ABSTRACT
The call for a basic needs strategy17 to overcome poverty that was voiced at the ILO’s World Employment Conference in 1976 also signified the rejection of a distribution-oriented growth policy, which it was claimed was incapable on its own of satisfying the basic needs of those living in absolute poverty. What was needed, therefore, was a policy that provided sufficient essential goods and services, if necessary with direct government intervention where markets and commercial promotional policies failed.
