HALF OF WORLD’S MOST VULNERABLE FACE WIDENING GAP WITH WEALTHIEST ECONOMIES: WORLD BANK

Sun 21 April 2024:

For the first time this century, half of the world’s 75 most vulnerable countries are experiencing an increasing income gap with the wealthiest economies, according to a World Bank research released on Monday, Anadolu reports.

According to the paper The Great Reversal: Prospects, Risks, and Policies in International Development Association nations, the average per capita income in half of those nations is expanding at a slower rate than that of wealthy economies from 2020-2024.

One out of three of those countries is poorer on average than it was on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic, while the extreme poverty rate is more than eight times the average in the rest of the world, as one in four people struggles on less than $2.15 per day, it added.

These countries now account for 90% of all people facing hunger or malnutrition, while half of those countries are either in debt distress or at high risk of it, the report noted.

While these countries have 1.9 billion people, the World Bank believes they may reduce the income gap by leveraging their youthful populations, enormous natural resources, and solar energy potential.

“Realizing this potential will require them to implement an ambitious set of policies centered on boosting investment,” said Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s deputy chief economist and director of the Prospects Group. “This means improving fiscal, monetary, and financial policy frameworks and advancing an array of structural reforms to strengthen institutions and enhance human capital.”

According to Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s chief economist and senior vice president, China, India, and South Korea “prospered in ways that whittled down extreme poverty and raised living standards,” and that “the welfare of these countries has always been crucial to the long-term outlook for global prosperity.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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