Poverty will not be reduced on a large scale, without tapping into the energy, skills, and motivation of the millions of poor people around the world. This book offers a framework for empowerment, that focuses on increasing poor people's freedom of choice, and action to shape their own lives....

The authors empirically estimate the impact of social capital on household welfare in Bolivia--where they found 67 different types of local associations. They focus on household memberships in local associations as being especially relevant to daily decisions that affect household welfare and...

Using the lens of social capital-especially bridging or cross-cutting ties that cut across social groups and between social groups and government-provides new insights into policy design. Solidarity within social groups creates ties (bonding social capital) that bring people and resources...

Development practitioners are coming to a consensus that participation by the intended beneficiaries improves project performance. But is there convincing evidence that this is true? Skeptics have three objections: 1)"Participation is not objective -- project rankings are subjective; 2) this...

Poverty reduction on a large scale depends on empowering those who are most motivated to move out of poverty-poor people themselves. But if empowerment cannot be measured, it will not be taken seriously in development policy making and programming. Building on the "Empowerment and Poverty...

Conceptual framework and methodological challenges / Deepa Narayan -- Evaluating empowerment : a framework with cases from Latin America / Patti Petesch, Catalina Smulovitz, and Michael Walton -- Women's empowerment as a variable in international development / Anju Malhotra and Sidney Ruth...