Work on the first 7 studies is beginning in 2000, and the other 7 will be conducted when full funding is available. The planned case studies go beyond the conventional treatment of poverty as solely a matter of sufficient income, expenditure, food intake, or nutritional status. Instead, the studies look at the people s vulnerability to various trends and shocks. When we look at a family s welfare, we re not just looking at how much daily food they have to eat we re looking at whether they have secure livelihoods, whether their crop yields can sustain them even through a bad monsoon, and if they have the assets they need to produce for tomorrow or get through a tough period. From there, a clearer vision of how to design research to help the poor will emerge.
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