Reducing Global Poverty: The Case for Asset Accumulation

A daunting challenge to the international community is how to go about lifting the world’s huge poor population out of poverty. “Asset-based” approaches to development are aimed specifically at designing and implementing public policies that will increase the capital assets of the poor—i.e., the physical, financial, human, social, and natural resources that can be acquired, developed, improved, and transferred across generations. In this pathbreaking book, Caroline Moser and a group of experts with on-the-ground experience provide a set of case studies of asset-building projects around the globe. The authors use a cutting-edge research framework that moves beyond quick snapshot solutions to the problem of poverty. They highlight the ways in which poor households and communities can move out of poverty through longer-term accumulation of capital assets.