Wealth of the poor: Eliminating poverty through Market and Private Sector Development

This report discusses pro-poor market and private sector development (PSD), and ways in which donors can provide effective assistance for sych development. The thrust of the report is to: - Provide a holistic approach to market and private sector development, identifying broad factors in society which ate essential determinants of dynamic and socially beneficial market development. - Place markets and private sector development in a historical context, summarising how values and ideologies have provided different approaches to market development over time. Focus on conditions which make markets and private sector development pro-poor in the sense that there systems contribute to effective poverty reduction. Be practical, by suggesting potential action by donors throughout the report. The key conclusions of the report are: market an d private sector development is not an end in itself. It should always be seen as a tool for higher objectives, i.e. human development and welfare, freedom, democracy and poverty reduction. The effectiveness of the market and the private sector in promoting such ends depends on society, the incentives and disincentives established by governments and civil society. Donors can interact in such processes.