Decent Work for Poverty Reduction: An Agenda for Development in the Least Developed Countries Issues paper for the Thematic Session on Human Resources Development and Employment III. The role of decent work for poverty reduction in LDCs

For several decades, development theorists, planners and policy makers have experimented extensively with poverty reduction strategies to arrive at some kind of a consensus on the essential elements of such strategies. The World Bank’s recent World Development Report 2000/2001, Attacking Poverty provides an example of a consensus view that identifies poverty as the consequence of lack of access to resources which consists of: (a) human assets (basic labour resources, good health and skills); (b) natural assets (land and other natural resources); (c) physical assets (physical capital and access to infrastructure); (d) financial assets (savings and access to credit); and (e) social assets (informal or formal social security and social capital). The implication is that access to these assets helps overcome poverty.