Poverty Reduction: Making Markets Work for the Poor

1. This paper provides the framework for IDE’s approach to poverty reduction. It seeks to make explicit the assumptions underlying IDE’s efforts to integrate the rural poor into expanding input and output markets. Its aim is to demonstrate that there is a case for taking specific action to enable the poor—especially the rural poor—to participate in markets both as customers of purchased inputs, and as suppliers of high-value products. It argues that poverty reduction must be market-driven, whereby the purpose of public investment in poverty reduction should aim at removing constraints to market participation.