The 'World Development Report 1990: Poverty' provided the foundation for the World Bank strategy to help achieve global poverty reduction. This report is a contribution to the strategy review process. It examines the implementation of the 1990 strategy, maps changes against assessment of Bank performance at both the country and the project level and assesses the relevance of key elements of the 1990 strategy in light of new data and shifts in the development assistance environment. The report concludes that the 1990 strategy remains relevant but needs to be combined with a more comprehensive approach. Lessons from experience confirm the importance of a holistic approach to reach the poor more effectively. This includes a focus on local level institutions and building on existing institutional frameworks wherever possible and on working across sectors for maximum impact. The 1990 strategy and the operational guidelines based on it have failed to generate a clear emphasis on measuring and monitoring results. A critical test of the Bank's evolving poverty strategy will be the design of a credible framework for measuring the results of the Bank's country assistance, and helping to build local capacity for monitoring the impact of poverty reduction programmes. The report is in English with the foreword and the executive summary given in English, Spanish and French.