Inequality & Shared Prosperity

(Read the event transcript in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish) 'We have to help countries improve their readiness for future pandemics.' World Bank Group President David Malpass called on the world to move urgently toward opportunities and solutions that achieve a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in a speech today that advances the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings. “Our collective responses to poverty, climate change, and inequality will be the defining choices of our age.” Mr. Malpass delivered the speech virtually at the London School of Economics; it was followed by a discussion with students, moderated by Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics.   See the list of Speakers   As we work toward a #ResilientRecovery, our collective responses to poverty, climate change, & inequality will be the defining choices of our age. My thanks to Baroness Shafik & @LSEnews for their hospitality.#LSECOVID19 Read my full remarks here: https://t.co/K4...

World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives – the first WDR focused solely on the role of data for development – comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the global economy, bringing to the fore global data inequalities. How do we tap the full value of data, ensuring equitable access for poor people? What reforms are needed in data governance to protect individuals, businesses, and societies from harm? As we chart a course for a resilient recovery, World Bank Group President David Malpass, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will discuss data’s tremendous potential to improve lives. Join us for the live conversation on March 24th. Be sure to sign up for an email reminder! See the list of speakers

COVID-19 has laid bare the long-standing inequities faced by people around the world – especially those with limited access to health care, infrastructure and other essential services. In cities, home to over half of the world’s population, such chasms have been deepened by the pandemic. Although urbanization has been accompanied by lower poverty, job creation and growth, distribution of such urban gains has been uneven, often marked by striking spatial, social and economic inequalities within cities. In reimagining the post-COVID-19 future, policy makers, international agencies, and other non-state actors are all concerned with getting it right. It has become evident that without addressing inequities that have left many behind, it is impossible to build inclusive cities that are livable and prosperous for all. How can we introduce new ways of (re)building cities from an equity perspective, prioritize the poor and vulnerable in decision-making, and enhance overall the resilience of cities? This World Bank Live session engages with a rich ...

Follow us live for a conversation about the importance of strengthening women's power to reduce inequality and end extreme poverty. With the Canadian Minister for international development and la francophonie, Marie-Claude Bibeau. Ask your questions in the comments!

Have globalization and rapid technological development given developing countries unprecedented opportunities to improve the lives of their citizens, or have they instead just led to an inexorable rise in income and wealth inequality? The East Asia and Pacific Region has come to symbolize how rapid, broadly shared, growth can improve the lives of millions. Yet past successes also mean that expectations are running high that growth will continue to deliver significant improvements in welfare in an increasingly challenging global environment. Concerns have also been raised about a possible growing divide between the prospering middle-class and pockets of the poor and vulnerable left behind. This panel discussion brings together senior policymakers and policy analysts from East Asia and beyond to talk about their countries’ recent experiences and lessons learned in this area.

In a speech at Columbia University, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will introduce the Human Capital Project, an accelerated effort to encourage investment in people as a critical step to boosting inclusive economic growth and ending extreme poverty. The speech is the 2017 Gabriel Silver Memorial Lecture, a tradition established in 1950 to foster international understanding and world peace, and is part of the World Leaders Forum to advance dialogue on the economic, political and social questions of our time.  The event is sponsored by Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs

Globalization and innovation forces have helped increase returns for superstar entrepreneurs and corporations by boosting demand for their services. Over the last two decades, these forces have also increased inequality in high income countries. Professor Slaughter has been studying these trends and will look at the phenomenon of real income declines over the past two decades. His future research will explore the globalization experience of the United States and other developed and developing countries.

With global economic growth expected to slow in the years to come, it will be ever more important for countries to make a concerted effort to reach the least well-off with policies and programs that can help them move upward. This event will take an in-depth look at the findings and recommendations of the WBG's new flagship report on Poverty and Shared Prosperity, which this year has a special focus on inequality. The discussion in this event will help to further the institution's agenda in these core areas, strengthen the WBG’s voice in the global discussion about inequality, hear from partners on how we can all work together to encourage progress, and bring to light some of the persistent challenges that countries face in improving the lives of their poorest citizens.

Emerging markets and the developing world are at the center of the current slowdown in global growth. How are low commodity prices and slowing trade affecting countries and the effort to reduce poverty? Join us as the World Bank’s chief economists describe current conditions and the outlook for each developing region.

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama brought her passion for girls’ education and a powerful message to a packed World Bank atrium just ahead of Spring Meetings: Support education for adolescent girls, because it’s one of the smartest investments any country can make. She was talking to the right audience — finance and development ministers entrusted with crucial spending decisions, development experts, and leaders from civil society, the private sector, and the media. World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim praised Obama as a “tremendous champion for the rights of girls and women.” He announced that the Bank Group would invest $2.5 billion over five years in education projects directly benefiting adolescent girls. Obama welcomed the news as a “truly amazing. This isn’t just a breathtaking investment of resources, it’s also a powerful statement of mission.” “It’s an expression of our belief in the power of education to transform the lives and prospects of millions of girls worldwide — ...

The World Bank’s Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) convenes 47 governments and more than 260 civil society and private sector partners to solve governance challenges around the world.  Today, the GPSA seeks to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by helping citizens and governments to address what Amina Mohamed, the UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the SDGs, has called “the one knot we haven’t tied”: Accountability.

"Today to 2030" brings together a cross section of global leaders and influencers to look at the partnerships, financing, creativity and citizen action needed to end extreme poverty, boost shared prosperity and address climate change. This event comes at a critical time for our people and the planet, falling less than two weeks after the UN Global Goals are ratified and shortly before the COP climate negotiations in Paris. It will be a key moment to build momentum and energize the global community to take the actions needed over the next 15 years to meet these ambitious goals.

A sweeping, definitive review of what works and what doesn’t in reducing inequality and boosting the incomes of the poorest in developing countries, drawing on evidence of a half-century of work by the World Bank Group. It will include our first-ever numbers on how 89 countries are faring in boosting the prosperity of the poorest 40 percent. The speech also will highlight what specific programs opened the way for the bottom 40 percent to have more economic opportunity and narrow the income gap with the wealthiest – lessons that could apply to all countries battling inequalities, both rich and poor.

At a public event at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will outline the opportunities and challenges facing the economic development of Indonesia and East Asia, and how the World Bank Group can help end extreme poverty and share prosperity more widely in the region.

How has America become the most unequal advanced country in the world, and what can we do about it? In The Great Divide, Stiglitz, argues that inequality is a choice—the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities. From Reagan-era policies to the Great Recession, Stiglitz delves into the irresponsible policies—deregulation, tax cuts, and tax breaks for the 1 percent—that are turning the American dream into an ever more unachievable myth. Drawing lessons from Scandinavia, Singapore, and Japan, he urges to embrace real solutions: increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy; offering more help to the children of the poor; investing in education, science, and infrastructure; helping out homeowners instead of banks; and, most importantly, doing more to restore the economy to full employment. His is a call to confront America's economic inequality as the political and moral issue that it is. If we reinvest in people and pursue the other policies that he describes, America can live ...

Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank, Dr. Kaushik Basu, will give two lectures at Georgetown University as part of a semester-long conversation on “The Global Future for Development.” The first lecture will outline the challenge of economic development in today’s world, drawing on long-term trends and contemporary risks, ranging from the Eurozone to BRICS. The lecture will include a statement of the World Bank’s two mission goals of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity and will analyze some of the trends from the perspective of these two goals.

Fifty years have passed since the Nobel laureate poet- turned- plenipotentiary, Octavio Paz, saw India, where he was Mexico’s ambassador, as “a land of extremes”. The poet’s muse was his encounter with the profusion of sights and sounds, colors and smells, people and animals that greeted him during his travels in the subcontinent. It included what he described as “the incredible opulence” of the maharajahs surrounded by what he saw as “equally unbelievable” poverty. But is that still the case today? From what perspectives? Does the region stand out, by international standards? And if so, what lies behind it? What should be done (and not done) about it? Join us as the authors of Addressing Inequality in South Asia and other experts discuss dynamics and drivers of inequality in South Asia and how to potentially address inequality for better socioeconomic development in the region.

Measurement challenges related to poverty, inequality and shared prosperity are the subject of fervent debate among development economists and data experts. This event will launch the 2014 Policy Research Report: A Measured Approach to Ending Poverty and Boosting Shared Prosperity, explaining the options for most accurately measuring progress on the World Bank Group’s twin goals. The report’s findings will be highlighted and several top experts will debate the issues.

More than 1 billion people still live in poverty and the gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is growing in many developing nations. Join Chinese talk show host Yang Lan for a conversation on the issue with World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu. The live-streamed session will explore why promoting shared prosperity matters and how inequality hinders opportunities for poor people in developing countries.

Latin America: Will Slower Growth Increase Inequality?