A rapid change to the pattern of trade and industrial production has transformed the global economy and challenged North-South differences in the way men and women experience employment. Increasingly, international development policy makers are becoming involved in debates with governments and NGO’s (Non Governmental Organizations) in the North, about appropriate methods of understanding and tackling Northern poverty. Until recently, the social policies and practices to address poverty in the industrialised countries, also referred to as the ‘North’, and the agriculture-based countries, also know as the ‘South’, have tended to remain conceptually distinct from each other. This edition of Gender and Development explores the new focus of finding solutions for Northern poverty by comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of poverty in the Northern and Southern contexts.