This book is the compilation of ten papers presented at a workshop organized jointly by the Arab Planning Institute (API) in Kuwait, and the African Training and Research Center in Administration for Development (CAFRAD) in Tangier, Morocco on December 1-3, 1998. The workshop aimed at discussing the means to build and sustain institutional capacity for social reforms, and analyzing the link between these reforms and poverty alleviation policies.

Poverty is concerned with the relationship between minimum needs of people and their ability to satisfy these needs. Research on poverty is extensive due to the complexity of the problem, the proliferation and availability of data from household surveys, and the interest of international agencies, governments, and scholars in poverty analysis. Despite the spread of poverty research worldwide however, empirical evidence on poverty in the Arab countries is very sketchy and only few studies are available . Most of the research conducted on poverty in the ESCWA region is reported in the ESCWA (1997) publication.

Poverty constitutes one of the major social and economic problems. It reflects the malfunctioning of the social and economic systems. It stems from different sources, i.e. social, economic, and political factors, massive unemployment, low incomes, economic backwardness, social and economic exclusion and unequal income distribution, drought, environment deterioration, floods, civil wars, political instability and corruption. It also reflects the neglect by the governments of the most unfavorable and vulnerable people in the society, such as the disabled, the elderly, and female-headed households. Poverty also spreads out due to lack of proper social institutions (social security, pension funds, retirement plans, charities, etc.) and the lack of basic human rights and the proper laws and policies to protect them.