Headline, October11, 2013

^^^ FIGHTING POVERTY IS 

EVERYONE'S HONOUR ^^^

It is worth noting that there is a group of countries that are both middle-income and fragile. This group,  sometimes called MIFFS  -middle-income fragile states-  includes, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Yemen  -all large, populous places.

In 2011, Geoffrey Gertz and Laurence Chandy, also of Brookings, calculated that almost a fifth of people living on less than $ 1.25 are citizens of MIFFS.

So there are almost 200m poor people in middle-income and fragile states, who appear in the accounts of both Mr Sumner and Messrs Kharas and Rogerson. Because of this overlap it is possible to argue both have a point and are just using different labels.

There is another explanation for differences between them : Mr Sumner is describing the present day situation and Messrs Kharas and Rogerson are forecasting what might happen in 2025. The trouble is that Mr Sumner has also produced forecasts, in his case for 2020 and 2030, and they are strikingly different.

He agrees with Messers Kharas and Rogerson that, as middle-income countries take more people out of poverty, the proportion of poor people who live in poor countries must rise. But this increase is much less on his calculations than on theirs. Mr Sumner estimates that by 2020 the share of the world's poor in today's poor countries will increase only from 20% to 40%; even by 2030, there would still be roughly equal shares of the poor in today's poor and middle-income countries.

Given that some of today's poor countries will be middle-income ones by 2030, he reckons that it is possible that only a third of all the world's poor will be in countries called low-income then. In contrast Messrs Kharas and Rogerson think the majority of the poor will be in fragile states in 2025.

The gap between the forecasts also reflects the differences in assumptions. Some of these differences invite caution. The calculations by Messrs Kharas and Rogerson, using IMF data, seem to imply there will hardly be any poor people left in India and Indonesia in a few years. which seems more than unlikely. Using different assumptions, Mr Sumner forecasts that by 2030 the number of people in poverty could fall by anywhere between 600m and 1.6 billion, an enormous margin of error.

''Any estimate of 2030 poverty, including ours, depends hugely on growth estimates for a few big countries.........so I'd take all of them with oceans of salt,'' warns one of Mr Sumner's co-authors, Charles Kenny.   

That said, the two accounts do reflect different and important ways of thinking about poverty. One, Mr Sumner's, focuses on income and says the big dividing line lies between poor and middle-income countries. The other, associated with Messrs Kharas Kharas and Rogerson, focuses more on politics, its dividing line is between fragile and stable countries.

If Messrs Kharas and Rogerson are right, aid donors need to concentrate on governance and try to move countries from the fragile to the stable category   =one terribly daunting task. If Mr Sumner is right, the role of donors should probably be to work with local governments in middle-income countries to ensure benefits from public spending are equitably distributed for the poorest, where they may live!!

With respectful dedication and in great shame, to the poor and to the poorest of the world! 

The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless will name a module in your honour and struggle to alleviate your sufferings. 

'''May Almighty God help Us All'''.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless