Abstract
Relatively slow progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 target date has added urgency to the challenge of reducing global poverty. The authors of this new book--who include scholars from the IMF, World Bank, Oxford University, and the Center for Global Development--argue that the MDGs cannot be achieved without a substantial scaling up of foreign aid. They show how such increased aid flows must be managed effectively to ensure the greatest benefit. And they offer analysis and insight on a variety of macroeconomic policy implications that both donors and recipients should consider.
With one billion people in developing countries living on less than $1 a day, the elimination of extreme poverty remains high on the policy agenda of the international community. Sustained high rates of economic growth are critical to poverty reduction, and improved growth performance in many cases requires improvements in the quality of basic economic institutions such as property rights and governance, including a reduction in corruption. But what spurs institutional improvements? Can better institutions be built quickly? The September 2005 World Economic Outlook (WEO) takes stock of existing knowledge and identifies several factors that appear to enhance institutional quality.
Abstract
Since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, the challenge of reducing poverty around the world has been more prominent on the agenda of the international community.1 Relatively slow progress toward meeting the MDGs by the 2015 target date has added to the urgency of this effort. Two influential reports—the United Nations Millennium Project Report (the “Sachs Report”) and the Commission for Africa Report (the “Blair Report”)—envisage substantial increases in aid flows to poor countries, especially to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The international community sees increases in aid, along with improvements in recipient policies and freer global trade, as necessary for global prosperity and poverty reduction.