Bill Emmott, Editor in Chief, The Economist

Initiative Session Date: June 9, 2004

Summary:

Bill Emmott addressed IGD regarding demythologizing the issue of poverty, focusing efforts and setting priorities. In his view, one of the main reasons people don't feel the urgency about poverty elimination is a sense that it is an intractable and overwhelming problem. He reminded the group that the number of people living in extreme poverty has actually fallen due to economic growth and development in China and India, and suggested that we focus on the success stories from China and India to address the areas of existing extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. He called out the key ingredients to eliminating extreme poverty, including the continued effects of globalization, broad governance reform, developed country assistance for basic infrastructure, and continued trade liberalization, especially in agriculture. Emmott argued that we should approach the elimination of extreme poverty by acknowledging that it is in our own interest, it is doable and is a compassionate means of helping millions of people.

"There are simple answers to the issue of global poverty, but they're certainly not easy answers. They do lie in a continued spread of globalization, given that the defining characteristic of most of the countries that have the most intractable levels of extreme poverty is that they are not participating in world flows of trade and investment."

     -Bill Emmott, speaking to the Initiative for Global Development