Thinking about development in Africa requires an appreciation of at least two sets of ideas. It is not sufficient to stress the ubiquity of failure, malnutrition, disease, predatory states and war; one also has to recognize that important aspects of the lives of millions of ordinary people have been transformed over the last five decades. All contributions in this book give insight into the heterogeneity of poverty and development processes in Sub-Saharan Africa, and confront the ideas, concepts and assumptions that lie behind pro-poor policies with their empirical findings.