Poverty Reduction and The World Bank:Progress in Fiscal 1998

This report is the sixth in a series of assessments of how well World Bank activities support the institution's overarching goal of reducing poverty. It finds progress in some areas and concludes that, relative to past benchmarks, performance has been good. But the World Bank, along with much of the development community, has raised its ambitions for poverty reduction. Meeting these higher expectations will take time, and the past year was just the beginning. The report highlights areas needing more work to increase the Bank's contribution to the fight against poverty. At the 1995 Social Summit,the international community reaffirmed its commitment to fighting poverty in all its aspects by committing to a set of targets for poverty reduction. The World Bank worked closely with the United Nations, the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and developing country partners to define a set of indicators for tracking progress. Has progress been made?Recent trends in income poverty are hard to assess with precision because of data lags. But a preliminary assessment can be made using evidence from the mid-1990s, the initial distribution of poverty, and average per capita growth rates of income. The global picture that emerges is one of likely gains for the extreme poor in China, possible stagnation in India, and sharp declines in living standards in countries hit by financial crisis, natural disasters, and conflicts in East Asia, Africa and the former Soviet Union. Overall, the target.....