Development in transition

Our priority now is to translate “development in transition” into “development in action,” which expands opportunities for all countries and people.

Understanding and supporting the development trajectories of countries have long been the driving force behind all of our careers. If we, as a global community, are serious now about ensuring prosperity for all through the universal and comprehensive 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), then we must close all remaining gaps. And this means changing the way we think about development policy.

Development, after all, is complicated. It is not linear. It is not binary. It is a moving target. And there is no one size fits all approach. It is not simply about economic growth. Is it not also about progress in wellbeing and other social dimensions? Paradigms are shifting and we need to continually rethink our approaches to development. How should we change our approaches, and what are the questions we really need to answer?

While income inequality between countries may have reduced, inequality within countries has in fact risen. 

Findings like these point to a complex reality: a country’s growth does not necessarily go hand in hand with increased wellbeing for its citizens.

https://oecd-development-matters.org/2017/07/11/development-in-transition/

Do resource rich economies have better or worse human development outcomes?

A look at the data suggests that countries with greater income from natural resources do not seem to have a clear relationship with human development outcomes. 

The challenge is to explain why.  

The scatter plots in the figures 1-3 below show that there is a weak negative correlation for education and health outcomes and no correlation for poverty and inequality measures. The data also show significantly varying experiences among resource rich countries. For example, in Figure 1, Chad and Malaysia have very similar levels of resource rents as a ratio of GDP, but Malaysia’s school enrolment rate is over 70 percent while the corresponding figure for Chad is approximately 20 percent. Likewise, Somalia and Egypt have similar levels of resource abundance, but Egypt’s under-five mortality rate is less than 30 per 1,000 live births, while the corresponding figure for Somalia is about five times bigger (Figure 2). This suggests that countries with similar levels of resource rents can end up with significantly different achievements in terms of poverty, inequality, health, and education. The challenge is to explain why.  

https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/do-resource-rich-economies-have-better-or-worse-human-development-outcomes

Citation: https://www.wider.unu.edu/

Empowerment

Empowerment is about economic opportunity, the ability to freely choose one’s own path in life in accordance with one’s distinctive talents and abilities. It is about cutting away obstacles to true human flourishing.

I want to address three distinct layers of empowerment:

First, the empowerment of the individual—and what that means for economic policies.

Second, what is needed to help individual empowerment—the empowerment of institutions.

Third, what is needed in turn to help national economies flourish—the empowerment of multilateralism.

We must do whatever we can to help people help themselves, to let people lift themselves up—through enabling policies, enabling institutions, and enabling modes of international cooperation.

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp060614

Citation: IMF

Fight inequality or poverty?

 Moises Naim argues that fighting poverty needs to me a more important priority than reducing inequality - despite political pressures to the contrary.

What to do, then? Let us stop fighting a battle we cannot win and concentrate all efforts on a fight that can succeed. The best tools to achieve a long-term, sustained decline in inequality are the same as those that are now widely accepted as the best available levers to lift people out of poverty. Provide access to better education and health, clean water, justice, steady jobs, housing and credit.

https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/fight-inequality-or-poverty

Health as the Central Driver for Action on Climate Change

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed—on an accelerated timeline—that health is critical for a functioning and thriving society. As a result, the pandemic has placed health at the forefront of global discourse in an unprecedented way in modern times. Leading up to the 26th Conference of the Parties to discuss the Paris Agreement, this central importance of health cannot fade into the background; the health crisis unfolding from climate change must be highlighted with the same urgency within the global halls of power.

https://www.oecd-forum.org/posts/health-as-the-central-driver-for-action-on-climate-change?channel_id=791-inclusive-growth

Latin America and the Caribbean’s pandemic dilemma: Lives or livelihoods?

Lives or livelihoods?

While the pandemic’s effect and the response have varied widely in the region, it is clear that every country needs to find the appropriate balance for this dilemma.  The future of Latin America and the Caribbean will depend on getting this balance right.

Finding the right balance will be essential to promoting an inclusive recovery and preventing negative future knock-on effects for the most vulnerable households.

https://blogs.worldbank.org/latinamerica/latin-america-and-caribbeans-pandemic-dilemma-lives-or-livelihoods

Citation: Worldbank