Business and Poverty: Opening markets to the Poor, an issue of Development Outreach published by the World Bank Institute, discusses how companies can operate profitably in emerging market economies, while enhancing the well-being of the poor by nurturing them as producers and consumers. The publication points out that for many development thinkers and innovative entrepreneurs, ending poverty-and the vulnerability that goes with it-is best approached by focusing on the potential of the poor as the world’s largest market of producers, workers and consumers. This market consists of four billion people living on incomes of less than $3,000 per year in local purchasing power, a total market of $5 trillion. In 13 articles, the publication’s contributors offer case studies that outline a wide range of market-based approaches to reducing poverty amongst this group which makes up two thirds of the world’s population.

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