Holistic approach to disrupting poverty
This article is authored by Shaifalika Panda, founder and CEO, Bansidhar and Ila Panda Foundation.
Poverty is a complex, structural phenomenon that often spans generations. A more concerning fact is that a child born into disadvantage is likely to remain marginalised. Unfortunately, this cycle of deprivation—from womb to adulthood—is deeply entrenched in the Indian development landscape and overcoming this vulnerability demands a systemic outreach that addresses interconnected dimensions of abjection.
Holistic development is a beneficiary-centric approach that works simultaneously on correlated challenges across key sectors - health, education, livelihoods, gender equity, WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), and climate resilience. It is anchored in the understanding that these social indicators are interdependent. Merely augmenting enrolment in schools will not yield sustainable benefits without complementary improvements in the quality of education, the foundational years, proper nutrition and sensitisation. Similarly, initiatives aimed at empowering women will be constrained if they do not have access to essential financial services and health care. The key is to work across verticals, not in silos.
Development initiatives in isolation seldom result in lasting change. An all-inclusive model focuses on integrating and sequencing interventions to reinforce each other and multiply their collective outcome. Child malnutrition, for example, is not solely about the availability and access to food; it requires maternal health services, safe drinking water, hygiene awareness, and a balanced diet. When interventions are aligned, it increases cost-effectiveness and deepens impact across sectors.
Women at the core: Central to this transformation are women. Their roles as caregivers, educators, and workers make them essential in influencing mindsets. Capacitating this end of the gender spectrum through awareness, promoting a health-seeking attitude, enabling climate-resilient livelihoods, and ensuring participation in local governance all have a multiplier effect that disrupts the cycle of poverty beyond individual households. India’s SHGs have showcased this brilliantly, as we see empowered members from these programs lift not only their families but also contribute actively to local economies.
A foundation of literacy and skills: Education must go beyond enrolment figures and focus on outcomes. Foundational literacy and numeracy are essential, but equally crucial is that learning translates into employable skills. This requires secondary education to include vocational training, digital literacy, and critical thinking on one hand; and internships and career counselling to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical on the other. Equally important is aligning curricula with the rapidly changing economic landscape so that the youth are prepared to embrace new-age job opportunities. When education connects meaningfully to targeted skill development, it becomes a pathway to tangible economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility.
Livelihoods and resilience: Livelihoods must evolve to meet the demands of a changing world. Traditional rural jobs, especially agriculture, can no longer depend solely on old methods in the face of climate change and market volatility. Resilience requires improving these with contemporary instruments, integrating technology, and gaining access to markets, particularly in light of climate change. In order to support their entrepreneurial endeavours, they will need to have access to credit, savings, insurance, and digital technology for marketing, productivity, and logistics.
Initiatives like India’s Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), which provide crop insurance against climate shocks, demonstrate how resilience resulting from such initiatives can help farmers recover from unforeseen events and reinvest in the next season. Simultaneously, advisory services, direct e-linkages to markets and supply chains, through digital platforms like e-Chaupal and DeHaat, enhance their bargaining power and ability to withstand economic disruptions.
Strategies for implementation:
Community-owned solutions: Perhaps the most powerful driver of sustainable change is community ownership. Top-down interventions often fail to inspire commitment as they falter on account of local relevance. Kerala’s Kudumbashree mission (launched in 1998) shows what is possible when communities, especially women, lead the design and implementation of poverty eradication programmes. When beneficiaries are involved in co-designing solutions they are more relevant, widely accepted, easier to scale, and foster stronger accountability. Such ownership builds self-belief, ensuring that progress is not dependent on external actors but rooted in local strength and solidarity.
Collaborative impact: Each stakeholder brings unique strengths, resources, and expertise. Government, NGOs, private enterprises, philanthropists, banks, and research institutions each hold a piece of the puzzle. The challenge is to bring these pieces together--not in occasional partnership, but in genuine, ongoing collaboration. Platforms for multi-stakeholder convergence at the district and block levels are vital to ensure alignment, avoid duplication, and optimize resources. Joint interventions must be based not just on common goals, but on shared accountability and collective experience. When collaborations are institutionalised, it sets the foundation for an ecosystem where solutions can be scaled, adapted, and sustained over time.
It is time we view villages as hubs of human potential, which, upon activation, will be a game-changer. A holistic development model is not just a strategy--it is an investment which ensures children born tomorrow are healthier, better educated, and more empowered than their parents. By dismantling silos; integrating livelihoods with education, healthcare, and women’s empowerment, we can turn the tide from inherited poverty to building a resilient and prosperous nation.
This article is authored by Shaifalika Panda, founder and CEO, Bansidhar and Ila Panda Foundation.
