The paper focuses on two kinds of policy intervention – preventative and curative. A preventative intervention tries to counteract the processes that generate a problem; a curative intervention tries to deal with their consequences. In the case of poverty, for instance, a curative intervention will find out where the poor are and try to alleviate their situation; a preventative intervention will analyze the causes of poverty and devise strategies to prevent it.
http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/HDNet/HDDocs.nsf/vtlw/0acaf6c1eb86c75a85256d36005b6821/$FILE/Godfrey.pdf