CONSOLIDATING THE LESSONS OF 50 YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT

The World Development Report 2000/01 builds a complex picture of poverty, and a comprehensive approach to its reduction, which challenges the still dominant neo-liberal paradigm. The significance of inequality in determining the outcomes of economic growth, of vulnerability and the need for an agenda of social security or social protection represent advances in the discourse of international agencies. The uniform and simplistic solutions of the past are dismissed with recognition of the fragility of markets and the problems of privatization. The diversity of poverty is met by emphasis on country strategies, which need to address the issues faced by the losers from the process of economic growth. Diversity has been identified - it now needs analysis. The comprehensive approach advocated should help to stabilize development thinking, to move away from the pendulum swings of policy fashion. The constraints to poverty reduction are under-emphasised - resources to provide safety nets; the problems of preventing or resolving conflict, and the potential political resistance from elites unconvinced that poverty is their problem. Nevertheless, the report provides a basis for building a new international coalition against poverty, with the Bank as one among several agencies, a situation in which it will need to clarify its role.