Poverty Alleviation through Empowerment with a Focus on Partnership: A Case Study of Iran

Abstract

Empowerment in the area of poverty alleviation, beyond being a partnership for improvement or progress of the performance, means accountability for the prioritized needs. As to empowerment, the approaches are mostly confined to motivational level or organizational and institutional reform. Based on this general approach, Iran has also drawn up many empowerment programs and implemented them through Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation (IKRF), the main supporting organization of the country. Pursuing the empowerment projects on the basis of this limited approach has been the source of instability for such projects. Evaluating the empowerment projects of Iran focused on poverty alleviation, developed and embedded in the broad programs of the IKRF, the study aims to identify the components of a pattern of empowerment for poverty alleviation through a social approach. Finally the proposed strategies are formulated based on three centers of active participation of the poor, strengthening inter-organizational relationships and defining an advisory role for supporting organizations to decision-making bodies. The methodology was descriptive-analytical and the data collected through direct observation and interviews with experts and academic elites and collecting questionnaires. Delphi Questionnaire was filled by the sample population in two categories of managers and experts of the IKRF and the clients. The Snowball technique was applied for identifying the size of the sample. The research questions were responded through SWOT analysis.