The World Bank's ‘Assault on Poverty’ as a Political Question (1968–81)

This article analyses the actions of the World Bank between 1968 and 1981, under the presidency of Robert McNamara, in the context of the Cold War and the directions of US foreign aid policy. It discusses the reasons for, and the means by which the World Bank led, the ‘assault on poverty’, with an emphasis on rural poverty. It problematizes the theory which supported this initiative, analysing its operationalization in the countryside; it discusses the principal format that it assumed, the reasons which propelled it, the political calculation which guided it, the interests at play, and the results that were reached. Finally, the article argues that the ‘assault on poverty’ slogan expresses the disposition and the willingness of the World Bank to intervene in domestic questions, aiming to alter, in a selective and focused manner, the condition of particular social groups in client countries, rather than improving the general conditions of economies. This in turn demanded the strengthening of its advisory, technical assistance and economic research functions. If McNamara's policy of fighting poverty can be considered a failure in economic and social terms (a diagnosis widely accepted in the literature), this article argues that, politically, it was successful by constructing the foundations for the neoliberal-type focused social policies that were in vogue in the following decades.     

What do the World Bank's Poverty Assessments teach us about Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa?

As part of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy, Poverty Assessments have been carried out for a number of countries which analyse who the poor are, the causes of poverty and poverty reduction policies. This article reviews what can be learnt from the twenty-five Assessments prepared for countries in sub-Saharan Africa up to 1996. Whilst other factors are acknowledged in identifying the poor, the Assessments over-emphasize income-poverty defined against an inevitably arbitrary poverty line. The Assessments are shown to be weak in addressing the causes of poverty, often ignoring the historical perspective, political context, and international dimensions such as debt and commodity price trends, focusing instead on the lack of growth in recent years as the main cause of poverty. Weak understanding of the causes of poverty undermines the basis for country-specific poverty reduction strategies: policy recommendations are usually an uncritical presentation of the World Bank's three-pronged strategy of growth, investment in human capital and social safety nets. Although the Assessments do not explicitly acknowledge the point, they suggest that the number of poor people in Africa will continue to rise; nor is there any basis for confidence that policies are being put in place to redress the situation.     

Global Poverty: National Accounts Based versus Survey Based Estimates

This article examines the dollar‐a‐day poverty estimates produced by the World Bank. It highlights the lack of consistency between average consumption and income in household surveys and national accounts data. After examining the likely sources of divergence between the two series, the author proposes a new method of estimation of poverty, based on calibrating the survey means by conditioning on national accounts aggregates. The new poverty estimates, which are consistent with national accounts data, are contrasted with the World Bank estimates. The implications of the findings for the debate on the relationship between poverty and economic growth are also briefly discussed.     

Rethinking the Emerging Post‐Washington Consensus

The objective of this article is to provide a critical assessment of the emerging Post‐Washington Consensus (PWC), as the new influential vision in the development debate. The authors begin by tracing the main record of the Washington Consensus, the set of neoliberal economic policies propagated largely by key Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, that penetrated into the economic policy agendas of many developing countries from the late 1970s onwards. They then outline the main tenets of the PWC, emerging from the shortcomings of that record and the reaction it created in the political realm. The authors accept that the PWC, in so far as it influences the actual practice of key Bretton Woods institutions, provides an improvement over the Washington Consensus. Yet, at the same time, they draw attention to the failure of the PWC, as reflected in current policy practice, to provide a sufficiently broad framework for dealing with key and pressing development issues such as income distribution, poverty and self‐sustained growth.     

Fixing the Hole in the Bucket: Household Poverty Dynamics in the Peruvian Andes

Achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty will require simultaneous action on two separate fronts: helping poor people escape from poverty, and stemming the flow of people into poverty. This article examines forty Peruvian communities, and finds that descents into poverty have occurred alongside escapes in every one of them. Escape and descent are asymmetric in terms of reasons: while one set of reasons is responsible for escapes from poverty, another and different set of reasons is associated with descent. Making progress in poverty reduction will require measures to accelerate escapes whilst at the same time slowing down descents. The article looks at the different policies which will be required to serve these two separate purposes.     

Consistent and Transparent? The Problem of Longitudinal Poverty Records

The World Bank and leading donors have emphasized the importance of evidence‐based policy making in addressing entrenched poverty. Adoption of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers has also required establishing and updating poverty baselines, typically through Living Standards Measurement Surveys. Although the conceptual basis of these surveys has been questioned, little attention has been paid to whether frequent revisions to the longitudinal record have undermined their value. This article argues that changes to the poverty record have been sufficiently frequent and often sufficiently large to compromise the creation of a sound longitudinal poverty record. The lack of transparency also weakens national debate and ownership and undermines the construction of evidence‐based policy.     

Voices from the Top of the Pile: Elite Perceptions of Poverty and the Poor in the Philippines

How do elites perceive poverty and the poor? In this article, we present the results of interviews with eighty members of the Filipino elite, undertaken as part of a larger six‐country study of elite perceptions of poverty and the poor. Poverty, we argue, is a highly subjective phenomenon. People's perceptions of poverty, of who is and who is not poor, of how poverty affects them and others, and of how poverty can be effectively tackled, vary enormously between different types of people (defined in terms of class, status, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, gender or a myriad of other social identities). Wherever people cohere as groups, classes or other social constructs, perceptions of poverty are aggregated and refined and then embedded in social dynamics. The study of elite perceptions of poverty and the poor, we conclude, can both add to our understanding of the social dynamics of poverty and inequality and inform pro‐poor public policy.     

Constructing Poverty Trends in Uganda: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

In late 1999, apparently contradictory pictures of what was happening to poverty in Uganda emerged from the Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) and the household survey. This article analyses certain conceptual and methodological characteristics of the PPA and the pictures of poverty trends arising from it, with a view to dispelling confusion and to better understanding the relationship between these and the pictures emerging from survey data. It argues that the apparently contradictory visions, when explored carefully, are found to be compatible, and concludes that deeper and less oppositional understandings of the purpose of PPAs vis‐à‐vis surveys for poverty assessment are an important and timely contribution to current research and knowledge about poverty.     

Global Politics of Microfinancing Poverty in Asia: The Case of Bangladesh Unpacked

Abstract

This article offers a critical and systematic political analysis of microfinance schemes linking international, national and local development policy. It substantiates the argument that microfinance schemes are a neoliberal development strategy, primarily advanced to realise a dual purpose: (1) financial sector liberalisation and commercialisation, while extending microfinance as a means to “poverty reduction”, and (2) the dampening and undermining of resistance to neoliberal development policies, by relying on the disciplinary potential of these schemes. I illustrate this argument through an examination of the politics of microfinance and development in Bangladesh, which includes analyses of policies prescribed by the World Bank (and also the CGAP). The analysis also draws out the implications (legal and institutional) for many NGOs who have been required to change their status to Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Microfinance schemes are exemplary of (new) efforts to build markets in Asia in accordance with neoliberal visions of development, and in ways that advance and capitalise on the contradictions of neoliberal development. But they also challenge us to reflect more deeply on the limits of “market society”.     

Mobile Adaptation and Sticky Experiments: Circulating Best Practices and Lessons Learned in Climate Change Adaptation

This article engages with the recent geographical literature on policy mobilities in order to examine how the World Bank mobilizes climate change adaptation 'best practices'. Drawing from the relational case study of the Kiribati Adaptation Project and the Community Resilience to Climate Change and Disaster Risk in Solomon Islands Project, the article explores the complex and intensive work required for mobilizing lessons and practices. The analytical work required in building the Kiribati Adaptation Project as a World Bank success story and policy model worthy of replication in new sites is demonstrated. However, heeding calls within the policy mobilities literature to avoid fetishizing mobility and attending to the contradictions between global flows and local institutional specificity, the article finds limited evidence of replication in noted sites of emulation. Instead, there is compulsive citation, publication, and circulation of experiences and successes within the World Bank, which operates to build internal and external legitimacy.     

Poverty Reduction and Good Governance: Examining the Rationale of the Millennium Development Goals

Whilst the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) looms large, the outcomes so far have been mixed. This article examines the policy logic that ‘good governance’ leads to poverty reduction, which has been adopted by international agencies in pursuit of the MDGs. This causal relationship is examined through an empirical panel‐data estimation using Worldwide Governance Indicators and the poverty headcount ratio in ninety‐eight countries. The empirical evidence does not support the hypothesis that good governance leads to poverty reduction. Good governance alleviates poverty only in middle‐income countries, not in least developed ones. These findings point to the necessity to devise policies that address poverty directly, rather than through indirect instruments, and highlight the urgent need to address structural inequality in developing countries.     

Work,Poverty and Modernity in Mayhew's London

Mayhew's understanding of work in London has not been considered a great success. His accounts of workers were sentimental and erratic and his ambivalence to political economy prevented him from fully understanding the relationship between work and poverty. As the century progressed, it was Marx and Booth who provided systematic and sustained studies of the labour question. However, as this article argues, the circulation of facts, moral judgements and guesswork that filled the pages of London Labour and the London Poor offers a fair representation of a metropolitan manufacturing economy that was characterized by uncertainty, speculation and shifting boundaries of capital and labour. In particular, Mayhew's demonization of small masters, the working poor who set up as independent producers and whom he blamed for over-competition, drew out a contradiction in contemporary understandings of capitalism: large-scale capital and well-organized labour were seen as progressive and modern but small businesses were flexible and adaptable and were for many the only hope of escaping poverty and breaking out of the ranks of labour. As such, it is Mayhew rather than Marx or Booth that best exposes the tensions between the aspirations of the working poor and the paradigms of social investigators that insisted on distinguishing capital from labour.     

Gender and poverty: what we know,don’t know,and need to know for Agenda 2030

Drawing on historical debates on gender, poverty, and the ‘feminisation of poverty’, this paper reflects on current evidence, methods and analysis of gendered poverty. It focuses on initiatives by UN Women, including the Progress of the World’s Women 2015–16. Our analysis of the data compiled by UN Women raises questions about what might account for the over-representation of women among the poor in official accounts of poverty, and how this is plausibly changing (or not) over time. The paper highlights that analysis of what is measured and how needs to be understood in relation to who is the focus of measurement. The lack of available data which is fit for purpose questions the extent to which gender poverty differences are ‘real’ or statistical. There is a continued reliance on comparing female with male headed households, and we argue the move by UN Women to adopt the notion of Female Only Households reflects available data driving conceptual understandings of women’s poverty, rather than conceptual advances driving the search for better data. Wider UN processes highlight that while sensitivity to differences among women and their subjectivities are paramount in understanding the multiple processes accounting for gender bias in poverty burdens, they are still accorded little priority. To monitor advances in Agenda 2030 will require more and better statistics. Our review suggests that we are still far from having a set of tools able to adequately measure and monitor gendered poverty.     

People, Places, and Policy: A Politically Relevant Framework for Efforts to Reduce Concentrated Poverty

This article identifies the persistence of spatially concentrated poverty, reviews the literature on an implicit people-place binary theory of antipoverty policy, proposes a more integrated heuristic for understanding policy, and discusses how the classification can be the basis for a more refined understanding of the evolution of antipoverty policy, how and when politics drive the antipoverty agenda and uses the heuristic to encourage evaluators to refocus research on the multiple aspects of poor peoples' lives. In general, proponents of either people-based or place-based policies have dominated the urban poverty debate. This tension has led to a fragmented and piecemeal approach to spatially concentrated poverty that focuses on either people or places and does not best serve the poor. The new heuristic specifies both the policy targets and the policy mechanisms for major programs, examining the degree to which each focuses on people or places, and the degree to which each relies on supply and demand side assumptions. This reclassification suggests that the assumptions inherent in public policy can provide insight into how antipoverty policy makers and advocates might respond to political cycles and major sociopolitical events, as well as how they might more critically evaluate their efforts.     

Structural Adjustment and Poverty Alleviation: An Interpretative Survey

There are few simple generalizations about the effects of adjustment programmes on poverty. There remain many data and methodological problems, and outcomes are complex and varied. Poverty groups often are harmed by adjustment programmes, especially the urban working poor, but there has been a tendency to over-emphasize negative outcomes. There are many other influences on poverty. In the long term, adjustment is essential to the eradication of poverty. The principal responsibility for achieving anti-poverty objectives must lie with national governments but they do not always display much concern with the poor. However, the international financial institutions must share the responsibility and could do more to design structural adjustment programmes within a cost-minimizing framework. The principal policy tasks are to formulate a long-term anti-poverty strategy and ensure that adjustment policies are consistent with that, without detracting from the imperative of adapting the economy to changing circumstances.     

Poverty Reduction with Growth and Redistribution

In the late 1990s the bilateral and multilateral development agencies placed increasing emphasis on poverty reduction in developing countries. This led to the establishment by the United Nations of the ‘International Development Targets’ for poverty reduction. The target of poverty reduction might be achieved through faster economic growth alone, through redistribution, or through a combination of the two. This article presents an analytical framework to assess the effectiveness of growth and redistribution for poverty reduction. It concludes that redistribution, either of current income or the growth increment of income, is more effective in reducing poverty for a majority of countries than growth alone.     

Gender and Australian Aid Policy: can women's rights be advanced within a neo-liberal framework?

The issue of gender and development has been an important part of the development discourse since the Mexico City Women Conference in 1973. This concern has been very slow to transform itself into policy. For development agencies including AusAID it has been a subsidiary policy area or an add-on, as a recipe might say'add women and stir'. The White Paper of 2007 brought gender to the centre of policy as an overarching principle. The question that arises is the extent to which these policies fit into or are driven by the neo-liberal paradigm underpinning the aid program, or if these policies can challenge it by positing a rights agenda. The 2007 Gender policy tries to sit between the two in that it focuses on the economic role that women can play in fostering growth on the one hand, and the denial of human rights that marginalisation and disempowerment represents. This paper will explore the development of gender policy in AusAID, and compare it with the development of policy of other agencies that follow the neo-liberal framework in particular the World Bank and ADB. Finally the paper will make some suggestions for the new Labor government to strengthen the Policy.     

Economic Development and Poverty Reduction in Korea: Governing Multifunctional Institutions

Combining economic development and poverty reduction is a challenge for developing countries. In the search for mechanisms that integrate both goals, this article examines the Republic of Korea's development strategy, which transformed one of Asia's poorest nations into an industrialized country with low levels of poverty. The authors investigate the state–society nexus in which Korea's developmental state has operated and look at the role of governance for economic development, focusing especially on multifunctioning institutions performing for economic growth and poverty reduction. The article provides strategic suggestions for developing countries on managing effectively within institutional constraints and moving beyond a simple emphasis on good governance.