An Islamic Alternative to Poverty Alleviation: The ‘PARSHI’ (Neighborhood) Model

First, this paper analyzes the inadequacies of the market mechanism, as well as the current interventions at governmental and non-governmental levels under its tools of poverty alleviation and points out the need for introducing a continuous basic minimum initial asset/capital transfer mechanism, like zakat, as follows: government safety net programs are often seasonal, poorly covered, and aptly regarded as the least organized, thereby having a very marginal impact on poverty. The important government safety net programs are Food for Works (FFW), Food for Education (FFE), Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) Program for Disadvantaged Women, and Test Relief (TR). It should be noted that the safety net programs are based on donors’ humanitarian grants that have a high degree of fluctuation. At the same time, it is hardly a net transfer mechanism since FFW, the major component of the safety net programs, is given as wage to construct and repair rural infrastructure. On the other hand, the g