Reaching out to the poor

This book is about the poor and the constraints of social and economic relationships within which they are trapped. Over the years such contraints have diminished their social and political capacity to escape from poverty by themselves. In their case, therefore, neither the provisions of public policy nor specific development stimulus are enough. Initially, and for a limited period, what they need are socially concerned individuals and organisations to mobilise them and target them for development. In the long run, however, their self-development can come only through their own self-involvement. The book concentrates on the poor and the actual nature of their disadvantages, rather than on abstract notions of poverty.