Over the past few years pro-poor growth has become a very popular topic among development practitioners. This despite the fact that in many cases we do not even know what other people mean by pro-poor growth. Is it growth that leads to income redistribution or instead growth that leads to poverty reduction? More importantly, what do we know (and what we don't) about how we can achieve it? This paper addresses these questions through a survey of the existing literature. To focus the debate, the paper first reviews the different definitions being used in practice. Then it divides contributions to the pro-poor growth literature into three different groups. First, it considers papers that have explored the relative role played by growth and inequality in reducing poverty. Second, it reviews works that have focused on the growth-inequality relationship paying attention to both directions of causality. The third group of reviewed papers is less related to the mechanics of what Bourguignon (2004) refers to as the poverty-growth-inequality triangle and more to the policies that countries should pursue in a successful poverty reduction strategy.
