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The purpose of this paper examines how the challenge of poverty can be effectively addressed by broadly adopting Islamic value based cooperative model (IVCM) where the members come together to overcome and eventually eradicate the curse of poverty for themselves and for their future generations.

The elimination of poverty by adopting IVCM and its impact on the cooperative members, as well as its effects on major macroeconomic variables, are examined on the theoretical ground by using the general equilibrium model of demand and supply-side variables.

The IVCM for the elimination of poverty reveals that the poverty gap can be eliminated through resource mobilization, as well as by creating new and additional income, wealth and resources through collaborative efforts. Through cooperative organizations based on Islamic values and principles, eventually, the entire poverty pool can enjoy income-earning opportunities through employment or self-employment, as well as promoting skills and education, leading to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

Cooperatives in general and Islamic cooperatives, in particular, are not new in the discourse about poverty. Indeed, there are cooperatives throughout the Muslim world and beyond and there are many studies related to cooperatives and their role in development. However, this might be the first theoretical contribution that models the role and impact of cooperatives in a macroeconomic framework, and thus, advances the scientific repertoire of knowledge and understanding about the related discourse by developing a rigorous mathematical model.

The purpose of this paper is to examine pro-poor urban asset adaptation to climate variability and change. It constructs a conceptual framework that explores the appropriate asset adaptation strategies for extreme poor households as well as the process of supporting these households and groups in accumulating these assets.

Qualitative data are obtained from life histories, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus-group discussions (FGDs). These data are collected, coded and themed.

This research identifies that households among the urban extreme poor do their best to adapt to perceived climate changes; however, in the absence of savings, and access to credit and insurance, they are forced to adopt adverse coping strategies. Individual adaptation practices yield minimal results and are short lived and even harmful because the urban extreme poor are excluded from formal policies and institutions as they lack formal rights and entitlements. For the poorest, the process of facilitating and maintaining patron–client relationships is a central coping strategy. Social policy approaches are found to be effective in facilitating asset adaptation for the urban extreme poor because they contribute to greater resilience to climate change.

This study analyses the empirical evidence through the lens of a pro-poor asset-adaptation framework. It shows that the asset-transfer approach is an effective in building household-adaptation strategies. Equally important is the capacity to participate in and influence the institutions from which these people have previously been excluded.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a local trade union improves living conditions for women entrepreneurs in India and how its activities have evolved over time.

The authors conducted a longitudinal case study of the self-employed women’s association (SEWA) in India. Founded in 1972, this organization fosters and supports women’s entrepreneurship. The approach of this study combines qualitative face-to-face interviews and secondary data analysis.

The findings highlight the fact that SEWA, which combines the features of a trade union and a social movement, improves women’s conditions in several different ways. The study shows that the organization’s main role has evolved from creating a community to expanding it and finally to becoming an agent of societal change.

The study contributes to the literature by analyzing how locally grown organizations fight social exclusion and improve the conditions of deprived groups in emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate by text and empirical facts, the need to reform the rules in force.

This study confronts current standards with empirical facts. To do this, it is postulated that even though current market access standards are better that the Gatt 1947 rules, they leave the possibility for some members to hijack them to eventually increase their protection effective tariff.

Market access standards for agricultural products should be reformed because of their asymmetry. To put an end to this asymmetry, these standards should be rebalanced. This is precisely the challenge of the current multilateral negotiations.

Unlike the studies conducted on this subject (to my knowledge), which are mainly based on economic or political science methods, this analysis is essentially based on legal reasoning law.

Many studies on legal consciousness suggest that the poor and working class are fundamentally excluded or disadvantaged, having a different legal consciousness from others that is “against the law” or cynical and dismissive about the law. My study is the first to examine polyvocality and change in legal consciousness among the poor. The women in my study are disadvantaged, to be sure, and face barriers to learning and mastering the law. But the interviews conducted for this study revealed that a remarkable shift in legal consciousness could take place as a result of the interface of perceptions, experience, and interaction with legal services, courts, and other members of the community. In this chapter, I develop a theoretical framework of legal entitlement in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the variations and changes in legal consciousness among low-income mothers as well as how these differences impact the ways in which marginalized group members come to develop and exercise legal consciousness and also to mobilize the law.

The paper's purpose is to present and empirically validate a learning model of participatory grassroots development among the poor and needy in Bangladesh.

The approach used is conceptual modeling and its empirical validation for a case study of poor women's sewing project in an interior village of Chittagong, Bangladesh.

A perpetual charity‐fund with endogenous values and productive transformation of the needy at the grassroots can prove to be an effective approach to socioeconomic development.

The empirical validation can be enhanced with more data being generated with experience in the women's sewing project in the near future.

This is a policy‐oriented paper with practical ways and means‐test for implementation in development planning.

A formal modeling of grassroots development premised on human resource development and perpetual charity‐fund for financing and their empirical validation is presented. Such an approach is not presently found in the hierarchical models of development planning. It should be included for making development meaningful as the grassroots. Particular reference is made here to Bangladesh development planning.

The high failure rate for expatriate leaders is well documented. One major cause of these failures has been identified as the incongruencies in the perceptions of expatriate leaders and the host members that they manage. This article describes theory and research which suggests that a potential explanation for at least some of these perceptual incongruencies is that they are a result of culturally‐based attributional biases interacting with self‐serving and actor‐observer attributional biases. Although not all of the interactions of these biases result in incongruent perceptions, some interactions appear to be particularly prone to result in incongruent perceptions such as when leaders from highly individualistic and low context cultures interact with members from highly collectivistic and high context cultures. Suggestions for research and interventions designed to reduce incongruent attributions between leaders and members are discussed.

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are known for their contribution to the women empowerment and poverty alleviation but it is not clear about the role of gender on the performance of this industry. It is important to explore the representation of both the gender in three levels, namely, decision-making, day-to-day management and implementation of the micro-financial services. This study aims to examine the impact of female board members, female managers and female field officers on the financial and social performance of the MFIs.

The authors have used random effect panel data analysis. The study covers 104 MFIs operating in India. The time period of the analysis is from 2010 to 2014.

The study has shown that as the number of female directors within the board increase there is an increase in cost per borrower. This is an indication that more female clients are being targeted. The increase in number of female managers leads to an increase in the number of active borrowers. The increase in the number of female staff members leads to an increase of operational self-sufficiency and yield of the gross portfolio.

The present study has faced a lot of limitation due to the non-availability of the secondary data on the governance system of the microfinance industry. The study could not be undertaken for an extended period because of the unavailability of data for a long period.

This study has highlighted the role of gender in case of performance of microfinance institutions. The gender diversity at the field level has shown to enhance the financial performance of the MFIs. So, the MFIs should try to bring gender diversity at the operation level.

This study has shown that an increase of woman directors at the board level increase female clients of MFIs. The increase of female managers also enhances number of female clients. So, the gender diversity at the managerial level and director level help MFIs to meet their social performance by reaching to more number of needy female clients.

The gender diversity at the three levels, namely, board level, managerial level and field operation level has not been analyzed in the Indian context. In India MFIs mainly target the female clients so in this context having gender diversity at the three levels of operation of the MFIs, which can improve both the financial and social performance of the MFIs.