Moving Out of Poverty The Promise of Empowerment and Democracy in India

India has experienced accelerating growth in the last decade, yet why do millions of people remain mired in poverty? This book brings together the voices of the poor from villages in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, to understand how some people have managed to escape poverty while others have not.

DEEPA NARAYAN is project director of a 15-country World Bank study, Moving Out of Poverty: Understanding Freedom, Democracy, and Growth from the Bottom Up. It builds on an earlier study also directed by Narayan, Voices of the Poor.
Formerly a senior adviser in the Poverty Reduction group of the World Bank, Narayan has over 25 years of development experience in Asia and Africa, working for nongovernmental organizations, national governments, and the United Nations system as well as the World Bank Group. Her areas of expertise include participatory development, community-driven development, and social capital, and the use of these concepts to create wealth for the poor. Recent publications include Moving Out of Poverty: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Mobility (World Bank, 2007); Ending Poverty in South Asia: Ideas that Work, co-edited with Elena Glinskaya (World Bank, 2007); and Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (World Bank, 2005).