This important volume advocates a pro-poor growth strategy where the poor also participate directly as subjects in development. The contributors maintain that a critical element in this process is social mobilization where organizations of the poor work in partnership with a restructured state and a socially responsible private sector. They see a new political space for this in the current attempts at decentralization which are also aimed at developing power to the people.

To illustrate these possibilities, the volume presents six case studies from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Together they show how new social movements and organizations of the poor are converging with efforts to decentralize and to share power at the local level.

This volume breaks new ground by investigating in depth the three important agendas of governance, decentralization/devolution, and poverty eradication, and by highlighting how they can be coordinated to fashion a genuinely pro-poor macro—micro development strategy.