Governance and Poverty Reduction: Beyond the Cage of Best Practices

Governance and Poverty Reduction

Investment in the region has been rising and even per capita income has shown some increase, yet the state has not been able to lead these reforms appropriately and efficiently. Thus poverty has not been reduced, ordinary people continue to languish under government programmes and the socially excluded remain outside the mainstream decision making bodies. Governance in South Asia faces the single most important challenge of poverty reduction which continues to blunt and disfigure capacity, self esteem and service delivery system to the poor. This book attempts to bring out microlevel studies from many regions in South Asia to address issues of entrepreneurship, knowledge and professionalism. As an initiator of the idea on developing a critique to the straightjacketed best practice research, this book questions the standard practice in evaluating administrative reforms as not being the true base for knowledge.