Attacking Poverty: World Development Report 2000/2001

The report builds on the view that poverty means not only low incomes and low consumption but also lack of education and poor nutrition and health. Based on the testimony of poor people themselves, and changes in thinking about poverty, the report goes further and expands the definition of poverty to include powerlessness, "voicelessness," vulnerability, and fear.

Report recommends that developing country governments at all levels, donor countries, international agencies, NGO's, civil society, and local communities, mobilize behind three priority areas:

• Opportunity: Expanding economic opportunity for poor people by stimulating economic growth, making markets work better for poor people, and working for their inclusion, particularly by building up their assets, such as land and education
• Empowerment: Strengthening the ability of poor people to shape decisions that affect their lives and removing discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, and social status
• Security: Reducing poor people's vulnerability to sickness, economic shocks, crop failure, unemployment, natural disasters, and violence, and helping them cope when such misfortunes occur

World Development Report 2000/2001 draws on a large volume of research, including a background study, Voices of the Poor, which systematically sought the personal accounts of more than 60,000 men and women living in poverty in 60 countries. In addition, the report's authors conducted extensive research and consultation with a wide array of governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society groups, universities, development think-tanks, private business groups, and others around the world. An on-line discussion of an early draft of the report produced hundreds of responses from 44 countries.[authors]