Action On Poverty Today Index To Issues 1 23 Spring 2003 Spring 2009

Action on Poverty Today: index to issues 1-23 (Spring 2003-Spring 2009)

Monitoring Global Poverty

In 2013, the World Bank Group announced two goals that would guideits operations worldwide. First is the eradication of chronic extremepoverty bringing the number of extremely poor people, defined as thoseliving on less than 1.25 purchasing power parity (PPP)–adjusted dollars aday, to less than 3 percent of the world’s population by 2030.The second isthe boosting of shared prosperity, defined as promoting the growth of percapita real income of the poorest 40 percent of the population ineach country.In 2015, United Nations member nations agreed in New York to a set ofpost-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the first and foremostof which is the eradication of extreme poverty everywhere, in all its forms.Both the language and the spirit of the SDG objective reflect the growingacceptance of the idea that poverty is a multidimensional concept thatreflects multiple deprivations in various aspects of well-being. That said,there is much less agreement on the best ways in which those deprivationsshould be measured, and on whether or how information on them shouldbe aggregated.Monitoring Global Poverty: Report of the Commission on Global Povertyadvises the World Bank on the measurement and monitoring of globalpoverty in two areas:What should be the interpretation of the definition of extremepoverty, set in 2015 in PPP-adjusted dollars a day per person?What choices should the Bank make regarding complementarymonetary and nonmonetary poverty measures to be tracked andmade available to policy makers?The World Bank plays an important role in shaping the global debate oncombating poverty, and the indicators and data that the Bank collates andmakes available shape opinion and actual policies in client countries, and,to a certain extent, in all countries. How we answer the above questionscan therefore have a major influence on the global economy.

Eruptions of Popular Anger

Eruptions of Popular Anger: The Economics of the Arab Spring and Its Aftermath sets out to answer three puzzles—the “Arab inequality†? puzzle of civil uprisings in countries with low-to-moderate and stagnant economic inequality, the “unhappy development†? paradox of increasing dissatisfaction at a time of moderate-to-rapid development, and the paradox of political violence in middle-income countries. The book’s empirical investigation rules out high and rising inequality as a reason for the Arab Spring uprisings. It shows that the real problem was the erosion in middle-class incomes and the growing dissatisfaction with the quality of life, the shortage of formal sector jobs, and corruption. Frustration was particularly high among the young, educated, middle-class residents in urban areas. The old social contract, which had delivered development results in the past and under which Arab governments provided public-sector jobs and subsidized services in return for subdued voice, was unsustainable and malfunctioning. The public sector could no longer be the employer of choice, but the private sector did not generate enough formal sector jobs, because of distortions that constrained its growth and policies that offered advantages to a few firms with political connections, limiting competition and private investment. The breakdown in the social contract increased the premium on freedom and created impetus for political change. This report shows that the Arab Spring revolutions and the subsequent spread of violence and civil wars in the post†“Arab Spring Middle East and North Africa region can be traced to the broken social contract, institutional weaknesses, and regional divisions in societies polarized along ethnic and sectarian lines. The Arab Spring and its aftermath indicate the need for a new social contract under which governments promote private-sector job creation, design public services in a way that holds providers accountable to beneficiaries, and promote inclusion and good governance.