Ending poverty within a generation may prove tougher than tackling AIDS, World Bank president warns

Apr 6 2013

"The president of the World Bank has warned that ending the worst of global poverty within a generation would prove a tougher challenge than tackling AIDS, as he urged direct action to help more than a billion people benefit from growth," The Guardian reports. "Jim Yong Kim ... said the goal of reducing the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day from 21 percent to three percent by 2030 was achievable but extraordinarily difficult,'" the newspaper writes. "Interviewed by The Guardian after a keynote speech this week in which he made poverty reduction and shared prosperity the focus of his five-year presidency, Kim said that rapid growth in China had been the most important factor in lifting people above the global breadline in recent years," The Guardian adds.

"Reducing poverty, Kim added, was impossible without growth, and 90 percent of new jobs would be created by thriving private sectors. But he said growth on its own was not enough, and governments needed to adopt policies that made growth more inclusive," the newspaper continues. "Identifying the need for governments to tailor policies to help young people, women and minorities, Kim said greater investment in health, education and conditional cash transfers -- welfare payments that can only be spent on specific services such as medical check-ups -- would help the poorest 40 percent of populations to share in growth," The Guardian writes, adding, "The World Bank and the United Nations, Kim said, needed to come up with a bold and workable plan" (Elliott, 4/4).