This book contains edited versions of the papers presented at the Third Annual Poverty Symposium. It has increasingly become apparent that a robust and constantly self-reflective tradition of empirical research is necessary for supporting and guiding ongoing poverty reduction efforts in the country. Sri Lanka is gradually recovering from nearly two decades of highly destructive civil war and related processes of political instability and social polarization. As such both the symposium and this publication aims to contribute to the goal of evolving such a collective enterprise among the local research community.