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This volume examines the persistence of poverty - both rural and urban - in developing countries, and the response of local governments to the problem, exploring the roles of governments, NGOs, and CSOs in national and sub-national agenda-setting, policy-making, and poverty-reduction strategies. It brings together a rich variety of in-depth country and international studies, based on a combination of original data-collection and extensive research experience in developing countries. Taking a bottom-up and multi-dimensional perspective of poverty and well-being as the starting point, the authors develop a convincing set of arguments for putting the priorities of poor people first on any development agenda, thus carving out an undisputable role for local governance in interplay with higher-up governance actors and institutions.