deprivation of food. In light of this, measures for poverty are frequently calculated with reference to the cost of covering the daily minimum calorific needs of a human being. ⁸

Despite being both simple and easily measurable, a focus on income, or income and hunger, comes up short when one is attempting to define "poverty" as a more general construct. This is particularly so when moving away from the issue of extreme poverty, where a severe deprivation of basic necessities will generally be plainly obvious. It is easy to argue that those living on $2 a day, or $5 a day, cannot reasonably be labeled as "non-poor," even if there may not be daily starvation or hunger. Where does one set a "poverty line" in such cases?

Income is commonly used as an indicator of poverty also in situations where there is not necessarily severe deprivation. The common practice is to determine a poverty line as a certain standard relative to the average or median income in a country. The underlying concept, this time, is that poverty can mean a relative deprivation of material goods or benefits, compared to the surrounding society - an understanding that has become dominant in much of the developed world, where extreme poverty and hunger is practically non-existent. ⁹ With such an understanding, inequality becomes an element of the concept of poverty - as long as sufficient inequality exists, there will always people who are poor relative to their peers, regardless of how wealthy society as a whole becomes.

Differing operational definitions focusing on income and the establishment of "poverty lines" entail that whereas extreme poverty is defined globally as surviving on less than $1.25 a day, a person living in the USA, for example, is regarded as poor when surviving on $30 a day, ¹⁰ while a person living in Norway can be regarded as poor when earning $70 a day. ¹¹ Poverty quite clearly means different things in these different situations, and the life of a poor person in the USA or Norway will look significantly different from that of a poor person in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. In light of such disparities, it seems necessary to establish a more nuanced understanding of what poverty entails on a conceptual level.
Multidimensional understandings of poverty
It is commonly held that poverty is more than simply a question of monetary deprivation, whether this deprivation is absolute or relatively defined. Rather, it is a multi-dimensional concept, with poverty entailing deprivation of factors such as food and water, education, health, security, or basic freedoms and opportunities. A broadly applied approach to defining poverty in such a multi-dimensional understanding of the term can be found in the "capabilities-approach," attributed to Amartya Sen. This approach defines poverty as the lack of key capabilities to ensure adequate functioning in a given society - be they the capability to access food, health care, to obtain employment, or other capabilities. Poverty, in other words, can be understood as "capability deprivation." ¹² A person's capability to acquire the food necessary for survival, to achieve upward mobility, or to ensure education for one's children, determine whether or not they can be considered poor. Income will clearly be a factor influencing a person's capabilities, but so will a number of other factors, hereunder external factors such as the political and societal environment that a person is living in.

The capabilities approach broadens the understanding of poverty as a concept. It is not a lack of money in itself that constitutes poverty, but the lack of money can be one factor contributing to curtailing a person's capability to achieve an adequate standard of living. In addition to recognizing the diverse faces of poverty, the capabilities approach highlights some of the systemic factors underlying poverty. A capabilities view is, furthermore, context-specific. As such, both extreme poverty and relative poverty can be understood through this definition.

One challenge with this approach is that many capabilities, or factors influencing a person's capabilities, are hard to measure. Where a focus on monetary deprivation lends simplicity to measuring poverty, then, a capabilities approach gives a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the concept itself, but is harder to operationalize. Measuring poverty must not only look at income, but also look at other indicators - such as access to education and healthcare, or indicators for political and social freedom and corruption, all of which can influence the opportunities that low-income people have to cater to their basic needs. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to capture a multi-dimensional view of poverty in a measurable and comparable form through indexes such as the Human Development Index (HDI) ¹³ or the Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI) developed in collaboration with Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative. ¹⁴ These indexes measure development on a group-level using indicators pertaining to factors such as health and education, in addition to living standards (hereunder income). However, many of the dimensions in this understanding of poverty can only be illuminated by complex and contested measures, and are difficult to measure on the individual level.

Despite being harder to operationalize, a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty is quite widely accepted, and, as the above discussion would argue, relevant. The United Nations Development Programme, for example, lists the following description of the concept of poverty: ¹⁵ "Standard definitions of poverty usually focus on the lack of income or economic deprivation. But poverty also encompasses the lack of access to an education, basic healthcare or clean drinking water, or to influence political processes and other factors that matter to people." A similar view is proposed in introductory remarks by James Catford in The Poverty and Justice Bible ¹⁶: "The genuinely poor are those robbed of the ability to make choices for themselves - the choice for safe and clean water, the choice of an education, the choice of protection from abuse, the choice of medical care, and more."

A number of other approaches exist to defining the concept of poverty, varying in focus and in how they approach measurement of poverty. ¹⁷ A highly significant question, particularly from an advocacy perspective, is how poor people themselves understand the concept of poverty. An extensive World Bank study outlines some recurring themes in the feedback from around 40,000 people, defined as "poor," from over 50 countries who were asked to identify what poverty meant to them. ¹⁸ The following conclusions are drawn from the data, as formulated in the final report:

Hunger is always a central issue

A psychological dimension is also important - e.g. the feeling of powerlessness, shame, etc.

The lack of access to basic infrastructure, such as water facilities, is important

Education is not perceived as being as important as the economic environment

Poor health and illness are dreaded

Income is not as important as managing assets

This study reinforces the notion of poverty being a multidimensional concept - but also reflects the intuitive understanding of poverty referred to initially: where there is hunger, there is poverty. Furthermore, although it is clearly not the only aspect, the economic dimension, unsurprisingly, remains important to the poor themselves.

The above examples highlight some of the different understandings of the concept of poverty. With some of the different perceptions in mind, the following section will discuss the issue of poverty alleviation from the perspective of social justice.
Social Justice and Poverty Alleviation
As Nelson Mandela has remarked: "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils." ¹⁹ These words certainly carry some weight coming from a man who himself spent decades in prison due to apartheid. In a world with unprecedented wealth and abundant resources, poverty is social injustice - or, as Mandela says, even a "social evil."

Social justice as a mainstream concept is often linked to human rights. From a somewhat different perspective, however, social justice is a consistent theme in both Testaments of the Bible, a central theme in Christian faith, and a defining force in the historical and contemporary Salvation Army. Although the similarities to a rights-based approach are many, a Christian understanding of social justice stems from a different foundation - the God-given dignity and worth of every human being. For The Salvation Army, the foundation for a passion for social justice is based on a Biblical mandate.

The International Social Justice Commission's Jesus and Justice extracts, from a series of studies of passages of Scripture, a number of principles central to Jesus' life. The following excerpt remarks upon the general nature of Jesus' mission on earth: ²⁰

The essence of Jesus' mission is captured in a single vision - one vision with two dimensions. Jesus' hope for a restored humanity has a double focus: people who are spiritually poor and people who are socially poor.

SPIRITUALLY POOR: Jesus begins with a personal claim: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me." I have been touched by God and I am in touch with God. And the good news I bring to those of you who are spiritually poor is: You can be in touch with God, too.

SOCIALLY POOR: Jesus understands the systemic nature of social poverty. He sees people in poverty as those who are held captive. They are oppressed. They are victims of their circumstances. People living in social poverty need eyes to see beyond the barriers that imprison them. They need to be freed to explore a new future.

To relate this to the discussion above, the description of the "socially poor" can easily be understood in terms of a capabilities view of poverty. People are poor because they lack the capabilities to create for themselves an acceptable standard of living. Invariably, this is to some degree due to different forms of oppression or societal barriers. From a social justice perspective, a capabilities approach to poverty is significant in that it recognizes that it is not a mere lack of things that constitutes poverty, but rather that poverty can be the result of a complex web of oppression and systemic limitations on people's capabilities. As such, poverty alleviation, in order to be successful and sustainable, must deal with a multitude of issues on both the individual and systemic levels.

A Christian understanding, however, would add a "spiritual" dimension to a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty. As the above quote suggests, it is also possible to be spiritually poor - either in addition to, or separately from being socially poor. Based on such a view, some of the emotional and psychological aspects of poverty highlighted in the World Bank study presented above could potentially be perceived as reflecting a form of spiritual poverty. The assertion is that, as people do not only consist of a physical body, ²¹ poverty is not solely about a lack of physical goods. A Christian perspective such as that proposed above would recognize that one dimension of poverty may be being "out of touch with God."

If poverty is understood as a multi-dimensional concept, a credible assumption would be that alleviating poverty will require tackling a number of issues simultaneously. ²² As the quote above indicates, Jesus' example suggests a dual focus, on both the spiritual and the social dimensions of poverty. Inherent in such a multi-dimensional understanding is the danger that there develops a tension between focusing on the respective dimensions. The key from the passage above is that Jesus' example urges Christians to be simultaneously concerned with both dimensions. His is one "single vision" - not two separate visions. A multi-dimensional approach to poverty alleviation recognizing both the physical and spiritual dimensions has deep roots in Army heritage - foundational, for instance, in William Booth's In Darkest England and the Way Out. ²³ The way out of poverty for the "submerged tenth" that Booth describes was to involve sustainable provision for basic physical needs, such as food, shelter, and work, and the Army's initiatives to this effect involved interventions on both the individual level and the systemic level. Central to the Darkest England scheme, however, was also the offer of spiritual salvation and access to a spiritual fellowship.

Specific aspects of Jesus' example are expanded upon in Jesus and Justice. Jesus:

Included the excluded

Challenged cultural practices

Confronted the powerful

Advocated for the oppressed

These categories can serve as points of reference for how we can address poverty in light of the multi-dimensional view of it. Key goals to strive for would be inclusion, empowerment, and freeing people from repressive cultural or societal circumstances. Each of these points can encompass both physical/ social dimensions and a spiritual dimension. With reference to a capabilities understanding, for example, poverty can involve being denied the capability to speak up for oneself - evident in the sense of powerlessness highlighted by the poor themselves in the World Bank study cited above. One aspect of addressing poverty, thus, involves giving people a voice - advocating with the poor and empowering them to speak up on their own behalf. This is something that can involve both physical interventions - creating spaces and mechanisms by which the voices of the poor can be heard - and spiritual support, aimed at instilling oppressed people with self-assurance, assuring them of their God-given worth and dignity, and encouraging them to advocate on their own behalf. Similar examples could be given regarding the other bullet-points.

It should be noted that the recognition of a spiritual dimension to poverty, though being particularly central to a faith-based perspective, is not overlooked in secular circles. The Norwegian Minister for Development in late 2010 initiated a study regarding the role of religion in development work. ²⁴ Norway is an increasingly secularized society, and there are restrictions barring Faith-Based Organizations from using government money to fund religious activities as part of development initiatives. The Minister's focus in his statement presenting the study was, however, that it is important not to underestimate the importance of religion in the lives of people and communities around the world. Rather, he proposed, it is important to recognize that faith can play a significant role - both positive and negative - in development.

In keeping with this view, the following quote highlights a Christian perspective on precisely how faith can be an important positive force in a poverty alleviation setting:

The gospel speaks of social responsibility and social justice. No one has a better message to bring than the Christian. No message can deal more deeply with the fundamental causes of poverty which are rooted in human ignorance, greed, lust for power, selfishness - in evil itself. The gospel message is the one thing that elevates the mission organization from the ranks of development agencies and, in my view, positions us uniquely to deal with the problems of poverty. But our mission cannot be to the soul and the spirit alone. We must respect the realities of people's lives. ²⁵

The final sentences underline the importance of the dual focus introduced earlier, and reflect an insight that has been foundational to The Salvation Army since its inception: catering to the soul and the spirit can be of little use if the physical and social realities holding people down are not dealt with. That being said, our spiritual mission equips us to make a deeper and more sustainable impact on people's lives than mere provision would achieve.
Conclusions
In summary, the discussions above underscore the fact that even in the best of cases, provision of money or physical goods is not, on its own, poverty alleviation. Provision is not justice. In the worst case, provision can on the contrary perpetuate relationships of dependency and disempowerment. This insight is vital, and has in recent years been foundational for the development of The Salvation Army's poverty alleviation work, reflected in holistic community development projects, microfinance, advocacy training, and initiatives such as the Sally Ann fair trade project. ²⁶

Literalist interpreters of the Bible may discard goals of eradicating poverty with reference to Jesus' assertion in that the poor "you will always have with you." If poverty is defined as a relative concept, this will likely be so. But the extremely poor need not be with us always. As Jesus spent his life providing for the needs of those who were poor and disenfranchised, so too should we.

1. One of the most frequently cited statistics is the World Bank's estimate that 1.4 billion people were living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in 2005, see the World Bank's website for more information: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:22569747~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html

2. See f.ex. the website of Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/

3. See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

4. World Bank Institute (2005): Introduction to Poverty Analysis. Manual. p.9. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PGLP/Resources/PovertyManual.pdf

5. The United Nations (2010): The Millennium Development Goals. Report 2010. Report. New York. Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf#page=8

6. For more on the development of the World Bank $1.25 a day measure, see United Nations (2009): Rethinking Poverty. Report on the World Social Situation 2010. Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York, p.47-48.

7. Sen, Amartya (1983), as quoted in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. p.12.

8. United Nations (2009:49-52) describes some of the methods used to calculate such methods, and discusses some of the problems and challenges associated with these calculations.

9. Ibid.:45-47.

10. An approximate figure, based on the poverty threshold value for a 1 person household in 2009 as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. See http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html

11. An approximate figure, based on a poverty threshold established with reference to EU standards, setting the poverty line at 60 % of the median income. See http://www.ssb.no/emner/05/01/inntind/

12. As formulated in Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. P.17.

13. See United Nations Development Programme: "International Human Development Indicators." Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/. The HDI was developed partially on the basis of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (United Nations 2009:47).

14. For more information, see "Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative," available at http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/

15. United Nations Development Programme: "Development Dictionary". Available at: http://www.undp.org/poverty/devglossary_main.shtml

16. The British and Foreign Bible Society (2008): The Poverty and Justice Bible. Contemporary English Version. Bible Society: Swindon. p.2.

17. Some common categories and descriptions can be found in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

18 Narayan, Deepa; Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, & Sarah Koch-Schulte (2000): Voices of the Poor. Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford University Press, The World Bank. Available at: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/05/06/000094946_00042605311270/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

19 "In full: Mandela's Poverty Speech," BBC News. 3 February 2005. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4232603.stm

20. International Social Justice Commission: p.6.

21. A widespread Christian perspective holds that people consist of a trichotomy of "body, soul, and spirit." A discussion of this concept could be relevant in this context, but will be avoided due to space constraints

22. It should be noted that it doesn't strictly follow that a multi-dimensional problem requires a multi-dimensional response. For instance, a very basic Marxian analysis might suggest that fixing the modes of production would in turn resolve most other issues of deprivation - a similar analysis being the case for a simple capitalist analysis.

23. Booth, William (1890): In Darkest England and the Way Out. London: International Headquarters of The Salvation Army.

24. Solheim, Erik (2010): "Ta Gud Alvorlig," in Aftenposten. 12/08/10. Available at http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/ud/aktuelt/taler_artikler/utviklingsministeren/2010/kronikk_religion.html?id=612337

25. Brekke, Bo (2001): "We Are the Poor," in The Officer. April 2001. Available at: http://www.salvationist.org/poverty.nsf/vw_sublinks/915B28C7E3C54FDB80256AC40036912F?openDocument

26. See http://www.sallyann.com/home/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day 1. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day ¹. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion. Yet children die, literally in their tens of thousands, every single day - simply because they are born into situations where their parents have no opportunities to adequately provide for their health and well-being ². The extreme deprivation of such a large proportion of the world's population, in a world with more than enough resources to cover everyone's basic needs, is a grave injustice. As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to address the issue. Living out our Biblical mandate means, among other things, that we must tackle the issue of extreme global poverty.

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal 1 ³ aspires to a significant contribution towards "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." However, some questions arise from this starting point: what exactly is poverty, or extreme poverty, and what does it actually mean to go about "alleviating," reducing or eradicating it?

This think-piece discusses some of these issues through a lens of social justice, and in the context of The Salvation Army's mission. The first section outlines some different understandings of poverty, before the focus turns explicitly to a Christian social justice perspective on poverty and the consequences of this in terms of what poverty alleviation actually entails.
Understanding Poverty - Measuring Poverty
Poverty, in its most general sense, is often defined as some form of deprivation. The World Bank, for instance, has defined poverty as "pronounced deprivation of well-being." ⁴ The logically ensuing questions are: what is well-being, and what levels of deprivation are sufficiently "pronounced" to rightly be labeled poverty, or extreme poverty? These questions reveal two different needs: the need to clarify poverty on a conceptual level, and the need to operationalize this concept.

This project can, as mentioned, be seen in the context of the MDGs, and in particular MDG 1, "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." In this instance, extreme poverty is operationalized as "living on less than $1.25 a day." ⁵ In general, poverty measures often use income as an important (or as the sole) indicator, reflecting the notion that, conceptually, economic deprivation is a main defining characteristic of being poor. It is common practice to have a "poverty-line" separating the poor from the non-poor, or the poor from the extremely poor. In the case of MDG 1, this poverty-line is set at an absolute level of $ 1.25 for extreme poverty, employing a measure developed by the World Bank which has become widely used and cited. ⁶

MDG 1 links the concept of extreme poverty with that of hunger. In line with this, Amartya Sen outlines what in essence is an intuitive understanding of poverty: "If there is starvation and hunger then, no matter what the relative picture looks like there clearly is poverty." ⁷ This understanding, then, indicates that it is not necessarily the economic deprivation in itself that defines poverty, but rather the existence of hunger caused by this lack of money - i.e., deprivation of food. In light of this, measures for poverty are frequently calculated with reference to the cost of covering the daily minimum calorific needs of a human being. ⁸

Despite being both simple and easily measurable, a focus on income, or income and hunger, comes up short when one is attempting to define "poverty" as a more general construct. This is particularly so when moving away from the issue of extreme poverty, where a severe deprivation of basic necessities will generally be plainly obvious. It is easy to argue that those living on $2 a day, or $5 a day, cannot reasonably be labeled as "non-poor," even if there may not be daily starvation or hunger. Where does one set a "poverty line" in such cases?

Income is commonly used as an indicator of poverty also in situations where there is not necessarily severe deprivation. The common practice is to determine a poverty line as a certain standard relative to the average or median income in a country. The underlying concept, this time, is that poverty can mean a relative deprivation of material goods or benefits, compared to the surrounding society - an understanding that has become dominant in much of the developed world, where extreme poverty and hunger is practically non-existent. ⁹ With such an understanding, inequality becomes an element of the concept of poverty - as long as sufficient inequality exists, there will always people who are poor relative to their peers, regardless of how wealthy society as a whole becomes.

Differing operational definitions focusing on income and the establishment of "poverty lines" entail that whereas extreme poverty is defined globally as surviving on less than $1.25 a day, a person living in the USA, for example, is regarded as poor when surviving on $30 a day, ¹⁰ while a person living in Norway can be regarded as poor when earning $70 a day. ¹¹ Poverty quite clearly means different things in these different situations, and the life of a poor person in the USA or Norway will look significantly different from that of a poor person in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. In light of such disparities, it seems necessary to establish a more nuanced understanding of what poverty entails on a conceptual level.
Multidimensional understandings of poverty
It is commonly held that poverty is more than simply a question of monetary deprivation, whether this deprivation is absolute or relatively defined. Rather, it is a multi-dimensional concept, with poverty entailing deprivation of factors such as food and water, education, health, security, or basic freedoms and opportunities. A broadly applied approach to defining poverty in such a multi-dimensional understanding of the term can be found in the "capabilities-approach," attributed to Amartya Sen. This approach defines poverty as the lack of key capabilities to ensure adequate functioning in a given society - be they the capability to access food, health care, to obtain employment, or other capabilities. Poverty, in other words, can be understood as "capability deprivation." ¹² A person's capability to acquire the food necessary for survival, to achieve upward mobility, or to ensure education for one's children, determine whether or not they can be considered poor. Income will clearly be a factor influencing a person's capabilities, but so will a number of other factors, hereunder external factors such as the political and societal environment that a person is living in.

The capabilities approach broadens the understanding of poverty as a concept. It is not a lack of money in itself that constitutes poverty, but the lack of money can be one factor contributing to curtailing a person's capability to achieve an adequate standard of living. In addition to recognizing the diverse faces of poverty, the capabilities approach highlights some of the systemic factors underlying poverty. A capabilities view is, furthermore, context-specific. As such, both extreme poverty and relative poverty can be understood through this definition.

One challenge with this approach is that many capabilities, or factors influencing a person's capabilities, are hard to measure. Where a focus on monetary deprivation lends simplicity to measuring poverty, then, a capabilities approach gives a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the concept itself, but is harder to operationalize. Measuring poverty must not only look at income, but also look at other indicators - such as access to education and healthcare, or indicators for political and social freedom and corruption, all of which can influence the opportunities that low-income people have to cater to their basic needs. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to capture a multi-dimensional view of poverty in a measurable and comparable form through indexes such as the Human Development Index (HDI) ¹³ or the Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI) developed in collaboration with Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative. ¹⁴ These indexes measure development on a group-level using indicators pertaining to factors such as health and education, in addition to living standards (hereunder income). However, many of the dimensions in this understanding of poverty can only be illuminated by complex and contested measures, and are difficult to measure on the individual level.

Despite being harder to operationalize, a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty is quite widely accepted, and, as the above discussion would argue, relevant. The United Nations Development Programme, for example, lists the following description of the concept of poverty: ¹⁵ "Standard definitions of poverty usually focus on the lack of income or economic deprivation. But poverty also encompasses the lack of access to an education, basic healthcare or clean drinking water, or to influence political processes and other factors that matter to people." A similar view is proposed in introductory remarks by James Catford in The Poverty and Justice Bible ¹⁶: "The genuinely poor are those robbed of the ability to make choices for themselves - the choice for safe and clean water, the choice of an education, the choice of protection from abuse, the choice of medical care, and more."

A number of other approaches exist to defining the concept of poverty, varying in focus and in how they approach measurement of poverty. ¹⁷ A highly significant question, particularly from an advocacy perspective, is how poor people themselves understand the concept of poverty. An extensive World Bank study outlines some recurring themes in the feedback from around 40,000 people, defined as "poor," from over 50 countries who were asked to identify what poverty meant to them. ¹⁸ The following conclusions are drawn from the data, as formulated in the final report:

Hunger is always a central issue

A psychological dimension is also important - e.g. the feeling of powerlessness, shame, etc.

The lack of access to basic infrastructure, such as water facilities, is important

Education is not perceived as being as important as the economic environment

Poor health and illness are dreaded

Income is not as important as managing assets

This study reinforces the notion of poverty being a multidimensional concept - but also reflects the intuitive understanding of poverty referred to initially: where there is hunger, there is poverty. Furthermore, although it is clearly not the only aspect, the economic dimension, unsurprisingly, remains important to the poor themselves.

The above examples highlight some of the different understandings of the concept of poverty. With some of the different perceptions in mind, the following section will discuss the issue of poverty alleviation from the perspective of social justice.
Social Justice and Poverty Alleviation
As Nelson Mandela has remarked: "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils." ¹⁹ These words certainly carry some weight coming from a man who himself spent decades in prison due to apartheid. In a world with unprecedented wealth and abundant resources, poverty is social injustice - or, as Mandela says, even a "social evil."

Social justice as a mainstream concept is often linked to human rights. From a somewhat different perspective, however, social justice is a consistent theme in both Testaments of the Bible, a central theme in Christian faith, and a defining force in the historical and contemporary Salvation Army. Although the similarities to a rights-based approach are many, a Christian understanding of social justice stems from a different foundation - the God-given dignity and worth of every human being. For The Salvation Army, the foundation for a passion for social justice is based on a Biblical mandate.

The International Social Justice Commission's Jesus and Justice extracts, from a series of studies of passages of Scripture, a number of principles central to Jesus' life. The following excerpt remarks upon the general nature of Jesus' mission on earth: ²⁰

The essence of Jesus' mission is captured in a single vision - one vision with two dimensions. Jesus' hope for a restored humanity has a double focus: people who are spiritually poor and people who are socially poor.

SPIRITUALLY POOR: Jesus begins with a personal claim: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me." I have been touched by God and I am in touch with God. And the good news I bring to those of you who are spiritually poor is: You can be in touch with God, too.

SOCIALLY POOR: Jesus understands the systemic nature of social poverty. He sees people in poverty as those who are held captive. They are oppressed. They are victims of their circumstances. People living in social poverty need eyes to see beyond the barriers that imprison them. They need to be freed to explore a new future.

To relate this to the discussion above, the description of the "socially poor" can easily be understood in terms of a capabilities view of poverty. People are poor because they lack the capabilities to create for themselves an acceptable standard of living. Invariably, this is to some degree due to different forms of oppression or societal barriers. From a social justice perspective, a capabilities approach to poverty is significant in that it recognizes that it is not a mere lack of things that constitutes poverty, but rather that poverty can be the result of a complex web of oppression and systemic limitations on people's capabilities. As such, poverty alleviation, in order to be successful and sustainable, must deal with a multitude of issues on both the individual and systemic levels.

A Christian understanding, however, would add a "spiritual" dimension to a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty. As the above quote suggests, it is also possible to be spiritually poor - either in addition to, or separately from being socially poor. Based on such a view, some of the emotional and psychological aspects of poverty highlighted in the World Bank study presented above could potentially be perceived as reflecting a form of spiritual poverty. The assertion is that, as people do not only consist of a physical body, ²¹ poverty is not solely about a lack of physical goods. A Christian perspective such as that proposed above would recognize that one dimension of poverty may be being "out of touch with God."

If poverty is understood as a multi-dimensional concept, a credible assumption would be that alleviating poverty will require tackling a number of issues simultaneously. ²² As the quote above indicates, Jesus' example suggests a dual focus, on both the spiritual and the social dimensions of poverty. Inherent in such a multi-dimensional understanding is the danger that there develops a tension between focusing on the respective dimensions. The key from the passage above is that Jesus' example urges Christians to be simultaneously concerned with both dimensions. His is one "single vision" - not two separate visions. A multi-dimensional approach to poverty alleviation recognizing both the physical and spiritual dimensions has deep roots in Army heritage - foundational, for instance, in William Booth's In Darkest England and the Way Out. ²³ The way out of poverty for the "submerged tenth" that Booth describes was to involve sustainable provision for basic physical needs, such as food, shelter, and work, and the Army's initiatives to this effect involved interventions on both the individual level and the systemic level. Central to the Darkest England scheme, however, was also the offer of spiritual salvation and access to a spiritual fellowship.

Specific aspects of Jesus' example are expanded upon in Jesus and Justice. Jesus:

Included the excluded

Challenged cultural practices

Confronted the powerful

Advocated for the oppressed

These categories can serve as points of reference for how we can address poverty in light of the multi-dimensional view of it. Key goals to strive for would be inclusion, empowerment, and freeing people from repressive cultural or societal circumstances. Each of these points can encompass both physical/ social dimensions and a spiritual dimension. With reference to a capabilities understanding, for example, poverty can involve being denied the capability to speak up for oneself - evident in the sense of powerlessness highlighted by the poor themselves in the World Bank study cited above. One aspect of addressing poverty, thus, involves giving people a voice - advocating with the poor and empowering them to speak up on their own behalf. This is something that can involve both physical interventions - creating spaces and mechanisms by which the voices of the poor can be heard - and spiritual support, aimed at instilling oppressed people with self-assurance, assuring them of their God-given worth and dignity, and encouraging them to advocate on their own behalf. Similar examples could be given regarding the other bullet-points.

It should be noted that the recognition of a spiritual dimension to poverty, though being particularly central to a faith-based perspective, is not overlooked in secular circles. The Norwegian Minister for Development in late 2010 initiated a study regarding the role of religion in development work. ²⁴ Norway is an increasingly secularized society, and there are restrictions barring Faith-Based Organizations from using government money to fund religious activities as part of development initiatives. The Minister's focus in his statement presenting the study was, however, that it is important not to underestimate the importance of religion in the lives of people and communities around the world. Rather, he proposed, it is important to recognize that faith can play a significant role - both positive and negative - in development.

In keeping with this view, the following quote highlights a Christian perspective on precisely how faith can be an important positive force in a poverty alleviation setting:

The gospel speaks of social responsibility and social justice. No one has a better message to bring than the Christian. No message can deal more deeply with the fundamental causes of poverty which are rooted in human ignorance, greed, lust for power, selfishness - in evil itself. The gospel message is the one thing that elevates the mission organization from the ranks of development agencies and, in my view, positions us uniquely to deal with the problems of poverty. But our mission cannot be to the soul and the spirit alone. We must respect the realities of people's lives. ²⁵

The final sentences underline the importance of the dual focus introduced earlier, and reflect an insight that has been foundational to The Salvation Army since its inception: catering to the soul and the spirit can be of little use if the physical and social realities holding people down are not dealt with. That being said, our spiritual mission equips us to make a deeper and more sustainable impact on people's lives than mere provision would achieve.
Conclusions
In summary, the discussions above underscore the fact that even in the best of cases, provision of money or physical goods is not, on its own, poverty alleviation. Provision is not justice. In the worst case, provision can on the contrary perpetuate relationships of dependency and disempowerment. This insight is vital, and has in recent years been foundational for the development of The Salvation Army's poverty alleviation work, reflected in holistic community development projects, microfinance, advocacy training, and initiatives such as the Sally Ann fair trade project. ²⁶

Literalist interpreters of the Bible may discard goals of eradicating poverty with reference to Jesus' assertion in that the poor "you will always have with you." If poverty is defined as a relative concept, this will likely be so. But the extremely poor need not be with us always. As Jesus spent his life providing for the needs of those who were poor and disenfranchised, so too should we.

1. One of the most frequently cited statistics is the World Bank's estimate that 1.4 billion people were living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in 2005, see the World Bank's website for more information: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:22569747~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html

2. See f.ex. the website of Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/

3. See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

4. World Bank Institute (2005): Introduction to Poverty Analysis. Manual. p.9. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PGLP/Resources/PovertyManual.pdf

5. The United Nations (2010): The Millennium Development Goals. Report 2010. Report. New York. Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf#page=8

6. For more on the development of the World Bank $1.25 a day measure, see United Nations (2009): Rethinking Poverty. Report on the World Social Situation 2010. Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York, p.47-48.

7. Sen, Amartya (1983), as quoted in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. p.12.

8. United Nations (2009:49-52) describes some of the methods used to calculate such methods, and discusses some of the problems and challenges associated with these calculations.

9. Ibid.:45-47.

10. An approximate figure, based on the poverty threshold value for a 1 person household in 2009 as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. See http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html

11. An approximate figure, based on a poverty threshold established with reference to EU standards, setting the poverty line at 60 % of the median income. See http://www.ssb.no/emner/05/01/inntind/

12. As formulated in Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. P.17.

13. See United Nations Development Programme: "International Human Development Indicators." Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/. The HDI was developed partially on the basis of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (United Nations 2009:47).

14. For more information, see "Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative," available at http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/

15. United Nations Development Programme: "Development Dictionary". Available at: http://www.undp.org/poverty/devglossary_main.shtml

16. The British and Foreign Bible Society (2008): The Poverty and Justice Bible. Contemporary English Version. Bible Society: Swindon. p.2.

17. Some common categories and descriptions can be found in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

18 Narayan, Deepa; Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, & Sarah Koch-Schulte (2000): Voices of the Poor. Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford University Press, The World Bank. Available at: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/05/06/000094946_00042605311270/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

19 "In full: Mandela's Poverty Speech," BBC News. 3 February 2005. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4232603.stm

20. International Social Justice Commission: p.6.

21. A widespread Christian perspective holds that people consist of a trichotomy of "body, soul, and spirit." A discussion of this concept could be relevant in this context, but will be avoided due to space constraints

22. It should be noted that it doesn't strictly follow that a multi-dimensional problem requires a multi-dimensional response. For instance, a very basic Marxian analysis might suggest that fixing the modes of production would in turn resolve most other issues of deprivation - a similar analysis being the case for a simple capitalist analysis.

23. Booth, William (1890): In Darkest England and the Way Out. London: International Headquarters of The Salvation Army.

24. Solheim, Erik (2010): "Ta Gud Alvorlig," in Aftenposten. 12/08/10. Available at http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/ud/aktuelt/taler_artikler/utviklingsministeren/2010/kronikk_religion.html?id=612337

25. Brekke, Bo (2001): "We Are the Poor," in The Officer. April 2001. Available at: http://www.salvationist.org/poverty.nsf/vw_sublinks/915B28C7E3C54FDB80256AC40036912F?openDocument

26. See http://www.sallyann.com/home/

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It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day 1. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion.

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It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day ¹. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion. Yet children die, literally in their tens of thousands, every single day - simply because they are born into situations where their parents have no opportunities to adequately provide for their health and well-being ². The extreme deprivation of such a large proportion of the world's population, in a world with more than enough resources to cover everyone's basic needs, is a grave injustice. As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to address the issue. Living out our Biblical mandate means, among other things, that we must tackle the issue of extreme global poverty.

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal 1 ³ aspires to a significant contribution towards "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." However, some questions arise from this starting point: what exactly is poverty, or extreme poverty, and what does it actually mean to go about "alleviating," reducing or eradicating it?

This think-piece discusses some of these issues through a lens of social justice, and in the context of The Salvation Army's mission. The first section outlines some different understandings of poverty, before the focus turns explicitly to a Christian social justice perspective on poverty and the consequences of this in terms of what poverty alleviation actually entails.
Understanding Poverty - Measuring Poverty
Poverty, in its most general sense, is often defined as some form of deprivation. The World Bank, for instance, has defined poverty as "pronounced deprivation of well-being." ⁴ The logically ensuing questions are: what is well-being, and what levels of deprivation are sufficiently "pronounced" to rightly be labeled poverty, or extreme poverty? These questions reveal two different needs: the need to clarify poverty on a conceptual level, and the need to operationalize this concept.

This project can, as mentioned, be seen in the context of the MDGs, and in particular MDG 1, "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." In this instance, extreme poverty is operationalized as "living on less than $1.25 a day." ⁵ In general, poverty measures often use income as an important (or as the sole) indicator, reflecting the notion that, conceptually, economic deprivation is a main defining characteristic of being poor. It is common practice to have a "poverty-line" separating the poor from the non-poor, or the poor from the extremely poor. In the case of MDG 1, this poverty-line is set at an absolute level of $ 1.25 for extreme poverty, employing a measure developed by the World Bank which has become widely used and cited. ⁶

MDG 1 links the concept of extreme poverty with that of hunger. In line with this, Amartya Sen outlines what in essence is an intuitive understanding of poverty: "If there is starvation and hunger then, no matter what the relative picture looks like there clearly is poverty." ⁷ This understanding, then, indicates that it is not necessarily the economic deprivation in itself that defines poverty, but rather the existence of hunger caused by this lack of money - i.e., deprivation of food. In light of this, measures for poverty are frequently calculated with reference to the cost of covering the daily minimum calorific needs of a human being. ⁸

Despite being both simple and easily measurable, a focus on income, or income and hunger, comes up short when one is attempting to define "poverty" as a more general construct. This is particularly so when moving away from the issue of extreme poverty, where a severe deprivation of basic necessities will generally be plainly obvious. It is easy to argue that those living on $2 a day, or $5 a day, cannot reasonably be labeled as "non-poor," even if there may not be daily starvation or hunger. Where does one set a "poverty line" in such cases?

Income is commonly used as an indicator of poverty also in situations where there is not necessarily severe deprivation. The common practice is to determine a poverty line as a certain standard relative to the average or median income in a country. The underlying concept, this time, is that poverty can mean a relative deprivation of material goods or benefits, compared to the surrounding society - an understanding that has become dominant in much of the developed world, where extreme poverty and hunger is practically non-existent. ⁹ With such an understanding, inequality becomes an element of the concept of poverty - as long as sufficient inequality exists, there will always people who are poor relative to their peers, regardless of how wealthy society as a whole becomes.

Differing operational definitions focusing on income and the establishment of "poverty lines" entail that whereas extreme poverty is defined globally as surviving on less than $1.25 a day, a person living in the USA, for example, is regarded as poor when surviving on $30 a day, ¹⁰ while a person living in Norway can be regarded as poor when earning $70 a day. ¹¹ Poverty quite clearly means different things in these different situations, and the life of a poor person in the USA or Norway will look significantly different from that of a poor person in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. In light of such disparities, it seems necessary to establish a more nuanced understanding of what poverty entails on a conceptual level.
Multidimensional understandings of poverty
It is commonly held that poverty is more than simply a question of monetary deprivation, whether this deprivation is absolute or relatively defined. Rather, it is a multi-dimensional concept, with poverty entailing deprivation of factors such as food and water, education, health, security, or basic freedoms and opportunities. A broadly applied approach to defining poverty in such a multi-dimensional understanding of the term can be found in the "capabilities-approach," attributed to Amartya Sen. This approach defines poverty as the lack of key capabilities to ensure adequate functioning in a given society - be they the capability to access food, health care, to obtain employment, or other capabilities. Poverty, in other words, can be understood as "capability deprivation." ¹² A person's capability to acquire the food necessary for survival, to achieve upward mobility, or to ensure education for one's children, determine whether or not they can be considered poor. Income will clearly be a factor influencing a person's capabilities, but so will a number of other factors, hereunder external factors such as the political and societal environment that a person is living in.

The capabilities approach broadens the understanding of poverty as a concept. It is not a lack of money in itself that constitutes poverty, but the lack of money can be one factor contributing to curtailing a person's capability to achieve an adequate standard of living. In addition to recognizing the diverse faces of poverty, the capabilities approach highlights some of the systemic factors underlying poverty. A capabilities view is, furthermore, context-specific. As such, both extreme poverty and relative poverty can be understood through this definition.

One challenge with this approach is that many capabilities, or factors influencing a person's capabilities, are hard to measure. Where a focus on monetary deprivation lends simplicity to measuring poverty, then, a capabilities approach gives a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the concept itself, but is harder to operationalize. Measuring poverty must not only look at income, but also look at other indicators - such as access to education and healthcare, or indicators for political and social freedom and corruption, all of which can influence the opportunities that low-income people have to cater to their basic needs. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to capture a multi-dimensional view of poverty in a measurable and comparable form through indexes such as the Human Development Index (HDI) ¹³ or the Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI) developed in collaboration with Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative. ¹⁴ These indexes measure development on a group-level using indicators pertaining to factors such as health and education, in addition to living standards (hereunder income). However, many of the dimensions in this understanding of poverty can only be illuminated by complex and contested measures, and are difficult to measure on the individual level.

Despite being harder to operationalize, a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty is quite widely accepted, and, as the above discussion would argue, relevant. The United Nations Development Programme, for example, lists the following description of the concept of poverty: ¹⁵ "Standard definitions of poverty usually focus on the lack of income or economic deprivation. But poverty also encompasses the lack of access to an education, basic healthcare or clean drinking water, or to influence political processes and other factors that matter to people." A similar view is proposed in introductory remarks by James Catford in The Poverty and Justice Bible ¹⁶: "The genuinely poor are those robbed of the ability to make choices for themselves - the choice for safe and clean water, the choice of an education, the choice of protection from abuse, the choice of medical care, and more."

A number of other approaches exist to defining the concept of poverty, varying in focus and in how they approach measurement of poverty. ¹⁷ A highly significant question, particularly from an advocacy perspective, is how poor people themselves understand the concept of poverty. An extensive World Bank study outlines some recurring themes in the feedback from around 40,000 people, defined as "poor," from over 50 countries who were asked to identify what poverty meant to them. ¹⁸ The following conclusions are drawn from the data, as formulated in the final report:

Hunger is always a central issue

A psychological dimension is also important - e.g. the feeling of powerlessness, shame, etc.

The lack of access to basic infrastructure, such as water facilities, is important

Education is not perceived as being as important as the economic environment

Poor health and illness are dreaded

Income is not as important as managing assets

This study reinforces the notion of poverty being a multidimensional concept - but also reflects the intuitive understanding of poverty referred to initially: where there is hunger, there is poverty. Furthermore, although it is clearly not the only aspect, the economic dimension, unsurprisingly, remains important to the poor themselves.

The above examples highlight some of the different understandings of the concept of poverty. With some of the different perceptions in mind, the following section will discuss the issue of poverty alleviation from the perspective of social justice.
Social Justice and Poverty Alleviation
As Nelson Mandela has remarked: "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils." ¹⁹ These words certainly carry some weight coming from a man who himself spent decades in prison due to apartheid. In a world with unprecedented wealth and abundant resources, poverty is social injustice - or, as Mandela says, even a "social evil."

Social justice as a mainstream concept is often linked to human rights. From a somewhat different perspective, however, social justice is a consistent theme in both Testaments of the Bible, a central theme in Christian faith, and a defining force in the historical and contemporary Salvation Army. Although the similarities to a rights-based approach are many, a Christian understanding of social justice stems from a different foundation - the God-given dignity and worth of every human being. For The Salvation Army, the foundation for a passion for social justice is based on a Biblical mandate.

The International Social Justice Commission's Jesus and Justice extracts, from a series of studies of passages of Scripture, a number of principles central to Jesus' life. The following excerpt remarks upon the general nature of Jesus' mission on earth: ²⁰

The essence of Jesus' mission is captured in a single vision - one vision with two dimensions. Jesus' hope for a restored humanity has a double focus: people who are spiritually poor and people who are socially poor.

SPIRITUALLY POOR: Jesus begins with a personal claim: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me." I have been touched by God and I am in touch with God. And the good news I bring to those of you who are spiritually poor is: You can be in touch with God, too.

SOCIALLY POOR: Jesus understands the systemic nature of social poverty. He sees people in poverty as those who are held captive. They are oppressed. They are victims of their circumstances. People living in social poverty need eyes to see beyond the barriers that imprison them. They need to be freed to explore a new future.

To relate this to the discussion above, the description of the "socially poor" can easily be understood in terms of a capabilities view of poverty. People are poor because they lack the capabilities to create for themselves an acceptable standard of living. Invariably, this is to some degree due to different forms of oppression or societal barriers. From a social justice perspective, a capabilities approach to poverty is significant in that it recognizes that it is not a mere lack of things that constitutes poverty, but rather that poverty can be the result of a complex web of oppression and systemic limitations on people's capabilities. As such, poverty alleviation, in order to be successful and sustainable, must deal with a multitude of issues on both the individual and systemic levels.

A Christian understanding, however, would add a "spiritual" dimension to a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty. As the above quote suggests, it is also possible to be spiritually poor - either in addition to, or separately from being socially poor. Based on such a view, some of the emotional and psychological aspects of poverty highlighted in the World Bank study presented above could potentially be perceived as reflecting a form of spiritual poverty. The assertion is that, as people do not only consist of a physical body, ²¹ poverty is not solely about a lack of physical goods. A Christian perspective such as that proposed above would recognize that one dimension of poverty may be being "out of touch with God."

If poverty is understood as a multi-dimensional concept, a credible assumption would be that alleviating poverty will require tackling a number of issues simultaneously. ²² As the quote above indicates, Jesus' example suggests a dual focus, on both the spiritual and the social dimensions of poverty. Inherent in such a multi-dimensional understanding is the danger that there develops a tension between focusing on the respective dimensions. The key from the passage above is that Jesus' example urges Christians to be simultaneously concerned with both dimensions. His is one "single vision" - not two separate visions. A multi-dimensional approach to poverty alleviation recognizing both the physical and spiritual dimensions has deep roots in Army heritage - foundational, for instance, in William Booth's In Darkest England and the Way Out. ²³ The way out of poverty for the "submerged tenth" that Booth describes was to involve sustainable provision for basic physical needs, such as food, shelter, and work, and the Army's initiatives to this effect involved interventions on both the individual level and the systemic level. Central to the Darkest England scheme, however, was also the offer of spiritual salvation and access to a spiritual fellowship.

Specific aspects of Jesus' example are expanded upon in Jesus and Justice. Jesus:

Included the excluded

Challenged cultural practices

Confronted the powerful

Advocated for the oppressed

These categories can serve as points of reference for how we can address poverty in light of the multi-dimensional view of it. Key goals to strive for would be inclusion, empowerment, and freeing people from repressive cultural or societal circumstances. Each of these points can encompass both physical/ social dimensions and a spiritual dimension. With reference to a capabilities understanding, for example, poverty can involve being denied the capability to speak up for oneself - evident in the sense of powerlessness highlighted by the poor themselves in the World Bank study cited above. One aspect of addressing poverty, thus, involves giving people a voice - advocating with the poor and empowering them to speak up on their own behalf. This is something that can involve both physical interventions - creating spaces and mechanisms by which the voices of the poor can be heard - and spiritual support, aimed at instilling oppressed people with self-assurance, assuring them of their God-given worth and dignity, and encouraging them to advocate on their own behalf. Similar examples could be given regarding the other bullet-points.

It should be noted that the recognition of a spiritual dimension to poverty, though being particularly central to a faith-based perspective, is not overlooked in secular circles. The Norwegian Minister for Development in late 2010 initiated a study regarding the role of religion in development work. ²⁴ Norway is an increasingly secularized society, and there are restrictions barring Faith-Based Organizations from using government money to fund religious activities as part of development initiatives. The Minister's focus in his statement presenting the study was, however, that it is important not to underestimate the importance of religion in the lives of people and communities around the world. Rather, he proposed, it is important to recognize that faith can play a significant role - both positive and negative - in development.

In keeping with this view, the following quote highlights a Christian perspective on precisely how faith can be an important positive force in a poverty alleviation setting:

The gospel speaks of social responsibility and social justice. No one has a better message to bring than the Christian. No message can deal more deeply with the fundamental causes of poverty which are rooted in human ignorance, greed, lust for power, selfishness - in evil itself. The gospel message is the one thing that elevates the mission organization from the ranks of development agencies and, in my view, positions us uniquely to deal with the problems of poverty. But our mission cannot be to the soul and the spirit alone. We must respect the realities of people's lives. ²⁵

The final sentences underline the importance of the dual focus introduced earlier, and reflect an insight that has been foundational to The Salvation Army since its inception: catering to the soul and the spirit can be of little use if the physical and social realities holding people down are not dealt with. That being said, our spiritual mission equips us to make a deeper and more sustainable impact on people's lives than mere provision would achieve.
Conclusions
In summary, the discussions above underscore the fact that even in the best of cases, provision of money or physical goods is not, on its own, poverty alleviation. Provision is not justice. In the worst case, provision can on the contrary perpetuate relationships of dependency and disempowerment. This insight is vital, and has in recent years been foundational for the development of The Salvation Army's poverty alleviation work, reflected in holistic community development projects, microfinance, advocacy training, and initiatives such as the Sally Ann fair trade project. ²⁶

Literalist interpreters of the Bible may discard goals of eradicating poverty with reference to Jesus' assertion in that the poor "you will always have with you." If poverty is defined as a relative concept, this will likely be so. But the extremely poor need not be with us always. As Jesus spent his life providing for the needs of those who were poor and disenfranchised, so too should we.

1. One of the most frequently cited statistics is the World Bank's estimate that 1.4 billion people were living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in 2005, see the World Bank's website for more information: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:22569747~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html

2. See f.ex. the website of Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/

3. See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

4. World Bank Institute (2005): Introduction to Poverty Analysis. Manual. p.9. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PGLP/Resources/PovertyManual.pdf

5. The United Nations (2010): The Millennium Development Goals. Report 2010. Report. New York. Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf#page=8

6. For more on the development of the World Bank $1.25 a day measure, see United Nations (2009): Rethinking Poverty. Report on the World Social Situation 2010. Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York, p.47-48.

7. Sen, Amartya (1983), as quoted in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. p.12.

8. United Nations (2009:49-52) describes some of the methods used to calculate such methods, and discusses some of the problems and challenges associated with these calculations.

9. Ibid.:45-47.

10. An approximate figure, based on the poverty threshold value for a 1 person household in 2009 as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. See http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html

11. An approximate figure, based on a poverty threshold established with reference to EU standards, setting the poverty line at 60 % of the median income. See http://www.ssb.no/emner/05/01/inntind/

12. As formulated in Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. P.17.

13. See United Nations Development Programme: "International Human Development Indicators." Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/. The HDI was developed partially on the basis of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (United Nations 2009:47).

14. For more information, see "Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative," available at http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/

15. United Nations Development Programme: "Development Dictionary". Available at: http://www.undp.org/poverty/devglossary_main.shtml

16. The British and Foreign Bible Society (2008): The Poverty and Justice Bible. Contemporary English Version. Bible Society: Swindon. p.2.

17. Some common categories and descriptions can be found in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

18 Narayan, Deepa; Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, & Sarah Koch-Schulte (2000): Voices of the Poor. Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford University Press, The World Bank. Available at: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/05/06/000094946_00042605311270/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

19 "In full: Mandela's Poverty Speech," BBC News. 3 February 2005. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4232603.stm

20. International Social Justice Commission: p.6.

21. A widespread Christian perspective holds that people consist of a trichotomy of "body, soul, and spirit." A discussion of this concept could be relevant in this context, but will be avoided due to space constraints

22. It should be noted that it doesn't strictly follow that a multi-dimensional problem requires a multi-dimensional response. For instance, a very basic Marxian analysis might suggest that fixing the modes of production would in turn resolve most other issues of deprivation - a similar analysis being the case for a simple capitalist analysis.

23. Booth, William (1890): In Darkest England and the Way Out. London: International Headquarters of The Salvation Army.

24. Solheim, Erik (2010): "Ta Gud Alvorlig," in Aftenposten. 12/08/10. Available at http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/ud/aktuelt/taler_artikler/utviklingsministeren/2010/kronikk_religion.html?id=612337

25. Brekke, Bo (2001): "We Are the Poor," in The Officer. April 2001. Available at: http://www.salvationist.org/poverty.nsf/vw_sublinks/915B28C7E3C54FDB80256AC40036912F?openDocument

26. See http://www.sallyann.com/home/

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It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day 1. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion.

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It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day ¹. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion. Yet children die, literally in their tens of thousands, every single day - simply because they are born into situations where their parents have no opportunities to adequately provide for their health and well-being ². The extreme deprivation of such a large proportion of the world's population, in a world with more than enough resources to cover everyone's basic needs, is a grave injustice. As followers of Jesus, we are compelled to address the issue. Living out our Biblical mandate means, among other things, that we must tackle the issue of extreme global poverty.

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal 1 ³ aspires to a significant contribution towards "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." However, some questions arise from this starting point: what exactly is poverty, or extreme poverty, and what does it actually mean to go about "alleviating," reducing or eradicating it?

This think-piece discusses some of these issues through a lens of social justice, and in the context of The Salvation Army's mission. The first section outlines some different understandings of poverty, before the focus turns explicitly to a Christian social justice perspective on poverty and the consequences of this in terms of what poverty alleviation actually entails.
Understanding Poverty - Measuring Poverty
Poverty, in its most general sense, is often defined as some form of deprivation. The World Bank, for instance, has defined poverty as "pronounced deprivation of well-being." ⁴ The logically ensuing questions are: what is well-being, and what levels of deprivation are sufficiently "pronounced" to rightly be labeled poverty, or extreme poverty? These questions reveal two different needs: the need to clarify poverty on a conceptual level, and the need to operationalize this concept.

This project can, as mentioned, be seen in the context of the MDGs, and in particular MDG 1, "eradicating extreme poverty and hunger." In this instance, extreme poverty is operationalized as "living on less than $1.25 a day." ⁵ In general, poverty measures often use income as an important (or as the sole) indicator, reflecting the notion that, conceptually, economic deprivation is a main defining characteristic of being poor. It is common practice to have a "poverty-line" separating the poor from the non-poor, or the poor from the extremely poor. In the case of MDG 1, this poverty-line is set at an absolute level of $ 1.25 for extreme poverty, employing a measure developed by the World Bank which has become widely used and cited. ⁶

MDG 1 links the concept of extreme poverty with that of hunger. In line with this, Amartya Sen outlines what in essence is an intuitive understanding of poverty: "If there is starvation and hunger then, no matter what the relative picture looks like there clearly is poverty." ⁷ This understanding, then, indicates that it is not necessarily the economic deprivation in itself that defines poverty, but rather the existence of hunger caused by this lack of money - i.e., deprivation of food. In light of this, measures for poverty are frequently calculated with reference to the cost of covering the daily minimum calorific needs of a human being. ⁸

Despite being both simple and easily measurable, a focus on income, or income and hunger, comes up short when one is attempting to define "poverty" as a more general construct. This is particularly so when moving away from the issue of extreme poverty, where a severe deprivation of basic necessities will generally be plainly obvious. It is easy to argue that those living on $2 a day, or $5 a day, cannot reasonably be labeled as "non-poor," even if there may not be daily starvation or hunger. Where does one set a "poverty line" in such cases?

Income is commonly used as an indicator of poverty also in situations where there is not necessarily severe deprivation. The common practice is to determine a poverty line as a certain standard relative to the average or median income in a country. The underlying concept, this time, is that poverty can mean a relative deprivation of material goods or benefits, compared to the surrounding society - an understanding that has become dominant in much of the developed world, where extreme poverty and hunger is practically non-existent. ⁹ With such an understanding, inequality becomes an element of the concept of poverty - as long as sufficient inequality exists, there will always people who are poor relative to their peers, regardless of how wealthy society as a whole becomes.

Differing operational definitions focusing on income and the establishment of "poverty lines" entail that whereas extreme poverty is defined globally as surviving on less than $1.25 a day, a person living in the USA, for example, is regarded as poor when surviving on $30 a day, ¹⁰ while a person living in Norway can be regarded as poor when earning $70 a day. ¹¹ Poverty quite clearly means different things in these different situations, and the life of a poor person in the USA or Norway will look significantly different from that of a poor person in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. In light of such disparities, it seems necessary to establish a more nuanced understanding of what poverty entails on a conceptual level.
Multidimensional understandings of poverty
It is commonly held that poverty is more than simply a question of monetary deprivation, whether this deprivation is absolute or relatively defined. Rather, it is a multi-dimensional concept, with poverty entailing deprivation of factors such as food and water, education, health, security, or basic freedoms and opportunities. A broadly applied approach to defining poverty in such a multi-dimensional understanding of the term can be found in the "capabilities-approach," attributed to Amartya Sen. This approach defines poverty as the lack of key capabilities to ensure adequate functioning in a given society - be they the capability to access food, health care, to obtain employment, or other capabilities. Poverty, in other words, can be understood as "capability deprivation." ¹² A person's capability to acquire the food necessary for survival, to achieve upward mobility, or to ensure education for one's children, determine whether or not they can be considered poor. Income will clearly be a factor influencing a person's capabilities, but so will a number of other factors, hereunder external factors such as the political and societal environment that a person is living in.

The capabilities approach broadens the understanding of poverty as a concept. It is not a lack of money in itself that constitutes poverty, but the lack of money can be one factor contributing to curtailing a person's capability to achieve an adequate standard of living. In addition to recognizing the diverse faces of poverty, the capabilities approach highlights some of the systemic factors underlying poverty. A capabilities view is, furthermore, context-specific. As such, both extreme poverty and relative poverty can be understood through this definition.

One challenge with this approach is that many capabilities, or factors influencing a person's capabilities, are hard to measure. Where a focus on monetary deprivation lends simplicity to measuring poverty, then, a capabilities approach gives a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the concept itself, but is harder to operationalize. Measuring poverty must not only look at income, but also look at other indicators - such as access to education and healthcare, or indicators for political and social freedom and corruption, all of which can influence the opportunities that low-income people have to cater to their basic needs. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to capture a multi-dimensional view of poverty in a measurable and comparable form through indexes such as the Human Development Index (HDI) ¹³ or the Multidimensional Poverty Index" (MPI) developed in collaboration with Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative. ¹⁴ These indexes measure development on a group-level using indicators pertaining to factors such as health and education, in addition to living standards (hereunder income). However, many of the dimensions in this understanding of poverty can only be illuminated by complex and contested measures, and are difficult to measure on the individual level.

Despite being harder to operationalize, a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty is quite widely accepted, and, as the above discussion would argue, relevant. The United Nations Development Programme, for example, lists the following description of the concept of poverty: ¹⁵ "Standard definitions of poverty usually focus on the lack of income or economic deprivation. But poverty also encompasses the lack of access to an education, basic healthcare or clean drinking water, or to influence political processes and other factors that matter to people." A similar view is proposed in introductory remarks by James Catford in The Poverty and Justice Bible ¹⁶: "The genuinely poor are those robbed of the ability to make choices for themselves - the choice for safe and clean water, the choice of an education, the choice of protection from abuse, the choice of medical care, and more."

A number of other approaches exist to defining the concept of poverty, varying in focus and in how they approach measurement of poverty. ¹⁷ A highly significant question, particularly from an advocacy perspective, is how poor people themselves understand the concept of poverty. An extensive World Bank study outlines some recurring themes in the feedback from around 40,000 people, defined as "poor," from over 50 countries who were asked to identify what poverty meant to them. ¹⁸ The following conclusions are drawn from the data, as formulated in the final report:

Hunger is always a central issue

A psychological dimension is also important - e.g. the feeling of powerlessness, shame, etc.

The lack of access to basic infrastructure, such as water facilities, is important

Education is not perceived as being as important as the economic environment

Poor health and illness are dreaded

Income is not as important as managing assets

This study reinforces the notion of poverty being a multidimensional concept - but also reflects the intuitive understanding of poverty referred to initially: where there is hunger, there is poverty. Furthermore, although it is clearly not the only aspect, the economic dimension, unsurprisingly, remains important to the poor themselves.

The above examples highlight some of the different understandings of the concept of poverty. With some of the different perceptions in mind, the following section will discuss the issue of poverty alleviation from the perspective of social justice.
Social Justice and Poverty Alleviation
As Nelson Mandela has remarked: "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils." ¹⁹ These words certainly carry some weight coming from a man who himself spent decades in prison due to apartheid. In a world with unprecedented wealth and abundant resources, poverty is social injustice - or, as Mandela says, even a "social evil."

Social justice as a mainstream concept is often linked to human rights. From a somewhat different perspective, however, social justice is a consistent theme in both Testaments of the Bible, a central theme in Christian faith, and a defining force in the historical and contemporary Salvation Army. Although the similarities to a rights-based approach are many, a Christian understanding of social justice stems from a different foundation - the God-given dignity and worth of every human being. For The Salvation Army, the foundation for a passion for social justice is based on a Biblical mandate.

The International Social Justice Commission's Jesus and Justice extracts, from a series of studies of passages of Scripture, a number of principles central to Jesus' life. The following excerpt remarks upon the general nature of Jesus' mission on earth: ²⁰

The essence of Jesus' mission is captured in a single vision - one vision with two dimensions. Jesus' hope for a restored humanity has a double focus: people who are spiritually poor and people who are socially poor.

SPIRITUALLY POOR: Jesus begins with a personal claim: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me." I have been touched by God and I am in touch with God. And the good news I bring to those of you who are spiritually poor is: You can be in touch with God, too.

SOCIALLY POOR: Jesus understands the systemic nature of social poverty. He sees people in poverty as those who are held captive. They are oppressed. They are victims of their circumstances. People living in social poverty need eyes to see beyond the barriers that imprison them. They need to be freed to explore a new future.

To relate this to the discussion above, the description of the "socially poor" can easily be understood in terms of a capabilities view of poverty. People are poor because they lack the capabilities to create for themselves an acceptable standard of living. Invariably, this is to some degree due to different forms of oppression or societal barriers. From a social justice perspective, a capabilities approach to poverty is significant in that it recognizes that it is not a mere lack of things that constitutes poverty, but rather that poverty can be the result of a complex web of oppression and systemic limitations on people's capabilities. As such, poverty alleviation, in order to be successful and sustainable, must deal with a multitude of issues on both the individual and systemic levels.

A Christian understanding, however, would add a "spiritual" dimension to a multi-dimensional understanding of poverty. As the above quote suggests, it is also possible to be spiritually poor - either in addition to, or separately from being socially poor. Based on such a view, some of the emotional and psychological aspects of poverty highlighted in the World Bank study presented above could potentially be perceived as reflecting a form of spiritual poverty. The assertion is that, as people do not only consist of a physical body, ²¹ poverty is not solely about a lack of physical goods. A Christian perspective such as that proposed above would recognize that one dimension of poverty may be being "out of touch with God."

If poverty is understood as a multi-dimensional concept, a credible assumption would be that alleviating poverty will require tackling a number of issues simultaneously. ²² As the quote above indicates, Jesus' example suggests a dual focus, on both the spiritual and the social dimensions of poverty. Inherent in such a multi-dimensional understanding is the danger that there develops a tension between focusing on the respective dimensions. The key from the passage above is that Jesus' example urges Christians to be simultaneously concerned with both dimensions. His is one "single vision" - not two separate visions. A multi-dimensional approach to poverty alleviation recognizing both the physical and spiritual dimensions has deep roots in Army heritage - foundational, for instance, in William Booth's In Darkest England and the Way Out. ²³ The way out of poverty for the "submerged tenth" that Booth describes was to involve sustainable provision for basic physical needs, such as food, shelter, and work, and the Army's initiatives to this effect involved interventions on both the individual level and the systemic level. Central to the Darkest England scheme, however, was also the offer of spiritual salvation and access to a spiritual fellowship.

Specific aspects of Jesus' example are expanded upon in Jesus and Justice. Jesus:

Included the excluded

Challenged cultural practices

Confronted the powerful

Advocated for the oppressed

These categories can serve as points of reference for how we can address poverty in light of the multi-dimensional view of it. Key goals to strive for would be inclusion, empowerment, and freeing people from repressive cultural or societal circumstances. Each of these points can encompass both physical/ social dimensions and a spiritual dimension. With reference to a capabilities understanding, for example, poverty can involve being denied the capability to speak up for oneself - evident in the sense of powerlessness highlighted by the poor themselves in the World Bank study cited above. One aspect of addressing poverty, thus, involves giving people a voice - advocating with the poor and empowering them to speak up on their own behalf. This is something that can involve both physical interventions - creating spaces and mechanisms by which the voices of the poor can be heard - and spiritual support, aimed at instilling oppressed people with self-assurance, assuring them of their God-given worth and dignity, and encouraging them to advocate on their own behalf. Similar examples could be given regarding the other bullet-points.

It should be noted that the recognition of a spiritual dimension to poverty, though being particularly central to a faith-based perspective, is not overlooked in secular circles. The Norwegian Minister for Development in late 2010 initiated a study regarding the role of religion in development work. ²⁴ Norway is an increasingly secularized society, and there are restrictions barring Faith-Based Organizations from using government money to fund religious activities as part of development initiatives. The Minister's focus in his statement presenting the study was, however, that it is important not to underestimate the importance of religion in the lives of people and communities around the world. Rather, he proposed, it is important to recognize that faith can play a significant role - both positive and negative - in development.

In keeping with this view, the following quote highlights a Christian perspective on precisely how faith can be an important positive force in a poverty alleviation setting:

The gospel speaks of social responsibility and social justice. No one has a better message to bring than the Christian. No message can deal more deeply with the fundamental causes of poverty which are rooted in human ignorance, greed, lust for power, selfishness - in evil itself. The gospel message is the one thing that elevates the mission organization from the ranks of development agencies and, in my view, positions us uniquely to deal with the problems of poverty. But our mission cannot be to the soul and the spirit alone. We must respect the realities of people's lives. ²⁵

The final sentences underline the importance of the dual focus introduced earlier, and reflect an insight that has been foundational to The Salvation Army since its inception: catering to the soul and the spirit can be of little use if the physical and social realities holding people down are not dealt with. That being said, our spiritual mission equips us to make a deeper and more sustainable impact on people's lives than mere provision would achieve.
Conclusions
In summary, the discussions above underscore the fact that even in the best of cases, provision of money or physical goods is not, on its own, poverty alleviation. Provision is not justice. In the worst case, provision can on the contrary perpetuate relationships of dependency and disempowerment. This insight is vital, and has in recent years been foundational for the development of The Salvation Army's poverty alleviation work, reflected in holistic community development projects, microfinance, advocacy training, and initiatives such as the Sally Ann fair trade project. ²⁶

Literalist interpreters of the Bible may discard goals of eradicating poverty with reference to Jesus' assertion in that the poor "you will always have with you." If poverty is defined as a relative concept, this will likely be so. But the extremely poor need not be with us always. As Jesus spent his life providing for the needs of those who were poor and disenfranchised, so too should we.

1. One of the most frequently cited statistics is the World Bank's estimate that 1.4 billion people were living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in 2005, see the World Bank's website for more information: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:22569747~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html

2. See f.ex. the website of Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/

3. See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

4. World Bank Institute (2005): Introduction to Poverty Analysis. Manual. p.9. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PGLP/Resources/PovertyManual.pdf

5. The United Nations (2010): The Millennium Development Goals. Report 2010. Report. New York. Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf#page=8

6. For more on the development of the World Bank $1.25 a day measure, see United Nations (2009): Rethinking Poverty. Report on the World Social Situation 2010. Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York, p.47-48.

7. Sen, Amartya (1983), as quoted in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. p.12.

8. United Nations (2009:49-52) describes some of the methods used to calculate such methods, and discusses some of the problems and challenges associated with these calculations.

9. Ibid.:45-47.

10. An approximate figure, based on the poverty threshold value for a 1 person household in 2009 as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. See http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html

11. An approximate figure, based on a poverty threshold established with reference to EU standards, setting the poverty line at 60 % of the median income. See http://www.ssb.no/emner/05/01/inntind/

12. As formulated in Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. P.17.

13. See United Nations Development Programme: "International Human Development Indicators." Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/. The HDI was developed partially on the basis of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (United Nations 2009:47).

14. For more information, see "Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative," available at http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/

15. United Nations Development Programme: "Development Dictionary". Available at: http://www.undp.org/poverty/devglossary_main.shtml

16. The British and Foreign Bible Society (2008): The Poverty and Justice Bible. Contemporary English Version. Bible Society: Swindon. p.2.

17. Some common categories and descriptions can be found in Chapter 1 of Banik, Dan (ed.) (2006): Poverty, Politics and Development. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

18 Narayan, Deepa; Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, & Sarah Koch-Schulte (2000): Voices of the Poor. Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford University Press, The World Bank. Available at: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/05/06/000094946_00042605311270/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

19 "In full: Mandela's Poverty Speech," BBC News. 3 February 2005. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4232603.stm

20. International Social Justice Commission: p.6.

21. A widespread Christian perspective holds that people consist of a trichotomy of "body, soul, and spirit." A discussion of this concept could be relevant in this context, but will be avoided due to space constraints

22. It should be noted that it doesn't strictly follow that a multi-dimensional problem requires a multi-dimensional response. For instance, a very basic Marxian analysis might suggest that fixing the modes of production would in turn resolve most other issues of deprivation - a similar analysis being the case for a simple capitalist analysis.

23. Booth, William (1890): In Darkest England and the Way Out. London: International Headquarters of The Salvation Army.

24. Solheim, Erik (2010): "Ta Gud Alvorlig," in Aftenposten. 12/08/10. Available at http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/ud/aktuelt/taler_artikler/utviklingsministeren/2010/kronikk_religion.html?id=612337

25. Brekke, Bo (2001): "We Are the Poor," in The Officer. April 2001. Available at: http://www.salvationist.org/poverty.nsf/vw_sublinks/915B28C7E3C54FDB80256AC40036912F?openDocument

26. See http://www.sallyann.com/home/

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It is commonly cited that well over one billion people must survive on less than US$1.25 a day 1. Intermittent natural disasters and armed conflicts rightfully break our hearts and inspire collective acts and outcries of compassion.

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Sanctuary seeks to make a dent in the larger societal issue concerning poverty and homelessness. Poverty is "the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support." This social issue  has long affected people all over the world. However, Canada has attempted to address this issue by introducing public programs such as employment insurance, pension programs, child benefits, and tax credits. Additionally year after year, its been reported that the most impoverished people in Canada have been Indigenous people. Canada's social movement against poverty are working hard to advocated that poverty is a social problem not an individual one. Many people believe that individuals that are poor only have themselves to blame which is untrue.  People fighting for this social movement are fighting to shed light on this truth.

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Sanctuary is a registered Canadian-Christian charitable organization. It seeks to develop a holistic, inclusive, and healthy community for those who have been victims of rejection and abuse. It was first established in 1992 by two church missionaries and is located at Yonge and Bloor in the city of Toronto. The hope of this charity is to provide the most fundamental need of people on the street, which is a meaningful place in a healthy community and a sense of belonging. Sanctuary's philosophy is that without a healthy community, people remain trapped in a lifestyle that is difficult to escape.

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 Is this organization working effectively to achieve the objectives of the movement?

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 Is this organization working effectively to achieve the objectives of the movement?

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I believe this organization is achieving the objectives of the movement because after the in-class presentation I understand why it’s different from others and how it can be considered extremely effective. One of the most shocking and unique aspects of this charity was the fact that they had hired Loraine to befriend individuals that join their community. This establishes a more meaningful connection between the charity and the individuals seeking help. I think it also makes the individuals seeking help more comfortable and gives them a sense of belonging. It ensures that these individuals will continue to show up and will take steps towards constructing a life for themselves rather than being homeless or an addict. Sanctuary philosophy is that they provide"a meaningful place in a healthy community and a sense of belonging [because] without it, people remain trapped in a lifestyle that is difficult to escape." In my opinion, they have lived up to this unique philosophy to a great extent.

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Would you personally support this organization?

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Would you personally support this organization?

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In my opinion, Sanctuary is an effective social organization because during my personal experience with one of their volunteers I learned that they take on a unique approach as a charitable organization. The volunteer, Loraine, was essentially hired to “befriend” those going through tough issues and offer them her presence. This is usually rare phenomenon for people who are facing issues likes homelessness and poverty, but it’s also very effective because it lays the foundation for a new and stronger life. Ultimately, this helps people in poverty talk about their problems in confidence and seek help. Many charitable organizations do not reach out to their target in the same way sanctuary has connected to the people they are fighting for.

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Audio

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"There's lots of bad religion out there. But the answer isn't no religion - it's true religion: living out publicly and communally what we say we believe privately and individually. True religion puts flesh on the bones of faith." - Greg Paul

Listen to the sermon Greg Paul shared at Blythwood Church recently.

http://sanctuarytoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/GregP_BRBP_10_Apr_2016_True_Religion.mp3

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True Religion - sermon by Greg Paul - Sanctuary Toronto

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Facebook Twitter 3 Like 2 "There's lots of bad religion out there. But the answer isn't no religion - it's true religion: living out publicly and communally what we say we believe privately and individually. True religion puts flesh on the bones of faith." - Greg Paul Listen to the sermon Greg Paul shared at ...

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The last few months in Canada have seen a large increase in the number of incidents involving those without homes. In Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa, there have been struggles between authorities and homeless people. Squatters have been forcibly removed from "tent cities" and unused houses they have occupied.

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Executive Director

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Outreach Team

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At Sanctuary, we are becoming a healthy, welcoming community in Toronto in which people who are poor and excluded are particularly valued.

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An old church in an affluent part of town takes a community-focused approach to helping low-income Torontonians.

Gordon Jenkins Junior puts his newspaper clippings on the table. Some are weathered and yellow; some are crisp and whitish-grey. He's been following articles about poverty for a long time. He's one of 70,000 single people in Toronto (there are separate statistics for families) who are struggling to stay at or above the poverty line while living on social assistance.

He spends his days reading and going from shelter to shelter for food. For years he's been coming to the Sanctuary, a charitable organization headquartered in a former church at the corner of Charles Street East and Yonge Street.

It's located in a rapidly changing neighbourhood, where developers have planted their luxury condo seeds, each with advertisements projecting images of grandeur and exclusivity. But despite the area's recent growth, it's also an example of Toronto's income inequality and the growing gap between the city's wealthy and its poor.

The Toronto Community Foundation's most recent Vital Signs report revealed that Toronto is "the only Canadian metro to get a 'C' grade on income distribution." In 2011, the city's wealthiest made, on average, 13 times as much as members of the bottom 90 per cent of earners, according to the National Household Survey.

The survey's accuracy is disputed because of its voluntary nature, but its message shouldn't be ignored. Toronto risks becoming a "winner-take-all" city by continuing to push such issues aside.

A lofty condo building made of modern black brick and sleek glass overshadows the Sanctuary.

Greg Cook, who works at the Sanctuary as an outreach coordinator, says he's had mostly positive interactions with people from the neighbourhood. He sees mixed-income areas as a solution, rather than as a problem.
Related: Checking Toronto's Vital Signs
In the Sanctuary's backyard, there's a small park with picnic benches. Cook says he's seen businessmen having lunch there beside homeless people.

"It's those kinds of interactions that disrupt the dichotomy," he says. "Because then you see your neighbour-rich or poor-first as a human being."

Jenkins, 64, grew up in Montreal. He moved to Toronto for a factory job in 1980. He was working as a meat packer when a load of steel fell on his foot and broke it. He cringes when he recalls that terrible October day in 1994.

"It was like a giant karate chop," he says. "Oh the fuckin' pain!"

He could no longer hold down a job that required him to stand. Jenkins calls his life from that point forward a "spiral staircase downwards."

The government gave him the opportunity to take a computer class. It took him 13 months to finish the seven-month course, and afterward jobs were sparse. In 2001, Jenkins lost his apartment. Then he entered the shelter system.

"It's a numbing experience," he says. "You just adapt."

Now, Jenkins lives in government housing. He's still searching for a job, but he says he's often told he's too young or too old. "They keep throwing these barbed-wire barriers in front of me," he says.

With support from ODSP, he'll make around $12,900 this year.

He depends on places like the Sanctuary for free meals, clothes, shoes, and access to medical care. Although he appreciates what the Sanctuary does for him, Jenkins thinks it fuels his anger issues at times.

He taps a newspaper clipping on the table. The headline reads: "Being poor exhausts brain power." He nods.

"That's something I suspected for years," he says. Sometimes, he adds, he freezes "like a deer in the headlights," unable to complete the smallest tasks. Other times, he gets angry. He says he almost grabbed a man who hissed at him, condescendingly, "There are choices in life to make."

"You think I chose this?" he snapped back.

At the Sanctuary, Jenkins can, at the very least, choose the people he interacts with. Cook says it's a space where people from diverse backgrounds and income levels can meet.

It's one of the only places where Jenkins isn't ostracized for being poor. And the neighbourhood around it is slowly learning to be more inclusive. Cook says the Sanctuary holds public art events to get the community involved.

"We often see homeless people as people who have needs, but they have something to offer as well," Cook says.
Photos by Courtney Greenberg/Torontoist.

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In the Middle of Condo Land, a Sanctuary for Toronto's Less Fortunate

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An old church in an affluent part of town takes a community-focused approach to helping low-income Torontonians. Gordon Jenkins Junior puts his newspaper clippings on the table. Some are weathered and yellow; some are crisp and whitish-grey. He's been following articles about poverty for a long time.

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