Articles
Will more World Bank lending equal less poverty?
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Two years into President Jim Yong Kim’s controversial reform process, is the World Bank better or worse at fighting poverty?
Bank management is still feeling the effects of internal turmoil and staff dissatisfaction after a $400 million cut in operational expenses and a controversial reorganization. But while these pieces of the reforms have claimed headlines, they are not the only story that can be told about the new shape of the world’s largest international financial institution.
The US and the future of Multilateral Development Banks
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Earlier this year, the United States faced a gut check moment when it comes to its leadership in the multilateral development banks (MDBs). In June, 56 countries, including important US allies like Germany, the UK, and Australia, joined the Chinese government in creating a new MDB, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
And while the United States was roundly criticized for its handling of this episode, I think much of that criticism was misguided in putting the focus on the short term bungling of diplomatic outreach, or Congress’s failure to pass IMF reform. Both are relevant, and I very much believe that action on the IMF quota package is critical in its own right, but the challenges to US leadership in the MDBs – institutions like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank where the US is the largest shareholder – run deeper and are longer term in nature.
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On Poverty and Human Rights
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Interesting report from 'Share the World Resources':
The Sustainable Development Goals – despite their positive and progressive rhetoric – by no means constitute a transformative agenda for meeting the basic needs of all people within the means of our shared planet. This report argues that we may never see an end to poverty “in all its forms everywhere” unless ordinary people unite in their millions and demand the universal realisation of fundamental human rights through huge, continuous and worldwide demonstrations for economic justice.
Decent Work Crucial for Eradicating Hunger and Poverty
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Over the eight years since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, the ranks of the unemployed have swollen to over 200 million worldwide. That number captures only a fraction of those who remain vulnerable and insecure, since more than four-fifths of the global workforce is outside the formal sector, with poor access to unemployment or other traditional social security benefits.
In order to survive in the absence of social protection, unemployment is not an option for most poor people in the world. Instead, their fate is more likely to be that of the working poor – of low incomes due to underemployment, low productivity or limited survival options. According to the latest estimates of the World Bank, the number of extreme poor (living on no more than $1.25 per capita a day) has declined from 1.93 billion in 1981 to 1.91 billion in 1990 and 1.01 billion in 2011, projected to 835.5 million in 2015.
Read more: Decent Work Crucial for Eradicating Hunger and Poverty
Financial Secrecy Index 2015
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As India gears up to prevent tax evasion and plug loopholes within its borders so as to raise tax revenues, it hardly helps that some of its closest economic partners – including the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland – top the list of the world’s most non-transparent jurisdictions for hosting financial activities shrouded in secrecy.
According to the 2015 Financial Secrecy Index – a comprehensive survey on global financial secrecy – just released by the Tax Justice Network, Switzerland ranks number one, followed by Hong Kong and the US. Others such as the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Lebanon, Germany, Bahrain and Dubai feature in the top 10 of the index that includes more than 90 other jurisdictions.
