GDI Webinar: SDG1 - The Last Three Percent
| Dates: | 2 December 2020 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Webinar |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Martin Ravallion |
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There is a little-noticed but important difference between the World Bank’s original goal for poverty reduction and the subsequent UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). While both target the “$1.90 a day” poverty rate, the Bank’s goal was a 3% rate by 2030, while the SDG is to “eradicate” poverty by 2030. Simple linear projections of recorded progress against $1.90 poverty in the world does suggest that we are on track to attaining the UN’s goal. If we can return to the pre-COVID pace of poverty reduction after two or three years, then we should still be roughly on track. However, a closer scrutiny of the pre-COVID data leaves one less optimistic.
There are a priori reasons why the last few percent could be harder to reach with current development policies. Consistently with that hypothesis, the paper documents recent (pre-COVID-19) signs of a levelling off in progress for the poorest in East Asia—the star performer regionally over the longer term. This is evident in the region’s slower progress recently in both lifting the floor—thus reaching the poorest—and in reducing the poverty rate. This levelling off is also found on average for the 18 developing countries that have reduced their poverty rate from over 10% (around the current global rate) to under 3% during 1981-2017. Similarly to East Asia, progress in reaching the poorest declined once the last 3% had been reached, though some countries did better than others. Overall, the results suggest that re-turning to “business as usual” post-COVID will not suffice to eradicate extreme poverty.
Register for the event: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpc-Ggrz8pG9UGD7BqYMCbJ_mFDDrBpvUy
Speaker
Martin Ravallion
Role: Edmond D. Villani Professor of Economics
Organisation: Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
Biography: MARTIN RAVALLION holds the Edmond D. Villani Chair of Economics at Georgetown University. He is a past Director of the World Bank’s research department, past President of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, and has been affiliated with a number of other scholarly institutions. He has written extensively on economic development and antipoverty policy, including five books and over 250 papers in scholarly journals and edited volumes. He has advised numerous governments and international agencies. His various prizes and awards include the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize, and a Frontiers of Knowledge Award from Spain’s BBVA Foundation. He holds a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Fribourg
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