In his speech at the 1973 Annual Meetings, World Bank President Robert McNamara coined the term “absolute poverty,” describing it as “a condition of life so degrading as to insult human dignity and yet a condition of life so common as to be the lot of some 40% of the peoples of the developing countries.” He then posed a difficult question: “And are not we who tolerate such poverty, when it is within our power to reduce the number afflicted by it, failing to fulfill the fundamental obligations accepted by civilized [people] since the beginning of time?” This defining speech solidified the Bank’s new goals at that moment: to accelerate economic growth and to reduce poverty.
Access to electricity spurs stability and innovation
Excellent post Mr. Tooze
Why haven’t the visionary entrepreneurial brainiacs like Musk, Bloomberg, Bezos, and Jobs been able to end poverty?
many thanks for this post Please use your influence to get serious newspapers to take this up
The descriptive and statistical data are excellent. I did not see any attempt to explain those facts. What are the causes for the conditions?