×
YOU'RE KIDDING! Turns out the World Bank's development projects aren't lifting as many people out of poverty as had been hoped. Among the 25 countries examined by the Independent Evaluation Group, only 11 saw reductions in poverty since the 1990s. To some degree, that may not be the World Bank's fault: Famine, war, AIDS, and a variety of other confounding factors might mean holding a country's deterioration to modest levels is a triumph. But it's hard to assume the best when you have such head-bangingly obvious conclusions as this one:
The study emphasized that economic growth is, by itself, no fix: How the gains are distributed is just as important. In China, Romania, Sri Lanka and many Latin American countries, swiftly expanding economies have improved incomes for many, but the benefits have been limited by a simultaneous increase in economic inequality, putting the spoils into the hands of the rich and not enough into poor households, the study concludes.In Georgia, the Bank has helped foster growth by lending in support of the oil industry, but this has created few jobs, so the impact on poverty has been negligible, the study found. Brazil, on the other hand, has seen little growth but significant advances against poverty because wealth has been distributed more evenly."For a sustained reduction in poverty over a period of time, it really pays to worry about both growth and distribution," said Vinod Thomas, director-general of the Independent Evaluation Group. "It has been a mistaken notion that you can grow first and worry about the distribution later."And economists wonder why we don't pay them more mind.--Ezra Klein
