ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that poverty is multidimensional and has important non-economic dimensions. It argues that poverty is always specific to a location and a social group, and awareness of these specifics is essential to the design of policies and programs intended to attack poverty. The chapter also argues that despite differences in the way poverty is experienced by different groups and in different places, there are striking commonalities in the experience of poverty in very different countries, from Russia to Brazil, Nigeria to Indonesia. Low self-confidence both results from poverty and increases powerlessness and isolation from opportunity. Poor people's powerlessness and voicelessness are most clearly evident in the quality of their interactions with the formal and informal institutions on which they depend for their survival. Poor people need assets to reduce their vulnerability. The realities of poor people's lives must inform policymaking at macro as well as micro levels.
