Washington, DC — Although four or five countries are doing well, most of Africa is not, says the World Bank's new chief economist, Francois Bourguignon. When you look at the distribution of GDP per capita country by country in the world, "there is more and more inequality and almost all of this is related to Africa."
He was briefing a small group of journalists at the World Bank, Wednesday.
Bad as thing are now, they could be worse, he said. "Maybe Africa is not doing as badly as it could simply because there is enough foreign assistance which compensates the negative growth rate taking place in many of these countries."
But this is not sustainable, said Bourguignon. "We want development; we want poverty reduction due to economic development in these countries. We don't want poverty reduction to be simply the result of more aid being disbursed."
The Bank has finally learned that it has to keep better track of its assistance rather than being drawn into competition with other donors. "For a long time you had this situation where a country receiving aid was able say, 'fine, you are giving that to me but this other country is giving much more; they are willing to finance these investment projects; you should do the same thing.' At the end, it was very difficult to see what was the use made of that aid."
Now, through Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP)the Bank knows what "are really plans put together by countries and submitted to donors saying 'This is what we plan to do.' It's followed up, says Bourguignon by a "kind of systematic analysis of what is going on." And it's meant that more and more, aid is targeted at building capacity as distinct from direct relief, says Bourguignon.
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Nonetheless, asked whether he thought the United Nations Millennium Goals (MDG) had any chance of being reached, he said gains in reducing income poverty don't solve other seemingly intractable development issues. "In many countries it will be very difficult to meet the MDGs. In some countries it might not be that difficult to meet the monetary part of the MDGs - the poverty goal in particular might be met in several countries. But in the other dimensions - [like] infant mortality and education, this might prove more difficult."
The MDGs were adopted in 2000 and focus on eight major targets: combating poverty and hunger, providing primary education to all, ending gender discrimination, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, slowing the spread of HIV/Aids and other diseases, improving environment and global partnership by 2015.
Bourguignon took office in October and came in promising to target inequality and income distribution. "We need to analyze more closely who actually benefits from growth and from the policies, programs and projects undertaken to reduce poverty. Will one or another group, or class, benefit more than others? Are our strategies reducing or increasing inequality? Are they pro-poor, benefiting everybody in the same proportion or benefiting relatively more those who are already better off?"
