By: Axel Van Trotsenburg
The World Bank’s fund for the poorest, IDA, was created more than 50
years ago to meet an urgent need—to make sure the world’s most vulnerable have
a real chance at a decent life. A lot has happened since then.
With IDA’s help, hundreds of millions of people have escaped the
vicious cycle of abject poverty—through the creation of jobs, access to clean
water, food security, schools, roads, electricity. In fact, for the first time ever, researchers found last
year that the number of people living in absolute poverty—less than
$1.25 day—dropped in every region of the world, from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.3
billion in 2008.
IDA has worked relentlessly with poor countries to fight poverty in
often very challenging circumstances. In Africa, which receives half of IDA’s
interest-free loans and grants, IDA helped put over 15 million children in
school in the last decade, protect citizens against malaria with 33 million
mosquito nets, and provide 6 million people with access to safe drinking water.
While we have made good, even remarkable progress on reducing poverty,
the number of poor people living on less than $1.25 a day is still
unacceptable.
Nor can we assume that development gains are here to stay. The growing
number of extreme climate-related events and other natural disasters—from the
2010 earthquake in Haiti to last year’s massive tsunami in Japan, from the
ongoing drought in the Sahel to recent Superstorm Sandy—shows that no one is
immune to disaster. Conflict, financial crises, unemployment, and hunger—which often
respect no borders—further complicate matters.
Yet in the face of such adversity, some question the very role of
development assistance and the relevance of multilateral agencies whose mission
it is to end poverty. At such a tumultuous time, the global development
community finds itself at an important crossroads. The path we take has serious
implications for the world we’ll all inhabit in the years to come.
Now is not the time to disengage. It’s time to double-down and make
sure we actually deliver on the Millennium Development Goals: giving children
and pregnant women a chance at survival, making sure kids get to school and
women have the same opportunities as men, protecting the environment, and ultimately,
ending poverty.
For the World Bank, donors, borrowers, and civil society, that means making
smart choices about using scarce resources for maximum effect, in line with local
needs. That means keeping in mind that even when a country reaches a certain
income level, there may still be millions of people living in severe poverty,
who will still need continued support.
A hallmark of IDA is its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. We
have learned that sustainable poverty reduction hinges on putting the country
in the driver’s seat, combines the aid and expertise of multiple sectors and
organizations, and most of all, is flexible. IDA’s flexibility allows us to
react quickly, particularly during times of crisis and in difficult, fragile
environments.
Our work in the Horn of Africa last year illustrates IDA’s ability to
respond with nimble, targeted solutions. When 12 million people were suffering from
one of the worst droughts in 60 years, we swiftly made $250 million available
through our Crisis Response Window. In record time, this provided badly needed
support for nutrition, health, energy, agriculture, and sanitation projects for
millions of people in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti.
As much as the global economy is subject to constant change, we have to
prepare ourselves for even more rapid and profound changes, especially in a
development finance landscape where several traditional donor countries are
facing fiscal hardships at home.
IDA continues to undergo an extensive renewal in the face of evolving
global and country challenges. Indeed, we are engaged with donors and borrowers
on these very issues, as we explore ways to address frontier issues, such as IDA’s
financial sustainability, fragility, and results. The challenge is to keep the
world engaged in our joint effort to make sure millions of impoverished are not
left behind and are able to improve their living standards.
It is important that we broaden the coalition of potential donors and
create new partnerships with emerging market economies around the world. We
need to harness their knowledge and experience in lifting people out of poverty.
Donors and borrowers from Africa and all regions of the world meet
November 13-15 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, to review IDA’s progress on
delivering better results on gender, climate, conflict and fragility, and
crisis response to communities in need. It’s an opportunity to brainstorm with
our development partners on how to be even more effective and responsive amid a
challenging and changing global aid architecture.
What will it take to continue to lift more and more people out of
poverty? Flexibility, persistence, and continued strong commitment and
engagement by all who care.
Axel Van Trotsenburg is the World Bank’s Vice President for
Concessional Finance
