The New Bottom Billion

Findings

Among the key findings — which are based on official World Bank data and country classifications, and are also consistent across monetary, nutritional and multidimensional poverty measures (see for example the Multidimensional Poverty Index) — Sumner’s research shows that:

• While MICs account for 960 million of the world's poorest 1.3 billion people, LICs account for just 370 million.
• Approximately two-thirds of the world’s poor live in stable MICs not affected by major violent conflict. Fragile LICs now account for just 12% of the world's poor.
• About 23 per cent of the world’s poor live in fragile states if one takes the broadest definition of FCAS (43 countries), and they are split fairly evenly between fragile LICs and fragile MICs. Previous estimates put this figure significantly higher at around one-third.
• While many of the New Bottom Billion live in China and India, the percentage of global poverty accounted for by MICs minus China and India has still risen considerably from 7 per cent to 22 per cent since 1990.

Significance and implications

The New Bottom Billion is important because:

It challenges how we view world poverty and its causes. We used to think poverty was due to a lack of resources in 'poor' countries. The New Bottom Billion suggests world poverty isn't primarily about resources for most of the world's poor; it is about inequality — the poor live in countries which are no longer officially 'poor'.

It challenges aid allocations and the way donors and NGOs go about poverty reduction. We used to think aid was the answer to poverty. If many countries are no longer officially 'poor' then the allocation of aid needs an urgent global review. This might mean that governance and domestic taxation and redistribution policies become of more importance than Official Development Assistance (ODA).

It changes how we view 'developing' countries. There used to be a rich or 'developed' world and a poor or 'developing world', but these findings show that there are only 39 'poor' countries remaining, and that most 'developing' countries (102 countries) are no longer officially 'poor'.

Sources

References

1. [http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/wp349 Sumner, A. (2010a) 'Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: Three-quarters of the World's Poor Live in Middle-income Countries', ''IDS Working Paper 349'', Brighton: Institute of Development Studies]. Retrieved 3 January 2011
2. [http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCWorkingPaper74.pdf Sumner, A. (2010b) 'Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: What if Three-Quarters of the World's Poor Live in Middle-Income Countries?', ''IPC-UNDP Working Paper 74'', Brasilia: IPC-UNDP]. Retrieved 3 January 2011
3. Collier, P. (2007) ''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'', New York: Oxford University Press
4. [https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2010/sep/14/bottom-billion-poverty?cat=global-development&type=article Glennie, J. (2010) 'Which bottom billion?', ''The Guardian Datablog'']. Retrieved 3 January 2011