WUNRN
PROSPERITY FOR ALL - ENDING EXTREME
POVERTY
Direct Link to World Bank 30-Page
2014 Report:
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WOMEN, POVERTY & ECONOMICS - UN
WOMEN
Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty. Statistics indicate that women are more likely than men to be poor and at risk of hunger because of the systematic discrimination they face in education, health care, employment and control of assets. Poverty implications are widespread for women, leaving many without even basic rights such as access to clean drinking water, sanitation, medical care and decent employment. Being poor can also mean they have little protection from violence and have no role in decision making. According to some estimates, women represent 70 percent of the world’s poor.
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GLOBAL INEQUALITY REPORT - WORLD
BANK & IMF URGED TO TAKE ACTIONS ON SOCIAL & ECONOMIC VIABILITY CRISIS
- WOMEN
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Global income inequality threatens economic and social viability, according to
a World Bank report released Thursday, reiterating a new but increasingly
forceful narrative from both the bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Yet as the two Washington-based institutions gather here this week for semi-annual meetings, anti-poverty campaigners are calling on the bank and IMF to translate such rhetoric into practice.
“World Bank
President Jim Kim and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde have been vocal
about the dangers of skyrocketing inequality, but there is still a long way to
go,” Max Lawson, the head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam GB, a humanitarian
and advocacy group, told IPS.
“There’s no trade-off between growth and inequality,”
concurred his colleague, Nicolas Mombrial, of Oxfam
Oxfam and other groups are now calling on the World
Bank and IMF to take concrete action to address issues associated with wealth
inequality worldwide. IMF policies in particular have been criticised in the
past for particularly negative impacts on poor and marginalised communities.
“We are pleased to see the IMF recognise that drastic
fiscal consolidation policies have been a drag on growth, something that unions
have been saying since the inappropriate shift to austerity made in 2010,”
Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC), said Thursday.
“The IMF’s undermining of labour standards and
collective bargaining institutions in several European countries, for example,
has already had important impacts on income distribution that are likely to
intensify in the future. We urgently call for a review and major changes in the
Fund’s labour market policies.”
Oxfam’s Lawson lists at least three areas that he
would like to see receive serious consideration by the IMF and the World Bank.
“First of all, it is necessary to develop a more
adequate measurement of income inequality,” he says. “This needs to look at not
only the income of the bottom 40 percent of the world’s income earners are
measured but also the income flows of the world’s top 10 percent.”
Lawson suggested that the IMF, given its constant and
influential interaction with the world’s governments, would be particularly
well placed to advance a stronger measurement of inequality.
“Secondly, it is necessary to reform taxation
schemes,” Lawson continued. “It is not fair that a billionaire pays a lower
percentage in tax than a bus driver. And thirdly, it is essential to provide
access to universal health care and education.”
Oxfam is also calling on governments to address inequality
by focusing more robustly on tax dodging and related financial secrecy. Along
with others, the group is calling for a global goal to end extreme inequality
as part of the discussion around the post-2015 international development goals.
“We cannot hope to win the fight against poverty
without tackling inequality,” Oxfam says. “Widening inequality is creating a
vicious circle where wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the
hands of a few, leaving the rest of us to fight over crumbs from the top
table.”
Widening gap
Inequality has become a particularly prominent topic
in international policy discussions over the past two years. In part this is
because, in the aftermath of the global economic downturn of 2008, the rich
have bounced back much more quickly than the poor – thus widening the
inequality gap.
A recent list of global billionaires published
by Forbes underscored the scope of the problem. According to that data, just 67
people have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people.
“Fewer than 100 people control as much
of the world’s wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion combined,” World Bank Group
President Jim Yong Kim said at the start of the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings.
At similar meetings last year, Kim announced a new bank goal of eliminating
extreme poverty by 2030.
Yet he warned that economic growth is not enough to
reach that goal.
“Even if all countries grow at the same rates as over
the past 20 years, and if the income distribution remains unchanged, world
poverty will only fall by 10 percent by 2030, from 17.7 percent in 2010,” he
said.
“We need a laser-like focus on making growth more
inclusive and targeting more programmes to assist the poor directly if we’re
going to end extreme poverty.”
Kim’s warning is underscored in a press release published
on Thursday by the bank.
“Rising inequality of income can dampen the impact of
growth on poverty,” the paper says.
“In countries where inequality was falling, the
decline in poverty for a given growth rate was greater. Even if there is no
change in inequality, the ‘poverty-reducing power’ of economic growth is less
in countries that are initially more unequal.”
The paper emphasises that the governments and donors
can’t aim only to lift people out of extreme poverty, but also have to ensure
that people aren’t “stuck just above the extreme poverty line due to a lack of
opportunities that might impede progress toward better livelihoods.”
“Persistent inequality, where the rich are
continuously advantaged and the rest struggle to catch up, makes people
frustrated with the system,” Carol Graham, a scholar at the Brookings
Institution, a
“Such inequality pre-programmes the public perception
downward. And even in countries where there is a progress with regard to
inequality, and social frustration impacts political instability.”
In a blog post, Carol
Graham and another researcher tie recent protests in
“The protesters are not a nothing-to-lose risk taker,
but middle-aged, middle income, and more educated than average people who are
unhappy about an unfair advantage of the rich and a lack of opportunities for
the poor,” they write, calling the “prototypical” protestors “frustrated
achievers”.
“Extreme inequality is particularly dangerous in
countries in political and economic transition,” they note.