WB seeks to lift one million people from poverty weekly

By Winsley masese

Kenya: The World Bank has set an ambitious goal of pulling about one billion people out of extreme poverty by 2030.

Buoyed by the falling number of people earning less than Sh105 ($1.25 a dollar) a day from about 1.2 billion in 2010 to 1 billion in 2014, the group seeks to lift 50 million people out of poverty per year.

“This means that an estimated 1 million people will have to lift themselves out of poverty each week, for the next 16 years,” the institution’s President Jim Yong Kim said. He noted that populations living in extreme poverty are falling steadily and surely but reaching the goal and sharing the prosperity won’t be easy.

Terming it as extraordinarily difficult, but not impossible, he identified the current generation as the one that can end extreme poverty by registering improved and sustainable growth in the next decade.

Speaking last week during the launch of a paper entitled ‘Prosperity for All’, Kim identified the structural adjustment reforms agenda as key policies that can help accelerate economic pace in the countries and reduce poverty.

He said “Tackling poverty requires understanding where the greatest number of poor live, while at the same time also concentrating on where hardship is most pervasive.”

Global goals

The Breton Woods institution, he said, will from July this year adopt a different approach in its attempt to meeting its global goals.

“We will have global committees of experts in all major places, to provide the best services as possible and provide global solutions to local problems,” he said.

The short-term risks to the global economy, he argued, have eased saying that focus had shifted to medium term priorities.

However, he warned that the institution’s concern is that the pace of reforms could be slowed down in the post crisis period, urging developing countries to grow faster than any time before.