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In two volumes these books review and expand the theory that poverty in the world's poorest regions could be alleviated by providing small loans to micro-entrepreneurs. Volume 1 provides detailed analysis of this theory and offers policy recommendations for practitioners in this field. Volume 2 presents empirical evidence drawn from comparative experiences in seven developing countries. The work assesses the success of this policy and provides some startling conclusions. This is essential reading for all those interested in development, poverty-reduction, social welfare and finance.

Background Tanzania’s One Plan II health sector program aims to increase facility deliveries from 50 to 80% from 2015 to 2020. Success is uneven among certain Maasai pastoralist women in Northern Tanzania who robustly prefer home births to facility births even after completing 4+ ANC visits. Ebiotishu Oondomonok Ongera (EbOO) is a program in Nainokanoka ward to promote facility births through a care-group model using trained traditional birth attendants (TBAs) as facilitators. Results to date are promising but show a consistent gap between women completing ANC and those going to a facility for delivery. A qualitative study was conducted to understand psychosocial preferences, agency for decision-making, and access barriers that influence where a woman in the ward will deliver. Methods In-depth interviews, focus group discussions and key-informant interviews were conducted with 24 pregnant and/or parous women, 24 TBAs, 3 nurse midwives at 3 health facilities, and 24 married men, living in Nainokanoka ward. Interviews and discussions were transcribed, translated, and analyzed thematically using a grounded theory approach. Results Most women interviewed expressed preference for a home birth with a TBA and even those who expressed agency and preference for a facility birth usually had their last delivery at home attributed to unexpected labor. TBAs are engaged by husbands and play a significant influential role in deciding place of delivery. TBAs report support for facility deliveries but in practice use them as a last resort, and a significant trust gap was documented based on a bad experience at a facility where women in labor were turned away. Conclusions EbOO project data and study results show a slow but steady change in norms around delivery preference in Nainokanoka ward. Gaps between expressed intention and practice, especially around ‘unexpected labor’ present opportunities to accelerate this process by promoting birth plans and perhaps constructing a maternity waiting house in the ward. Rebuilding trust between facility midwives, TBAs, and the community on the availability of health facility services, and increased sensitivity to women’s cultural preferences, could also close the gap between the number of women who are currently using facilities for ANC and those returning for delivery.

Economic aid to developing countries is an important-and often controversial-part of foreign policy for many Western nations. But how effective is such aid in achieving the objectives of the giver and the recipient? In this important study, Paul Mosley offers a challenging reassessment of the role of economic aid for nations on both sides of the equation. Mosley examines in detail the foreign aid programs of the leading Western powers with particular regard to the role of aid in international politics, and then examines the effectiveness of aid as a subsidy to exports, as an instrument of development, and as a means of redistributing income and bargaining power to the very poor. Mosley also incorporates overseas aid into the general economic theory of public expenditure. He examines the various protagonists on the supply side of the market for aid expenditures and in particular those on the demand side. Supporting this analysis of ways in which the aid market adjusts over time are extensive data from the OECD countries for the past thirty years. With its searching assessment of the effectiveness of foreign aid as an instrument of dogmatic and economic policy, Mosley's new book will be essential reading for all students in the field of international relations.

This article examines the impact of micro health insurance on poverty reduction in rural areas of Bangladesh. The research is based on household-level primary data collected from the operating areas of the Grameen Bank during 2006. A number of outcome measures are considered; these include household income, stability of household income via food sufficiency and ownership of nonland assets, and the probability of being above or below the poverty line. The results show that micro health insurance has a positive association with all of these indicators, and this is statistically significant and quantitatively important for food sufficiency.

Economic aid to developing countries is an important--and often controversial--part of foreign policy for many Western nations.But how effective is such aid in achieving the objectives of the giver and the recipient?.

Over the past decade there has been a worrying increase in poverty in the industrialised countries of the \"North\", while many of the developing countries of the \"South\" have experienced some improvement. This collection argues that there are a number of likenesses between the predicaments of North and South, and that these warrant further investigation and analysis.

In opposition to a number of the presentations at the Conference, we argue that the development of foodcrop agriculture needs to be considered as a pivotal poverty reduction strategy in Africa—in spite of the sector's erratic performance which has seen a number of ‘mini‐green revolutions’ take off, falter and crash back to earth. We insist that for at least five reasons—the scale‐neutrality of hybrid seed technology, its labour‐intensity, its tendency to reduce risks, its ability to reduce the prices of poor people's basic foods and its ability to stimulate off‐farm linkages—the hybrid seed revolution, partial though it has been, needs to be supported and sustained, and not dismissed as fated to fail in African conditions. We support this conclusion by two estimates of poverty impact of these ‘new’ technologies—a quick and dirty estimate based on four channels of impact only (income of adopter households, labour market, consumer prices and off‐farm linkages) and an estimate derived from a multi‐market model of Uganda, in which about one‐tenth of the poverty reduction achieved in Uganda since 1992 is ascribed to productivity change in maize and cassava. We note that a number of domestic and aid policy factors—from weak rural infrastructure and financial systems to food aid—have tended to reduce either the incentive to introduce new technologies, and/or the poverty‐elasticity of their introduction. To reduce many of the different poverties from which Africa suffers, we argue, the policies responsible for the underdevelopment of its cereal crops need coordinated reform across many countries; in preparing such reform, inspiration can be taken from the policies which preceded the surge in agricultural productivity in India, Indonesia and China 30 years ago. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Over the past decade there has been a worrying increase in poverty in the industrialised countries of the \"North\", while many of the developing countries of the \"South\" have experienced some improvement. This collection argues that there are a number of likenesses between the predicaments of North and South, and that these warrant further investigation and analysis. Paul Mosley is professor of economics at the University of Sheffield, UK. He has written several books including Aid and Power, also published by Routledge. Elizabeth Dowler is a registered public health nutritionist and researches social and policy aspects of food and nutrition at Warwick University, UK.

The paper examines the effect of aid on poverty, rather than on economic growth. We devise a 'pro-poor (public) expenditure index', and present evidence that, together with inequality and corruption, this is a key determinant of the aid's poverty leverage. After presenting empirical evidence which suggests a positive leverage of aid donors on pro-poor expenditure, we argue for the development of conditionality in a new form, which gives greater flexibility to donors in punishing slippage on previous commitments, and keys aid disbursements to performance in respect of policy variables which governments can influence in a pro-poor direction.

Potentially, community development finance institutions (CDFIs) represent a promising complement to the welfare system in its attempts to reduce poverty, since they provide finance to the financially excluded and potentially remove a barrier to their acquisition of assets. Drawing on a new survey of around 360 households in four UK cities, surveyed both before and after the 2008/09 recession, it is found that a major factor determining whether low-income households receiving CDFI loans are able to exit from poverty is their ability to save. This is found to be determined by a variety of attitudinal and institutional factors, including the 'rationality' of their coping strategies, the nature and extent of social networks and the extent of their access to money advice. It is argued that some of these causal factors are amenable to policy.