The onset of the pandemic in 2020 marked a turning point in the 30-year pursuit of successful global poverty reduction. According to recent World Bank estimates, the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population likely fell by 4 percent in 2020. And as a result, the number of people living in extreme poverty likely increased by 11 percent in 2020—i.e. it increased from 648 million to 719 million. The pandemic also increased global inequality. In terms of lost income, the world’s poor paid the highest price for the pandemic; Indeed, the percentage income losses of the poorest are estimated to have been double those of the richest. The rise in extreme poverty and decline of shared prosperity caused by inflation, currency depreciations, and broader overlapping crises facing development, pose numerous challenges for global development.
Indermit Gill is Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. Before starting this position on September 1, 2022, he served as the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he played a key role in shaping the Bank’s response to the extraordinary series of shocks that have hit developing economies since 2020. Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program. Indermit has published extensively on policy issues facing developing countries, sovereign debt, green growth, labor markets, poverty and inequality, and managing natural resource wealth. His pioneering work includes introducing the concept of the “middle income trap” to describe how developing countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. Indermit also spearheaded the influential World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography. Twitter: @IndermitGill
Resources:
Key highlights:
- Introduction - 00:52
- How "development" has changed over the years - 03:22
- The current status of the World Bank's twin goals - 08:56
- Growing global poverty and how to best measure poverty - 13:38
- The "middle income trap" and natural resource curse thesis - 21:00
- Sustainable development, renewal energy, and climate change- 29:50
- Addressing the debt crisis - 40:15
Host:
Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod
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https://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/
Host
Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)
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In Pursuit of Development