¶ … Poverty-Reduction Programs in Urban Communities In September, 2001, 149 heads of state and high-ranking officials attending the Millennium Summit in New York unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration which contained a statement of eight millennium development goals, one of which was to halve global poverty rates by FY 2015. This declaration made poverty-reduction a global agenda and mandated administrators and policymakers at all levels of government to come up with innovative ways of integrating the objectives of poverty-reduction into their respective growth agendas. In its 2001 annual meeting, the IMF challenged policymakers to ensure that their poverty-reduction policies are nationally-owned and that they take input from all the relevant stakeholders. In line with this, the U.S. Census Bureau launched the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program to enable it to analyze income and poverty trends in individual counties with the aim of determining the effectiveness of statewide poverty-reduction policy. The application of the SAIPE Program in the State of North Carolina in 2012 revealed that despite some major poverty-reduction plans being implemented, the overall rates of poverty still remained relatively high. By 2012, more than a decade since the adoption of the Millennium Declaration, the statewide poverty rate still stood at a steady 18%, with 63 of the 100 counties reporting poverty rates higher than the overall state average. Approximately 1.7 million people across the state were found to be living on less than $23,492 annually (the federal poverty level). Wilson came out as the second-poorest urban county in the state, with 17% of the population living on food stamps. This text assesses the poverty situation in Wilson. It is intent on showing how needs-assessment could be used to improve the situation.

The Problem

Wilson County has a population of approximately 73, 814 and a total of about 30,729 housing units. Approximately 18.5% of the population (representing around 13,747 people) and 13% of families live below the federal poverty line (WCDSS Report, 2007). This rate is way higher than the state average on both counts. Even more worrying is that only 5% of those living below the poverty line (692 individuals/363 families) are entitled to the Work First Cash Assistance Program (WCDSS Report, 2007), and with a Gini coefficient of 44.9%, Wilson County stands as the most unequal (in terms of income distribution) in the state.

These figures are, at the very least, worrying given that numerous programs, including the Work First Cash Assistance Program, the North Carolina Weatherization Program and the Individual Development Account (IDA) Program run jointly by the county Department of Social Service and the Community Improvement Association (WCIA) have all been implemented in a bid to improve the poverty situation.

The researcher reckons that the inherent failure of these programs to bring about their desired outcomes could have been caused, in part, by the failure to conduct a proper assessment to determine what the specific poverty needs of the population are. Research has shown that improperly-conducted needs-assessments increase the risk of project failure. Tersoo (2013), for instance, was able to show that the NAPEP poverty-reduction program in Nigeria failed to realize its desired objectives mainly because it did not properly-align with the poverty needs of the people for whom it was developed. A massive 82.2% of respondents in that study reported that they were not consulted by policymakers on the specific issues that they wanted the program to address, and that the program thereof had brought no change at all to their lives (Tersoo, 2013).

The proposed project seeks to determine the extent to which poverty-reduction programs in Wilson address the specific poverty needs of the population. Owing to limitations of time and finances, however, it may be impossible to study the poverty needs of the poor in different areas across the county. Such an approach would cause a lot of time to be spent on data collection, leaving very little time for interpretation of findings, and this would compromise the validity and accuracy of results. For this reason, therefore, the needs-assessment program will focus on the City of Wilson alone, and the results will then be generalized to the entire population of Wilson County. The program will focus on identifying what the specific poverty needs of the poor in the City of Wilson are, and the exact extent to which these have been captured in the county's poverty-reduction interventions.

Activities to be Conducted in the Proposed Project

The needs-assessment project will be carried out sequentially in five major steps as proposed by Watkins and his colleagues (2012) -- collection of data and information needed to give insight on exactly what the community expects of poverty-reduction...

Statistical (quantitative) data will be obtained from the CSBG Training and Technical Assistance web-based resource developed by the Community Actions Network, and which provides among other things, community statistics at the lowest administrative level. The resource was developed specifically for Community Action Agencies in different states, particularly those that do not have a needs-assessment tool of their own, and is available at https://www.csbgtta.org/. Its main aim was to provide avenues through which state agencies could collect uniform statistical data that would enable them to better understand the poverty situation in their respective jurisdictions.
The resource was selected as the primary source of quantitative data because it provides data elements around multiple indices/indicators of poverty - health, transportation, nutrition, housing, education, level of income, and employment -- as opposed to just the level of income. This means that it allows one to assess the poverty situation in a more holistic and accurate manner. The statistical data generated from the various poverty indicators will be documented and then analyzed to present a clear picture of what the poverty situation in Wilson is like. This will essentially help us to determine those areas to which more attention needs to be paid. For instance, we may be paying a lot of attention on giving food stamps yet most of our poverty is caused by illiteracy and lack of education, and a more sustainable strategy would be to make educational facilities more accessible. The data obtained from this resource would help us realize such gaps and adjust our strategic approach. The researcher chose this approach over having to conduct quantitative surveys because it would help save lots of time, allowing more time for interpretation.

Qualitative data/information, on the other hand, will be conducted through focus groups and personal interviews with respondents. Silverman and Patterson (2014) express that these are effective in complementing quantitative techniques as they allow the respondent to give their feelings and views in a broad and in-depth manner. They are an effective way for the researcher to know exactly what the respondent thinks. Moreover, respondents' expectations would best be captured through these techniques as expectations may be relatively hard to score on a scale. As recommended by Silverman and Patterson (2014), multiple focus group discussions will be held with community leaders, cross-functional agency members, and other key service providers to increase the validity and reliability of results. Specific questions for both the focus group and personal interviews could include: how would you describe the look of poverty in your city? What is your personal definition of poverty? What do you think the community ought to do to address the issue of poverty? What do you think causes poverty? This data will be transcribed and stored.

Qualitative data on the specific poverty-reduction programs that have been implemented in Wilson so far will be obtained from state and local government reports. This will then be compared with the transcribed data obtained from the needs-assessment to determine the extent to which programs have been structured in line with the specific poverty needs of the Wilson poor.

Possible Stakeholders and Strategies for Stakeholder Engagement

Studies have shown that stakeholder engagement in both the planning and implementation phases is crucial for project success. In their study seeking to assess the role of stakeholders in the success/failure of rural development programs in South Africa, for instance, Obadire and his colleagues (2013) concluded that "stakeholder participation forms the cornerstone of success" (p. 279). Shah and Naqvi (2014) were able to provide empirical proof of this -- they found a strong, positive correlation between the degree of stakeholder engagement and project success. The authors posit that this is because stakeholders are beneficial when they support a project's mission, but antagonistic if they do not. Towards this end, it is crucial for project managers to strive to gain the support of stakeholders by involving them in all stages of project development.

However, stakeholder engagement begins with effective stakeholder identification. Stakeholder analysis is an effective way of not only identifying, but also engaging stakeholders (Obadire et al., 2013). It helps in…