Poverty is still the gravest insult to human dignity.
Poverty is the scar on humanity's face.
As such, it is unique and the first volume ever to cover poverty studies worldwide and to present the rich variety of concepts, hypotheses, and data used in different disciplines in different cultural settings. The book is therefore a baseline for ongoing and future research and contributes to setting the agenda for poverty research into the next millennium. It contains an abundance of ideas and reflections on poverty manifestations, poverty research, and poverty strategies which are of value to researchers and policy-makers alike. The comparative aspect of the book elicits quite another set of questions and insights than do national studies, which is important in a world where still more institutions and businesses are becoming international. Poverty and poverty strategies are no exception to this development, and the comparative aspect provides a focus for this phenomenon.