This book grew out of an international workshop held in June 2006 at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC; it seeks to generate interest and discussion on the usefulness and applicability of an assets accumulation framework. The importance for poor groups of a stronger asset base to help them cope with stresses and shocks has long been recognized – and this book focuses on how public policies can increase the physical, financial, human, social and natural resource asset base of poorer groups, and why this approach has particular importance for poverty reduction. As the book’s introduction by Caroline Moser states: “As poor communities, policy makers and politicians all seek to identify new, innovative and more appropriate policies and strategies for confronting poverty, it is clear that successful reduction solutions are not easily found. This book addresses this challenge by introduced asset accumulation, both as a conceptual framework and as an operational policy to address poverty reduction in a globalized context” (page 1).

The book seeks to demonstrate the value added by using asset-based approaches (which are well established within anti-poverty strategies within the USA), both for better understanding poverty and for developing more effective long-term poverty reduction solutions. The 17 chapters are presented under three headings: the lessons from research; asset policy (social protection or asset accumulation?); and asset accumulation and consolidation in practice. There are three chapters on drawing lessons from research on the measurement of assets. The first describes research in Guayaquil on intergenerational asset accumulation and examines how different capital assets are accumulated and eroded over time; the second discusses the measurement of asset poverty, including an interest in the bundle of assets a household must have to accumulate more assets; and the third considers how the erosion of human capital related to ill-health and health-related expenses causes households to descend into poverty.

Three chapters discuss how an asset accumulation policy differs from other poverty reduction approaches, especially social protection. Asset accumulation policy concentrates on creating opportunities for the poor to accumulate and consolidate assets, whereas social protection focuses more on protecting the poor from negative risks and shocks – although the two can complement each other. Ten chapters consider different aspects of asset accumulation and consolidation, including the usefulness of the asset accumulation framework in different fields – for instance, in building natural resource-based assets in Southern Africa, in protecting land rights in post-Tsunami and post-conflict Aceh and in addressing poverty after Hurricane Katrina. Case studies illustrate how housing itself as an asset does not pull families out of poverty, but is often a prerequisite for the assets that do. In post-disaster and fragile states, an asset framework is useful not only for evaluating different strategies to protect assets but also for asset reconstruction. Savings are crucial for asset accumulation, perhaps even more so than microcredit. One chapter discusses the role of microinsurance as protection for the poor against shocks, and the importance of savings and insurance as protection. Various chapters include a consideration of the importance of international migration for asset accumulation. These include examples of migrants that increase direct involvement in economic and social activities in their home communities through capital investment, remittance transfers and charitable donations. Migrants often facilitate asset building both in destinations and in countries of origin. But international migration can also involve high costs; one chapter describes the large loans or promise of labour as payment made by many who go from Central America to the USA. Another chapter discusses how a rights framework provides the bas