Eradicating poverty has long been one of the priorities of development co-operation. Yet, despite undoubted progress towards this goal, the strategies adopted at the international and national levels remain controversial. Poverty reduction is a complex issue, involving numerous players in a host of economic, social, political and environmental policy fields. The originality of this publication lies in its approach to identifying best practice, an approach which is as open and thorough as the state of the art will allow. How realistic is it to seek to cut extreme poverty by half by the year 2015? What are the most effective strategies employed by donors, be they development agencies or developed countries? What lessons can be learned from the experience of the developing countries? Clearly, these and many other questions are still unresolved. This publication approaches them by giving a broad overview of general poverty-reduction strategies and objectives. It also presents five particularly enlightening case studies on Bolivia, Cote d'Ivoire, the State of Kerala in India, Malaysia and Uganda.
