Between cant and corporatism - Creating an enabling political environment for the poor

Aid and development agencies like to believe that they manage their develop ment programmes in ways that empower the poor. This is rare in practice, ev en (or especially!) in the case of newly-fashionable programmes that are ex plicitly targeted on the poor and justified in terms of 'empowerment'. Any attempt genuinely to use public anti-poverty programmes to encourage the au tonomous, collective mobilisation ('empowerment') of the poor will be a str uggle - but a worthwhile struggle. Wow can 'friends of the poor' in governm ent or Ether external agencies design and manage their anti-poverty program mes to encourage this mobilisation? We explore the options and make a case for the importance of creating an enabling institutional environment: the c onditions that encourage poor people, social activists and grassroots polit ical entrepreneurs to invest in pro-poor mobilisation.