Pro-Poor Growth and Governance in South Asia: Decentralization and Participatory Development

Despite decades of endeavour, various efforts to eradicate the worst forms of poverty and to encourage equitable and sustainable growth in South Asia, have as yet made only a dent in what is a dismal situation. Of late, there has been increasing emphasis on two other agendas in the wider development framework–namely, good governance and decentralization. Despite their scope for complementarity, these three important agendas are largely pursued independently of each other. This important volume advocates a pro-poor growth strategy where the poor also participate directly as subjects in development. The contributors maintain that a critical element in this process is social mobilization where organizations of the poor work in partnership with a restructured state and a socially responsible private sector. They see a new political space for this in the current attempts at decentralization which are also aimed at devolving power to the people. To illustrate these possibilities, the volume presents six case studies from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Together they show how new social movements and organizations of the poor are converging with efforts to decentralize and to share power at the local level. The case studies are preceded by a conceptual introduction which critically evaluates conventional development thinking and identifies some fundamentals for alternative approaches. The last chapter draws lessons from the case studies for development policy and innovative initiatives, both in the short and the long term. This volume breaks new ground by investigating in depth the three important agendas of governance, decentralization/devolution, and poverty eradication, and by highlighting how they can be coordinated to fashion a genuinely pro-poor macro-micro development strategy. It will attract a wide readership among development activists and policy makers while also being of interest to scholars from various academic disciplines including development studies, politics, economics, sociology and public administration.