Wars, pandemics, debt, and social or political “fragility” have halted any progress in the United Nations plan to eliminate extreme poverty in the world by the year 2030, according to a reported released yesterday by the World Bank, Poverty, Prosperity, Planet. It details that 700 million people live on less than $2.15 per day, which the World Bank defines as “extreme poverty.” Nearly half of the world, about 3.5 billion people, live below the World Bank’s threshold of “middle income” which they peg at $6.85 per day. The figure of 3.5 billion living below middle income has not changed since 1990. Oxfam’s Max Lawson said that this level of poverty “will scar a whole generation.”
However, the current role of the World Bank is to “understand” and “manage” poverty, and not to defeat it. China had great success in lifting 850 million people out of extreme poverty by the year 2020, accounting for nearly all of the progress in the world, yet the World Bank refers to the same period as “the lost decade.” The World Bank report estimates that it would require “more than a century” to bring the world to the $6.85 daily income of “middle income.” Clearly, the estimation ignores the possibility that governments would realign around the development of the Global South, and walk away from the World Bank’s approach.
