------Forwarded Message Follows------ From: AJCSteveV@aol.com Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 16:14:44 EDT Subject: AP story on World Bank & poverty To: results-l@vida.com Dear Results community, >From the wires. News you may not find in your morning paper. --Steve Valk, Results Atlanta World Bank warns against poverty spread in annual development report |By SHIHOKO GOTO| |Associated Press Writer| TOKYO (AP) — Admitting that there is no single prescription for global development, the World Bank said today it has learned from its past mistakes and is ready to take a more pragmatic approach in its fight against poverty. In its annual World Development Report, the bank said the lesson of its 50 years in the business to reduce poverty is that pragmatism, rather than any particular dogmatic belief or policy, should be the driving force. The report said, for example, that high rates of investment and education have not been enough to deliver rapid growth in some countries, but worked for others. Similarly, the bank noted that after experimenting with export subsidies, some countries realized that they enriched business owners but did little to speed economic growth. Those countries ‘‘saw well-intended industrial subsidies turn into a costly form of corporate welfare, an expensive way of providing taxpayer support for private jobs in a narrow range of industries,’’ the bank said. Yet, in East Asia, the same policy of making active use of export subsidies and credit allocation led to the surge in economic development in the region, the bank said. The bank also noted that some factors, such as population growth, are gradual enough so that policy-makers have time to respond. But other issues, such as financial contagion, could strike sound economies unless pre-emptive measures are in place. On population growth, the rapid flow of people into cities and the continuing spread of poverty may become too much for individual countries to handle unless more is done to alleviate the problems soon, the bank said. The number of urban dwellers in developing countries will be double that of the industrialized nations by next year, according to the report. It said 2 billion people will be living in cities in developing countries already struggling to manage the surge. The report stressed that although the quality of life for some is improving, the gap between the haves and the have nots is becoming all the more glaring. Advances in medicine and such innovations as water filtration; septic tanks; portable generators; air conditioning in homes, cars and offices; and private security agencies have made it possible for people with higher incomes to insulate themselves from urban problems, the bank said. As a result, the wealthy are less likely to press for improvements that would benefit the entire society. And if such problems are mismanaged, they are capable of generating instability and human suffering that are beyond the ability of individual nation-states to remedy, the report said.