This book takes a new approach on understanding causes of extreme poverty and promising actions to address it. Its focus is on marginality being a root cause of poverty and deprivation. "Marginality" is the position of people on the edge, preventing their access to resources, freedom of choices, and the development of capabilities. The book is research based with original empirical analyses at local, national, and local scales; book contributors are leaders in their fields and have backgrounds in different disciplines. An important message of the book is that economic and ecological approaches and institutional innovations need to be integrated to overcome marginality. The book will be a valuable source for development scholars and students, actors that design public policies, and for social innovators in the private sector and non-governmental organizations.

Joachim von Braun is an economist, with a Doctoral degree in agricultural economics from University of Göttingen, Germany. He joined ZEF as Professor and Director of the Department for Economic and Technological Change in December 2009. He was also Director at ZEF during its foundation phase 1997-2002. Before returning to ZEF, von Braun was Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) based in Washington, DC, U.S.A. 2002 to 2009. von Braun also has been Professor for Food Economics and Policy at Kiel University, Germany. His research addresses international development economics topics, incl. markets and trade; poverty; health and nutrition; science and technology.