This book is the ยฎrst in a three volume series and is an output of the Consultations with the Poor project led by Deepa Narayan in the World Bank's Poverty Group. It was undertaken to help inform the World Development Report, Attacking Poverty, and is based on the analysis and interpretation by the World Bank of 81 participatory poverty assessment (PPA) reports in 50 countries. The second volume, Crying out for Change, is based on new ยฎeldwork from 23 countries, and the ยฎnal volume, From Many Lands, looks at regional patterns and country case studies.
Narayan et al. have to be congratulated on this work, as does the World Bank for supporting it and for putting a different perspective on the 2000 World Development Report. The work is accessible to a range of readers such as teachers, researchers, policy makers and development workers, and the material and interpretation complement and add to the WDR. It is also heartening to see the content of the PPAs being put to use in this way and reaching a much wider audience than institutional reports normally would. Can Anyone Hear Us? includes a brief but useful methodological discussion (which those in education could employ to discuss the issues it raises about qualitative methods and data). It has main chapters on deยฎning poverty, the relationship between poor people and state institutions, the role of civil society organizations in poverty alleviation and reduction (including the associations of poor people), changes affecting gender relations in households, and the nature of social fragmentation and how it affects poor people. The book begins with how the analysis of the PPAs has led to different ways of conceptualizing poverty and ends with a summary of ยฎndings and thoughts about the way forward in terms of action. A particularly useful aspect of the book for those in education is the clear lay-out, the use of summaries and conclusions, the inclusion of case studies, and the methodological appendices.
The critical thrust of this book is how the voices of poor people might contribute to our understanding of poverty and, hence, what might be done about poverty. One of the key arguments of the book is that poverty must be understood as a multidimensional phenomenon. Although in itself not a new idea, it contrasts with the focus on income and expenditure that underlies much quantitative work on poverty. The book thus provides important and rich complementary material to the quantitative data compiled by international institutions and government ofยฎces. The question for the future is how combining these approaches to deยฎning, measuring and understanding poverty will lead to policies and actions that will bring about effective poverty reduction.
Another contribution of the book is to show how different processes are interlinked in the multidimensional nature of poverty, and how they create vulnerability to further impoverishment. Thus, for example, lack of access to money (or assets to convert to money), poor nutrition and health, and abuse/contempt by healthcare ofยฎcials may combine to ensure that poor people do not obtain the healthcare they need. They may as a result face greater shocks or destitution because they may have to reduce what assets they have even further to try and obtain adequate healthcare (perhaps from other forms of provision), or become seriously ill and die. The different facets of such forms of vulnerability and powerlessness, and poor people's responses and strategies, have been articulated in many academic and non-academic studies. However bringing together this `many-stranded web' is a timely and persuasive account. In particular, the role of institutional obstacles has an important place in the book. The book also underlines the relative nature of poverty, from complete destitution and