"A veritable treasure trove." --"Newsletter of the International Center or Economic Growth Network" Viewing "strengthering the poor" as encompassing both top-down and ground-up approaches, Lewis sets out an array of lessons about poverty alleviation and the empowerment of the poor that he finds in the experiences of the 1970s and 1980s. These are lessons involving poverty aspects of agricultural and rural development, human resource development and institution building, the interplay of environment and development, the effects of the market, the roles of local groups and governments, financing development at the local level, the limitations of project aid as conventionally practiced, "wholesaling" versus "retailing" roles for aid donors, the comparative advantage and limitations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), antipoverty politics in developing countries, and the proper accommodations that adjustment programs need to incorporate. A distinguished group of co-authors reacts to these propositions on the basis of diverse sectoral, country, and regional expertise.