TANZANIA has been singled out as one of countries in the World that have managed to reduce economic inequality significantly over recent years.
A new World Bank study on poverty and
shared prosperity, which was released on Sunday revealed that Tanzania
along with Brazil, Cambodia, Mali and Peru were in the list of countries
that have recorded good performance in reducing inequality.
The WB researchers identified six
high-impact strategies behind the success in reducing inequality as
policies with a proven track record of building poor people’s earnings,
improving their access to essential services and improving their
longterm development prospects, without damaging growth.
“These policies work best when paired
with strong growth, good macroeconomic management and well-functioning
labor markets that create jobs and enable the poorest to take advantage
of those opportunities,” reads the statement.
However, the statement states that all
countries must make sure inequality is seriously tackled so as to
fulfill the WB targets of ending poverty by 2030. According to the
statement, inequality is still far too high in many countries and that
important concerns remain around the concentration of wealth among those
at the top of the income distribution.
The study added that extreme poverty
worldwide continues to fall despite the lethargic state of the global
economy. But it warns that given projected growth trends, reducing high
inequality may be a necessary component to reaching the world’s goal of
ending extreme poverty by 2030.
The statement states that nearly 800
million people lived on less than 1.90/-US dollar a day in 2013. That is
around 100 million fewer extremely poor people than in 2012.
“Progress on extreme poverty was driven
mainly by East Asia and Pacific, especially China and Indonesia, and by
India. Half of the world’s extreme poor now live in Sub-Saharan Africa,
and another third live in South Asia,” reads the statement.
The report added that at least 60 out of
the 83 countries covered by the new report to track shared prosperity,
average incomes went up for people living in the bottom 40 percent of
their countries between 2008 and 2013, despite the financial crisis.
Importantly, these countries represent
67 percent of the world’s population.The WB group President, Mr Jim Yong
Kim said in a statement that apart from global economy poor performance
still some countries have continued to reduce poverty and shared
prosperity.
“It’s remarkable that countries have
continued to reduce poverty and boost shared prosperity at a time when
the global economy is underperforming, but still far too many people
live with far too little,” he said.
He said in order to avoid missing WB
targets for ending poverty in 2030, there is a need for changing things
by resuming faster global growth and reduce inequality.
“The message is clear: to end poverty,
we must make growth work for the poorest and one of the surest ways to
do that is to reduce high inequality, especially in those countries
where many poor people live.” he said.
On income gaps, the statement states
that the new report finds that in 34 of 83 countries monitored, income
gaps widened as incomes grew faster among the wealthiest 60 percent of
people than among the bottom 40.
And in 23 countries, the bottom 40 saw
their incomes actually decline during these years: not just relative to
wealthier members of society, but in absolute terms
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