ABSTRACT

Investing in social capital has long been an important strategy for global poverty alleviation and development.However，the role of social capital in poverty alleviation and development has not received enough attention in theoretical research or policy practice.Unclear theoretical basis，unknown causal mechanism and lack of policy tools are three major problems that restrict the large-scale application of social capital in poverty alleviation and of development policies.

Based on the case study of “Sustainable Development in Poor Rural Area Project for China” and Hong Kong “Community Investment And Inclusion Fund”，with the research method combining field research and literature research，the book is mainly used to systematically explore social capital oriented poverty alleviation strategy from three levels including theory，policy and practice，and to solve three major problems mentioned above which restrict the large-scale application of social capital in poverty alleviation.

First of all，the book clarifies the theoretical basis of the social capital-oriented poverty alleviation model and discusses the development of global poverty alleviation model.Secondly，it examines the policy application of social capital in poverty alleviation，and summarizes the practical experience of the new poverty alleviation model.Finally，the book discusses the generation mechanism and the poverty-alleviation effects of social capital，and explores the policy mode and tools of the social capital-oriented poverty alleviation.

Material capital-oriented model，human capital-oriented model and social capital-oriented model are three different poverty-alleviation strategies which focus on economic poverty，capacity poverty and social exclusion，and adopt different poverty alleviation methods and policy instruments.Due to the fact that the multidimensional nature of poverty determines the multidimensional nature of poverty alleviation，poverty-alleviation policy should be based on the multidimensional poverty-alleviation perspectives and comprehensive application of the above-mentioned three poverty-alleviation models.The experience of global poverty reduction shows that the community-driven poverty alleviation，the participatory poverty alleviation，and the cooperative poverty alleviation are three effective policy models for social capital-oriented poverty alleviation.

Social capital in the form of bonds，bridges and links can effectively alleviate the problems of alienation，fragmentation and marginalization of the poor，providing a broad space for them to re-engage in the economy and integrate themselves into the society.It is of urgent necessity to give play to the country's enabling role，to promote the community-driven，participatory and cooperative poverty alleviation models，to strengthen tripartite cooperation between the state，the market and the third sector and to make good use of social capital to improve the policy performance of poverty alleviation.