Fighting poverty in developing cities. Recent trends and recurring questions.

This article appeared in issue 93 of “Annales de la recherche urbaine” (records of urban research). The fight against poverty (or inequality) is a subject that recurrently arises and subsequently disappears on the international community and donors’ agendas. The text provides a history of this theme of the fight against poverty, which dates back to the 1970s and originated at the World Bank under the office of Robert McNamara. It was only at this time that the institution became involved in the urban sector since until then it had been very focused on rural development and in particular infrastructure. It is worth noting that the “fight against poverty” dimension in the urban sector has never been fully discarded and continues to this day as part of sustainable city projects. The article outlined the way in which the concept of a project to combat poverty in neighborhoods developed, and advocated widening the subject to include all urban policies.