This series "New Frontiers of Social Policy" aims to promote social development through systematic attention to the underlying social context and the social outcomes of development interventions and public policy. This book series has been conceived and produced for the broader development community, rather than for social policy specialists alone. This book is particularly, although not exclusively, relevant to those concerned with the one-third of the world's population that still depends on the informal economy for its livelihood. By making the case for an asset-based social policy, it moves well beyond social welfare palliatives for needy households toward public actions that give people the means and opportunities to accumulate assets and have greater control over their livelihoods. To be successful, an asset-based social policy needs to address several challenges, initial inequality, informality, imbalance in asset building opportunity, and inadequate state effectiveness, endemic in many developing countries.