This key sheet examines how social exclusion influences the provision of infrastructure services that meet the needs of poor people. Infrastructure is both a source of benefits (immediately through employment, and in the long term from education and health facilities and from transport, water, irrigation and flood control); but also a cost, as livelihoods are disrupted by infrastructure-related displacement or externalities (pollution, traffic accidents, etc.). Unless their interests are considered explicitly, socially excluded groups may bear the costs of infrastructure development, but receive few of the benefits.