Presenting the tool for the Inclusive and Deliberative Elaboration & Evaluation of Policies (IDEEP) at a major conference in Washington DC organized by the World Bank, IMF and ATD Fourth World, Olivier De Schutter set out four key ways in which the tool builds on the groundbreaking research of the hidden dimensions of poverty.

Among these is a shift to empowered economics.

In his presentation, the Special Rapporteur outlines how we have moved from economics based on modelling, which assumes that people act as rational actors (provide the right incentives and you get people to act as you would like them to act), to “empirical economics” (which accounts for social norms, emotions, routines etc. in decision-making), relying on randomized control trials to discover what works. The time has now come, he argues, to move one step further, to an economics that is truly “empowering”.

Empowered economics does not seek to simply explain how people behave and how incentives operate, but to also understand their reasons for acting as they do by involving them as active participants in designing solutions. This is a crucial shift from treating people as passive beneficiaries of solutions, to seeing them as active and involved in shaping decisions so that they are intrinsically motivated to act.

This is how the IDEEP can be put to work in democratizing economic policymaking: providing space for people in poverty to express their views and building on their experience to make more effective, and more sustainable, economic choices.

 

Related links:

Tool for the Inclusive and Deliberative Elaboration & Evaluation of Policies (IDEEP)

Unveiling blind spots and critical insights to fight poverty effectively (blog – Olivier De Schutter and Luis Felipe López-Calva, Global Director, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank

Addressing the Hidden Dimensions of Poverty in Knowledge and Policies (Conference including video recordings of all sessions)

Addressing the Hidden Dimensions of Poverty through More Inclusive Dialogue (Conference wrap-up)