NYU Professor Debora Spini will moderate a conversation with scholars and experts on different strategies for poverty reduction. Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, a government income redistribution program, and Italy’s PerMicro Bank’s microcredit loans, which provide private sector access to finance to individuals otherwise excluded from the mainstream banking system, represent different approaches to supporting people in economic need and to fostering social cohersion by integrating society’s most vulnerable. Alessandro Pinzani who has carried out extensive research on the Bolsa Familia program in Brazil; Francesca Di Giuseppe, the Branch Manager of Florence’s PerMicro Bank; and Maria Donata Rinaldi, Mediterranean Area Coordinator for COSPE, who has extensive experience in the field, will discuss these different approaches and what they have learned about poverty, poverty reduction strategies, and social solidarity through their work on the ground.