World Bank Poverty Reduction & Economic Management Conference, Washington DC

April 19-20, 2005
Washington, D.C. 

Team members gave two presentations at the annual PREM conference to an audience of World Bank economists, development practitioners, and academics.  The first was a parallel session highlighting country case studies and country policies; the second was a plenary session on Equity and Pro-Poor Growth.  Both sessions were organized jointly with the team working on the study on Operationalizing Pro-Poor Growth.

The plenary session Equity and Pro-Poor Growth (April 20) focused on the main messages of the ongoing study on Operationalizing Pro-Poor Growth and the upcoming WDR 2006 on Equity and Development.  The main messages of the OPPG study are that growth is essential for sustained pro-poor growth, but that it is also important to enhance the capacity of poor people to participate in growth by raising their capabilities and lowering their transactions costs.  The main messages of the WDR are that equity, defined in terms of equality of opportunities, is complementary to the pursuit of long-term prosperity, and that a central aim of public action should be to level the economic and political playing fields, both domestically and internationally.

The parallel session on Making Growth Pro-Poor: Cases and Policies (April 19) looked at factors that have made, and can make, growth pro-poor.  Peter Timmer focused on Indonesia, that has been incredibly successful in reducing poverty and keeping inequality in check.  He provocatively compared corruption with the high salaries and bonuses of Wall Street executives: given the Indonesian government delivered what it did, was corruption really such a problem?  Tim Besley highlighted the importance of land reform, expanded credit, gender equality, and access to information/good media as factors contributing to rapid growth in some Indian states.  Andy McKay wondered whether growth could not have been more pro-poor in Ghana.  A focus on urban growth and exports of few agricultural commodities (coffee, cocoa) did not make growth geographically and sectorally broad-based.  Tamar Manuelyan Atinc discussed why we do  not see more examples of pro-growth, pro-equity policies: because there are at times genuine trade-offs between efficiency and equity in the short run; because the issues that matter to the excluded often do not make it on the policy agenda; and because politically powerful elites often capture gains and block reforms.