The alarm of the World Bank: Economic growth declined in … – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published April 20, 2015 at 07:58.

Many of the migrants trying to reach the shores of Italy come from areas devastated by war or high instability, but extreme poverty remains a scourge that afflicts many of same areas.
At the spring meetings of the World Bank last week you discussed how to end extreme poverty (defined as an income of less than $ 1.25 a day) in the world by 2030, a goal which will be officially adopted by the United Nations next September. The world, said the president of the Bank, Jim Kim, has made tremendous progress on this front: in the last twenty-five years, extreme poverty has been reduced by two thirds, today people living in these conditions are less than a billion.

However, to achieve the goal in the next 15 years, the first ingredient is economic growth and, in recent years, this was down in Developing country, from 6% in average for the period 2000-2011, to 4.5% this year. This is the fourth year in a row down.

According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, published last week, growth in sub-Saharan Africa, home to many of the world’s poor, will fall this year to 4.5% from 5% of ‘last year.
In a speech to the Development Committee of the World Bank, the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco, stressed that “significant progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty and improving the sharing prosperity, but this process is uneven, and many poor countries have fallen behind. We can not stop. Too, especially in Africa, suffer from lack of access to the whole, schools and basic health services. This is unacceptable. “

Kim said that the action of the Bank in the coming years will be directed primarily on three areas: economic growth, investment in people, especially in education and health, protection against natural disasters and pandemics. Regarding this last point, the World Bank has committed $ 1.6 billion in aid to some countries most affected by Ebola (Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea), while even the IMF has created a trust from 100 million dollars (plus donations from 72 million UK and Germany) to enable these countries to meet its debts.

The funding objective of completely eliminating extreme poverty from the face of the earth is one of the most discussed. According to some estimates, it will take a million billion. “To this formidable task even double the size of the World Bank would be enough to satisfy the need for funding,” noted Visco the Development Committee. For several experts convened by the World Bank in Washington, including Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, will also be essential to the involvement of private, also given the budgetary difficulties of many rich countries.
The World Bank Group, said Visco , must work closely with the governments of poor countries to create an environment that unlocks the potential of the private sector.

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