Ending Global Poverty: Why Money Isn’t Enough

Abstract

Between 1981 and 2013, the share of the global population living in extreme poverty fell by 34 percentage points. This paper argues that such rapid reductions will become increasingly hard to achieve for two reasons. First, the majority of the poor now live in middle-income countries where the benefits of growth have often been distributed selectively and unequally. Second, a reservoir of extreme poverty remains in low-income countries where growth is erratic and aid often fails to reach the poor. If the international community is to most effectively leverage available resources to end extreme poverty, it must ensure that its investments in institutions and physical infrastructure actually provide the poor the capabilities they need to craft an effective pathway out of poverty. We term the human and social systems that are required to form this pathway “invisible infrastructure” and argue that an effective domestic state is central to building this. By corollary, ending extreme poverty will require both expanding state capacity and giving the poor power to demand reforms they need by solving agency problems between citizens, politicians, and bureaucrats.

Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness

“…A successful state is the foundation economic development is built on (Besley & Persson, 2009Acemoglu et al , 2015;Page & Pande, 2018). A key feature of states is that policy implementation is delegated to a bureaucracy-the state's middle management tier.…”

Why does local agency matter? Ownership, partnership, and decision spaces in foreign aid

“…These arrangements can mean that donors find themselves in the position of the 'principal' to the 'agent' of the aid-receiving government or other implementing agencies (Barder, 2009a;Martens et al, 2002;Ostrom, 2002). This is in contrast to focusing on the (collective) principal-agent relationships between citizens and politicians (Devarajan and Khemani, 2016;Ferejohn, 1986;Page and Pande, 2018;World Bank, 2016. This struggle between competing principals is linked to the dual accountability -or dual responsivenessframework shown earlier.…”

“…Once decisions have been made, a third key benefit of leader agency is accountability for those decisions. Accountability strengthens the principal-agent relationships between leaders and society (Devarajan and Khemani, 2016;Page and Pande, 2018;World Bank, 2016.…”

COVID-19 Solar Disinfectant in Kuthambakkam, India – A Model of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development in Marginalised Communities

“…In 2013 India was assessed to be home for 27% of the world's poor (Page & Pande, 2018). Given that approximately 70% of India's 1.3 Billion population live in villages (Press Trust of India, 2013), sustainable development in Indian villages is perhaps the most valuable endeavour in efforts to address global poverty.…”