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My dear colleagues, This conference is devoted to two related themes: poverty and social exclusion. In the context of UNESCO, this means that the MOST programme constitutes the core context. One of the objectives of MOST is to strengthen the interface and cooperation between social scientists and policy-makers so as to alleviate poverty and social exclusion. It is thus necessary to disseminate information and to foster communication between policy-makers, administrators and scientists concerning the three major subjects of MOST: (a) multi-cultural and multi-ethnic societies, (b) cities and (c) local-global linkages. However, if we describe the MOST programme in these terms, only one conclusion is possible. This is that the world, as a whole, is the subject of study. Can anyone cite a society or nation-state that is not indeed multi-ethnic or multi-cultural today? Can anyone show me enclaves that are not embedded in global structures? Are such groups not pre-eminently and in enlarged forms to be found in mega-cities? Is there not always and everywhere evidence of interaction between phenomena and processes on different scales? After all, we know that incorporation in a world system is increasing, that an economic world system with its own logic is developing. At the same time however, in interaction with globalization in certain fields, we can also see a growth in localization, differentiation and even fragmentation. So, globalization breeds localization. It is a tandem process, resulting in hybridisation (Latour), creolisation (Hannerz) or glocalisation (Robertson). The above would imply that when it comes to coordinating research efforts in order to accumulate insight and exchange information, in short, to select and connect research activities , there must be one underlying and linking or unifying principle. This is something we cannot avoid. I would like to make a suggestion in this connection. I would like to make a plea for a conceptual model of society as a complex configuration of arenas in which the actors endeavour to impose upon others their definition of reality, together with the associated assigning and appropriating of positions, rights and obligations. Ever changing groups of actors attempt, according to established or non established procedures to attain their goals with the aid of specific resources. They do so partly in coalition with one another, partly in competition with one another. The mechanism of inclusion and exclusion is crucial in this respect. If this metaphor of the arena with mutually inclusive, i.e. cooperative actors and mutually exclusive, i.e. competitive actors is expanded to include the temporal dimension, the importance of the moment at which actors enter the arena can be seen. The social configuration at a particular moment in time determines to what extent newcomers, whether young people or migrants from elsewhere, are given the opportunity to obtain an attractive position - or in other words, to what extent they are allocated an unattractive position. The metaphor of society as an arena in which communication, cooperation and competition are key processes, is also applicable when human beings are given pride of place as producers of symbols, or in other words as creatures and creators of culture. Culture, a model of and for reality (Geertz 1973), indicates what reality consists of, how the different parts of that reality are connected with one another, why those parts are related to one another in that particular way and how people are expected to relate to them (e.g. Sackman 1991). In short, each group has its own theory about reality, a theory which provides instructions for correct, adequate and effective action. The crucial question at this stage is that of the relation between the different cultures. In this respect the issue of power comes to the fore. Which of the interacting or interdependent groups, each with its own cultural logic and repertoire, has the power to define a situation, or in other words to control the definition of, access to and exploitation of scarce resources, to be used in the arena. Of course, this obtaining and allocating of positions is directly related to the issue of poverty and exclusion. In this connection it is very important to focus on the role of the nation-state, especially the rise and collapse of the welfare state in different parts of the world. The welfare-state has been developed or is developing primarily to correct the inability or unwillingness of individuals and groups to care for their most vulnerable members. The universal logic of rights and entitlements of the welfare state makes traditional community obligations redundant. It acts therefore as a force of disintegration on primary and secondary local, ethnic and cultural communities. An effect of recent cuts in the provisions of the (western) welfare states is to increase the risks to the survival of the more vulnerable individuals and groups. Combined with the gradual transformation from the 'state as centre of power' which assumes responsibility for the welfare of its citizens to the 'state as border', in which above all the criteria of membership of the society occupy a central place and in which an erosion of collective responsibility is going on (cf. Detrez and Blommaert 1994), what seems to be taking place is an at least partial formation of a social underclass. Consequently, the so called highly developed countries may become the site of processes which were regarded as characteristic of the Third World until recently. Groups of individuals who have been excluded throughout their life or during a particular stage in the life-cycle in various domains (work, health (care), housing, education, citizenship) are increasingly confronted with the consequences of the absence of protective structures or safety-nets of the social security system. After all, the disintegration of the protective structure leads to an increase in informalization. The retreat of the government in (western) welfare states has consequences not only for questions of social cohesion but also for social inequality. The trend towards less inequality came to a halt in the USA in the seventies and in Europe in the eighties. Inequality in terms of income and capital is increasing. Some analysts predict a far-reaching polarization of income relations, leading to a bi-partition within societies. Others expect a fragmentation of the class structure, either instead or as well. What is increasingly at stake is the differential access to the formal labour system. An important role is played in this respect not just by education and social background, but also by such factors as ethnicity and gender. These issues, concerning cultural and social pluralism, social (un)certainty, informalisation, segregation and feminisation of poverty come together most insistently and most notably in large cities. World cities manifest not only cultural and economic-technological wealth, they also set the stage for poverty, loneliness and crime. This laborious coexistence of the ‘haves and the have nots’ is expressed in terms like dual city or divided city (Castells 1993, Wilson 1987, Fainstein 1992). Here there is evidence of a transition from an urban, industrial based economy to an economy that is rooted in the provision of business service. According to many this leads, notably in `global cities’ to a dualistic job market. Just as urban economic restructuring creates new opportunities for young, well-trained employees in the service and trade sectors so this process, at the same time, deprives older employees who have always worked in industry, and those with inadequate training, of suitable work. All these developments hit minority groups the hardest. This phenomenon is clearly taking on an international or transnational dimension. Metropolises in the non-western and Western world (with their dismantling of the welfare state) may come to resemble one another more in their dualization and in the informalization of the most deprived sector of their population (cf. Sassen 1991). The main difference is that informalization in a developed welfare state and democratic state leads much more rapidly to problems of an administrative, juridical and moral kind. In a wider context, the two aspects of informalization can be found here: creativity in survival strategies, and exploitation. I think that a comparison between North and South - with all the caution it requires - may provide insight into tried and tested 'practices' in the non-western urban context where the process of informalization has progressed much further and which has a much longer history. One may recall the Copenhagen Summit (1994) on the parallels between poverty, informality and exclusion in the First, Second and Third World. From the standpoint sketched above, one might see poverty and social exclusion as two containers which, to a large extent, have the same contents. This has in fact already been convincingly demonstrated in a special issue of the IDS Bulletin "Poverty and Social Exclusion in North and South", edited by Arjan de Haan and Simon Maxwell (vol. 29, no. 1, 1998). I summarize the arguments put forward by De Haan (1998: 10-20). As shown by De Haan, social exclusion studies represent new thinking on the rapid growth of poverty in rich countries. Poverty has been driven up the policy and research agendas of the European welfare states, of the USA and also of Eastern Europe's transitional countries. Increasingly it is discussed in the vocabulary of social exclusion, defined as the process through which individuals or groups are wholly or partially excluded from full participation in the society in which they live (European Foundation 1995: 4). This definition focuses on nature and degree of societal participation. Others lay greater emphasis on multiple deprivation as a defining feature of social exclusion: low income, an insecure job, poor housing, family stress, and social alienation (Paugam 1995). In either case, social exclusion may take the form of, or result in, an income markedly lower than that customary in the society, failure or inability to participate in social and political activities, or otherwise a life on the margins. The poor are excluded but so are the old, the homeless, the mentally ill, and the culturally alienated. We see that the key arenas for exclusion are: democratic and legal systems, markets, particularly the labour market, welfare state provision and family and community. The main dimensions (or key arenas) will be different in each society, e.g. in former communist countries as well as western welfare states, exclusion from state provision is the central issue. In India, by contrast exclusion from markets for labour, land or credit is a much more important dimension. In fast growing economies of East Asia exclusion from civic and democratic rights (incl. trade union organisations) may be more salient aspects. In practice of course, exclusion in different arenas will overlap. We still face the question whether there is surplus value in using social exclusion in studies of poverty. The answer cannot be straightforward because poverty itself is as much a contested term as social exclusion, subject to many different definitions and interpretations. As social exclusion, poverty is a 'portmanteau term which has different meanings to different people' (Baulch 1996:2). For some, poverty is simply about levels of income, to others it is about much wider concepts, like security, autonomy and self-esteem (Baulch 1996, Shaffer 1996). However, there is an intellectual consensus that narrow income and consumption measures of poverty are inadequate and that a broader vision is needed. We agree more or less that a higher quality of life for all people is the goal of sustainable development. A higher quality of life means that people will attain increased power over their own future. This new consensus has taken hold thanks to the wide dissemination of documents like UNDP's Human Development Report. The new consensus also draws on participatory research with poor people themselves, who forcefully express their own desires for security, social participation and autonomy (Chambers 1997). The fact that the poor themselves think and act in this way provides the strongest justification for adopting the new poverty thinking. On this evidence, social exclusion and the new poverty thinking overlap almost completely when it comes to describing poverty. A different question is whether they overlap in terms of explanation. So, how does the new thinking on social exclusion relate to the large body of work on poverty and poverty reduction: Is social exclusion merely a re-labelling of poverty? Is it an explanation of poverty or does it offer something entirely new? Is social inclusion an end in itself or a means to poverty reduction? And is it a state (of multiple deprivation) or a process (by which deprivation occurs)? Another type of question is whether the new debate in the North offers opportunities for dialogue between North and South? Does the debate on social exclusion in the North offer new lessons for the South? Conversely, are there insights from the South that will enrich the debate in the North? It is vitally important to not only discuss certain themes but also to think through the conceptual connection between poverty and social exclusion. The objective here is to promote cooperation between third and fourth world researchers. One of the aims of the conference is, therefore, to compare research on poverty in developing countries with that in industrialized countries, especially in the Netherlands. This, then, is the challenge to this conference: to relate the situations, processes and structures existing in North and South to each other. Obviously this is not going to be easy. There are big differences in nature, intensity and distribution of the problems, but the question is whether the underlying principles are not of a similar type. If this is the case, the question arises of to what degree and under what conditions these principles do or do not work out correspondingly. Only by drawing such a comparison does it become possible to gain more insight into structural and contingent factors and thus also, to gain a better basis for contextualised policy-making. Academics aim at de-contextualising, at abstracting the specifics (the time-space situatedness) in their quest for explanations. Policy-makers, for their part, strive to contextualise and to adapt to specific local and time-related situations. Insight into the nature of both dimensions and their interaction is, however, a necessary prerequisite for both parties. If this conference results in more debate between North-South specialists as well as between scientists and policy makers, we will, of course, be more than happy, even though the impact is difficult to estimate. I am, at any rate, sure of one thing: in order to have real impact, common ground must be sought and found between all these actors, strategic alliances must be developed and reinforced, prejudices against one another must be limited or, preferably, settled. I hope wholeheartedly that this conference can and will contribute to this.

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