The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
January 7, 2008Having trouble with audio or video playback? Click here
The plight of the bottom billion is often viewed by ordinary citizens in the West as an issue too remote—and too intractable—to be solved. In reality, however, this is far from the truth. What can and should we do to improve the situation?
For more information on Paul Collier, go to http://users.ox.ac.uk/~econpco/
This should be the year of the ‘bottom billion,’ stresses Ban Ki-moon
7 January 2008 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed that 2008 should be the year of the "bottom billion," citing the need for renewed determination to address the needs of the poorest of the world's poor who have been left behind by global economic growth.
"We must address ourselves to the needs of the weak, the disadvantaged, those who have been excluded from the mainstream international community,” Mr. Ban told reporters at a Headquarters press conference, his first for the new year.
"And so I say, let 2008 be the year of the 'bottom billion,' " Mr. Ban declared, employing the phrase used by some economists to describe the poorest of the world’s poor—the nearly one billion left behind by global economic growth.
Noting that most of the world’s poorest live in Africa or the small developing islands of Asia, "eking out lives of hardship on incomes of less than $1 a day," he pledged to work over the coming year to strengthen the UN's role in development.
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