Good news at the global level

Data, data, and more data... The World Bank has recently published its latest estimates concerning the advancements against underdevelopment (the World Development Indicators). At the global level, the fight against poverty seems to be working. People in the world living in abject poverty (with less than $1 a day) has diminished between 1990 and 2005 by around 265 million people. A great success considering population growth and that this has taken place in developing countries.

Besides this bright picture there are other questions not directly confronted by this Bretton Woods organisation...

• It seems that there is much more consensus in the analysis of the number of poor people people than in how getting out of poverty. China is the champion country in terms of reducing the number of poor people. And China, as well, has chosen its own path towards development (one which really lies far from the recommendations of International Organisations such as the World Bank or the IMF). On the opposite side, we find Africa and Latin America, two of the best students in the Washington Consensus graduate courses but the worst in terms of poverty reduction.
  
• Other important question refers to the World Bank... is this one the appropriate organisation to analyse and determine the number of poor people in the world? I mean, given that the World Bank is the most important organisation to fight against this global illness, shouldn't his progress be scrutinised by an independent organisation?... may be we should think about he creation of an independent organisation to set the size of poor people in the world, no?

Additional thought: in the interesting book Freakonomics (here you can find the blog), the authors distinguish among economic, moral and social incentives. Do the countries dealing with the world bank face any moral incentives to follow the world bank recommendations after the recent Wolfowitz's nepotist behaviour towards his partner? The board of governors of the Bank should ask for his resignation. By doing that, the Bank would recover most of its legitimacy towards its "customers".