NAIROBI, 12 August 2008 (IRIN) - Wahenga.net (concerned with food security, social protection and hunger vulnerability in southern Africa) is advocating a major change in how we view the poor.

"The orthodox development paradigm of the past three decades has manifestly failed… what is needed now is to turn the traditional development paradigm on its head. Rather than seeing the residual poor as the problem to be overcome, development should see the poor as the solution, and as the best focus for development funding," it says.

"Empowering the poor, enabling them to invest and allowing them the confidence to take risks will itself foster economic growth. This in turn will reduce poverty and the long-term cost of providing social protection; it will lessen the need for emergency assistance and will free up donor resources to contribute to the reduction of chronic poverty rather than to unproductive disaster response."

To read the article - entitled Shifting the Development Paradigm: The Poor are the Solution, not the Problem - go to Wahenga.net.

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