Global megatrends such as income inequality, climate change, demographic shifts, technological progress, and urbanisation are shaping the future of societies. Yet, their quantitative impacts on development are neither well understood nor established. This paper examines the individual and combined effects of these global forces on poverty, using both cross-section and …
Is there a trade-off between raising growth and reducing inequality and poverty? This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the complex links between growth, inequality, and poverty, with causation going in both directions. The evidence suggests that growth can be effective in reducing poverty, but its impact on …
Famine is already on the doorstep of millions of families in 20 countries, two UN agencies warned in a report that calls for urgent action to avert rising hunger due to factors such as conflict, climate extremes and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yemen, South Sudan and northern Nigeria top the list, …
In October 2019, the World Bank and UNESCO Institute for Statistics proposed a new metric, Learning Poverty, designed to spotlight low levels of learning and track progress toward ensuring that all children acquire foundational skills. This paper provides the technical background for that indicator, and for its main findings—first, that …
The Asia-Pacific region must accelerate progress everywhere and urgently reverse its regressing trends on many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve its ambitions by 2030, says a report released by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The 2021 edition of the Asia and …
What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on poverty in Zambia, and how can social protection programs mitigate these effects? This paper estimates the pre-pandemic poverty level in Zambia and then simulates the distributional impact of COVID-19 in the country. The paper also estimates the impact of a …
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a double shock - health and economic. As of March 1, 2021, COVID-19 has cost more than 2.5 million lives and triggered an economic recession surpassing any economic downturn since World War II. Part I of this paper explores the impact of this current …
An ADB contribution to this report highlights the potential of using innovative data such as satellite imagery and computer vision techniques to help improve the targeting of interventions to reduce poverty. The granularity of poverty statistics—the scale or level of detail in the data—can have a significant impact on the …
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development pledged to move away from growing inequality to more inclusive, shared growth, away from ecocide, mass extinction of our plant and animal biodiversity, and waste and destruction of our planet’s abundant but still finite natural resources to practices that respect and protect our common …
The share of the world’s population living on less than $1.90 a day has been cut by more than half since 2000. The pace of progress has slowed in recent years, however, and is likely to regress with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Advancements toward achieving the goal of …
Climate change, conflict, and COVID-19 are forcing a reassessment of how eradicate poverty while addressing the planetary emergency of environmental degradation. This brief explores the evolution in understanding of how poverty and the environment are linked, while also considering solutions such as reining in excessive resource consumption by the wealthiest …
A forward-looking measure of “vulnerability to poverty” is estimated and a concerted effort is made to understand the sources of vulnerability in the drought-prone lowlands of Ethiopia. Using the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey and the Welfare Monitoring Survey of 2016, the analysis reveals that vulnerability is remarkably higher in the …
Most Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are still not eligible for concessional financing because they are classified as middle- or high-income countries. But they are more vulnerable than income data alone might suggest. SIDS face severe structural challenges due to their remoteness, economic concentration, and dependence on external flows such …
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is perennially plagued by prolonged phases of poverty, conflict, and increased internal migration, as well as pandemic outbreaks such as Ebola and COVID-19, and limited livelihood opportunities. Such unexpected or catastrophic events have rendered households vulnerable and resulted in poor health outcomes. Given …
Social protection systems aim to eradicate poverty but often only reach a minority of the poorest households. Those eligible for social protection are often vulnerable to climate impacts that risk driving them further into poverty. Mabote district, Mozambique, is susceptible to ‘slow onset’ climate shocks, particularly droughts, which exacerbate food …
Amid extreme uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, economic policymakers have struggled to respond to rapidly changing circumstances with appropriate speed and scale. One policy obstacle is the dearth of real-time indicators of the pandemic’s economic impacts, especially in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Here show that an ‘immobility’ indicator …
As part of the work implemented by CGIAR on COVID-19, the COVID-19 Research Hub Working Group 4 “Address food systems’ fragility and build back better” was tasked with implementing a global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the consequences that the …
Social protection systems aim to eradicate poverty but often only reach a minority of the poorest households. Those eligible for social protection are often vulnerable to climate impacts that risk driving them further into poverty. Mabote district, Mozambique, is susceptible to ‘slow onset’ climate shocks, particularly droughts, which exacerbate food …
The global pandemic has taken a heavy toll on Mozambique’s economy. In 2020, the country experienced its first economic contraction in nearly three decades. COVID-19 (coronavirus) hit the economy as it was attempting to recover from the slowdown triggered by the hidden debt crisis and the tropical cyclones in 2019. …
The Union Budget 2021-22 comes at a time that is unprecedented. 122 million people have lost their jobs and millions are at risk of falling back into poverty (Vyas, 2020). At the same time, the wealth of billionaires in India has continued to grow at a rapid pace— Mukesh Ambani …
A once-in-a-century crisis—a Great Disruption unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic—hit the world economy in 2020. The pandemic reached every corner of the world, infecting more than 90 million and, so far, has killed close to 2 million people worldwide. Governments around the world responded rapidly—and boldly—to stem the health and …