Peter Townsend & David Gordon 
World poverty 
New policies to defeat an old enemy

World poverty is an important book offering fresh insights into how to tackle poverty worldwide. With contributions from leading scholars in the field both internationally and in the UK, the book asks whether existing international and national policies are likely to succeed in reducing poverty across the world. It concludes that they are not and that a radically different international strategy is needed. This book is a companion volume to Breadline Europe: The measurement of poverty (The Policy Press, 2001). The focus of World poverty is on anti-poverty policies rather than the scale, causes and measurement of poverty. A wide range of countries is discussed including countries such as China and India, which have rarely been covered elsewhere. The interests of the industrialised and developing world are given equal attention and are analysed together. Policies intended to operate at different levels – international, regional, national and sub-national – ranging from the policies of international agencies like the UN and the World Bank through to national governments, groups of governments and local and city authorities – are examined. Key aspects of social policy, like ‘targeting’ and means-testing, de-regulation and privatisation, are considered in detail. World poverty will become a definitive point of reference for anyone working, studying or researching in the poverty field. Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion series Series Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research. Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

About the author

Peter Townsend was Professor of International Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Acting Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights there until his death in June 2009. He was also Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bristol. David Gordon is Director of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol.