A Poverty Free World

This title presents real life stories about poverty which depict 18 projects from around the world where the work of The World Bank and its partners have made an impact.

In the last two decades, free markets have swept the globe. But traditional capitalism has been unable to solve problems like inequality and poverty. In Muhammad Yunus' groundbreaking sequel to Banker to the Poor, he outlines the concept of social business—business where the creative vision of the entrepreneur is applied to today's most serious problems: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and protecting the planet. Creating a World Without Poverty reveals the next phase in a hopeful economic and social revolution that is already underway.

Some 2.5 billion human beings live in severe poverty, deprived of such essentials as adequate nutrition, safe drinking water, basic sanitation, adequate shelter, literacy, and basic health care. One third of all human deaths are from poverty-related causes: 18 million annually, including over 10 million children under five. However huge in human terms, the world poverty problem is tiny economically. Just 1 percent of the national incomes of the high-income countries would suffice to end severe poverty worldwide. Yet, these countries, unwilling to bear an opportunity cost of this magnitude, continue to impose a grievously unjust global institutional order that foreseeably and avoidably perpetuates the catastrophe. Most citizens of affluent countries believe that we are doing nothing wrong. Thomas Pogge seeks to explain how this belief is sustained. He analyses how our moral and economic theorizing and our global economic order have adapted to make us appear disconnected from massive poverty abroad. Dispelling the illusion, he also offers a modest, widely sharable standard of global economic justice and makes detailed, realistic proposals toward fulfilling it. Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this classic book incorporates responses to critics and a new chapter introducing Pogge's current work on pharmaceutical patent reform.

Viewed from a global scale, steady progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty—defined by the $1.25-a-day poverty line—over the past three decades. This success has sparked renewed enthusiasm about the possibility of eradicating extreme poverty within a generation. However, progress is expected to become more difficult, and slower, over time. This book will examine three central changes that need to be overcome in traveling the last mile: breaking cycles of conflict, supporting inclusive growth, and managing shocks and risks. By uncovering new evidence and identifying new ideas and solutions for spurring peace, jobs, and resilience in poor countries, The Last Mile in Ending Extreme Poverty will outline an agenda to inform poverty reduction strategies for governments, donors, charities, and foundations around the world. Contents Part I: Peace: Breaking the Cycle of Conflict External finance for state and peace building, Marcus Manuel and Alistair McKechnie, Overseas Development Institute Reforming international cooperation to improve the sustainability of peace, Bruce Jones, Brookings and New York University Bridging state and local communities through livelihood improvements, Ryutaro Murotani, JICA, and Yoichi Mine, JICA-RI and Doshisha University Postconflict trajectories and the potential for poverty reduction, Gary Milante, SIPRI Part II: Jobs: Supporting Inclusive Growth Structural change and Africa's poverty puzzle, John Page, Brookings Public goods for private jobs: lessons from the Pacific, Shane Evans, Michael Carnahan and Alice Steele, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Government of Australia Strategies for inclusive development in agrarian Sub-Saharan countries, Akio Hosono, JICA-RI The role of agriculture in poverty reduction, John McArthur, Brookings, UN Foundation, and Fung Global Institute

A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and bestselling author of Banker to the Poor offers his vision of an emerging new economic system that can save humankind and the planet Muhammad Yunus, who created microcredit, invented social business, and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in alleviating poverty, is one of today's most trenchant social critics. Now he declares it's time to admit that the capitalist engine is broken -- that in its current form it inevitably leads to rampant inequality, massive unemployment, and environmental destruction. We need a new economic system that unleashes altruism as a creative force just as powerful as self-interest. Is this a pipe dream? Not at all. In the last decade, thousands of people and organizations have already embraced Yunus's vision of a new form of capitalism, launching innovative social businesses designed to serve human needs rather than accumulate wealth. They are bringing solar energy to millions of homes in Bangladesh; turning thousands of unemployed young people into entrepreneurs through equity investments; financing female-owned businesses in cities across the United States; bringing mobility, shelter, and other services to the rural poor in France; and creating a global support network to help young entrepreneurs launch their start-ups. In A World of Three Zeros, Yunus describes the new civilization emerging from the economic experiments his work has helped to inspire. He explains how global companies like McCain, Renault, Essilor, and Danone got involved with this new economic model through their own social action groups, describes the ingenious new financial tools now funding social businesses, and sketches the legal and regulatory changes needed to jumpstart the next wave of socially driven innovations. And he invites young people, business and political leaders, and ordinary citizens to join the movement and help create the better world we all dream of.

This book, A Poverty-Free World: From Dream to Reality, further awakens us to the fact that poverty is a universal problem. It is everywhere, affecting every person and every nation, rich and poor. This book underscores the obvious fact that despite long-time effort, poverty eradication remains elusive. In literature, policy design, and practice, we often profess to be targeting poverty eradication, when, in fact, our actions and goals are typically directed at poverty reduction instead. The question is-why? What is holding us back from ending poverty? In this book, poverty expert Dr. Rotimi Nihinlola, with almost two decades of related research, banking the poor, and a background of growing up in poverty, shares new perspectives on how we can reposition our thinking and efforts to terminate poverty altogether, worldwide. He guides us in uncovering disempowering myths and beliefs around poverty-and how those are contributing to the condition of poverty itself and hindering our effort to eradicate it. He shows the disconnect at play between our objectives and goals around poverty reduction and eradication, and how to create much-needed alignment there. He outlines new paradigms and sets of actions to move us away from merely reducing or managing poverty to actually eradicating it. In the book, we see how all of us are needlessly paying a heavy price for poverty. With the right orientation, more effective actions, and-most importantly-the will, as explained by Dr. Nihinlola in this book, it is possible for us to realise our dream of eradicating poverty. Indeed, we can know a "poverty-free world" in our lifetime.

A brilliantly reported, global look at universal basic income—a stipend given to every citizen—and why it might be the answer for our age of rising inequality, persistent poverty, and dazzling technology. Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your checking account, with no strings attached and nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy. But it has become one of the most influential and discussed policy ideas of our time. The founder of Facebook, President Obama’s chief economist, Canada and Finland’s governments, the conservative and labor movements’ leading intellectual lights—all are seriously debating versions of a UBI. In this sparkling and provocative book, economics writer Annie Lowrey looks at the global UBI movement. She travels to Kenya to see how a UBI is lifting the poorest people on earth out of destitution, India to see how inefficient government programs are failing the poor, South Korea to interrogate UBI’s intellectual pedigree, and Silicon Valley to meet the tech titans financing UBI pilots in expectation of a world with advanced artificial intelligence and little need for human labor. Lowrey also examines the challenges the movement faces: contradictory aims, uncomfortable costs, and most powerfully, the entrenched belief that no one should get something for nothing. The UBI movement calls into question our deepest intuitions about what we owe each other. Yet as Lowrey persuasively shows, a UBI—giving people money—is not just a solution to our problems, but a better foundation for our society in this age of marvels.

Provides an introduction to modern world system theory and its attempts to explain world poverty and inequality. This book contains an overview of poverty in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. It tells why some countries in the world (mostly in Asia) have become richer and reduced the ranks of their poor through ties with the global economy.