Current approaches taken by governments and international agencies to cut poverty by targeting only poor people or adopting measures separate from broader aspects of economic development fail to tackle the underlying causes, a United Nations report warns. Such failure could leave about one billion people destitute by 2015, it says.

The report analyses the causes and persistence of poverty and looks at what works and what doesn’t in current policy planning and practice.

“The evidence shows that poverty is reduced when economic and social policies, institutions and political arrangements are mutually supportive,” the report says. “Simple prescriptions may …