Summary of a joint study of the Poverty Reduction Unit and the Environment and Social Safeguard Division of the Regional and Sustainable Development Department in the Asian Development Bank, this paper is a summation of a book on “The Environments of Poverty” using a geographical approach to poverty reduction in Asia and the Pacific.
The book follows a spatial approach to poverty, identifying where the poor live today and probably will live in the future and associating this to the natural and human environments. It first distinguishes between areas where the environment is the primary cause of poverty and other areas, which have potential for pro-poor and inclusive growth. The environmental poverty perspective divides the poor according to the environmental conditions that affect their well-being:
- the dry-land poor are those living on arid and desert land areas;
- the flood-affected wetland poor are those in wetland areas who are frequently affected by flooding;
- the upland poor are those living in upland or mountainous areas that are remote;
- the coastal poor are those living adjacent to coasts and dependent upon coastal and/or marine resources; and
- the slum poor are those living in substandard settlements with high exposure to urban pollutants.
- Many of the disaster poor, i.e. poor people affected by natural disasters are incorporated in the above mentioned categories.
