Little time is left to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) of halving the proportion of people living on incomes less than one US dollar a day, and progress in most developing countries has been grim. This report explains how support for the private sector can accelerate economic growth and make it more likely that such growth reduces poverty. It was written by Nathan London (formerly Emerging Market Economics--eme) with the OECD DAC Network on Poverty Reduction.