Publication: New Approach to Economic Challenges
Loading...
Published
2016-07-24
ISSN
Date
2018-10-31
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank, spoke about economic challenges requiring a new approach. Growth forecasts are modest and risks are increasing. The reform agenda includes fiscal and monetary policies to support demand, more investment in infrastructure, further integration in the world economy, structural reforms in labor markets, the financial sector, and the business climate to better allocate resource, and investment in innovation systems to accelerate technical change. One key drivers of discontent is rising inequality. The productivity slowdown and rising inequality are related. The challenge is to create wealth with reasonably equal distribution to sustain the momentum for reform. This will require active labor market policies and retraining. We will need infrastructure that connects people. We need to invest more in people. Concessional finance can provide the leverage for these reforms. We need to commit to creating a world in which truly there is equality of opportunity.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Kim, Jim Yong. 2016. New Approach to Economic Challenges. Speech at China-MOF-OECD High-Level G20 Workshop, July 24, 2016, Chengdu, China;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30635 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Rich and Poor(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04-10)Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, spoke about how before 1800 everybody was poor and lived in poverty. He referred to the young people now who may not own a smart phone, but who have access to smart phones. By 2025, as many analysts are saying, the entire world will have access to broadband. He examined three ways to end extreme poverty, that is, people living under 1.90 US dollars a day, by 2030. First, focus on inclusive, sustainable economic growth. Second, focus on fostering resilience to pandemics, climate change, refugees, fragility, conflict, and violence. Third, invest more and more effectively in people.Publication Angola Nutrition Gap Analysis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-12)Despite remarkable economic growth in the past decade, undernutrition remains a serious public health problem in Angola. High rates of child stunting and micronutrient deficiencies are contributing to an under-five mortality rate of 161 deaths per 1,000 live births, limiting the growth and development of children, hindering productivity, and preventing the country from reaching millennium development goals one and four. In response to this situation, the objectives of this report are to: a) synthesize available information on the nutrition situation in Angola; b) discuss the three main determinants of undernutrition using the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) conceptual framework; c) summarize existing nutrition policies and programs in the country; and d) propose next steps for action. Nutrition policy agenda is slowly gaining momentum in the country. The national food security and nutrition strategy released in 2009 include nutrition actions for children under five. The national nutrition policy is in the process of being finalized. High priority problems include the dearth of up-to-date, reliable, and comprehensive information on the nutrition situation in the country, severe shortages of trained nutritionists, and an exclusion of nutrition from community-based health activities. The following recommendations are proposed as next steps: 1) incorporate the collection of nutrition data into routine, planned surveys; 2) finalize the national nutrition policy, conduct a rigorous gap analysis, and develop a costed implementation plan to effectively scale-up nutrition activities in the country; 3) enhance capacity building efforts in the field of nutrition; 4) improve nutrition surveillance and screening activities and; 5) incorporate nutrition into community-based activities.Publication Guatemala : Country Economic Memorandum, Challenges to Higher Economic Growth(Washington, DC, 2005-03)The purpose of this Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) is to contribute to the ongoing discussion in Guatemala about means of accelerating economic growth to help achieve targets set in the 1996 Peace Accords as a key ingredient in the fight to reduce national poverty rates. Chapter I examines historical and recent developments and uses a benchmarking growth methodology to identify the measures and policies most conducive to increasing long-term economic growth. Those areas that are identified as critical on the list of priorities are developed further in separate chapters. Chapter II focuses on the important role of human capital development for growth, along with the complementary policies for improving education and health. Chapter III examines the investment climate, broadly understood, which includes governance, access to infrastructure, and financial development. Chapter IV analyzes the importance of innovation and technology adaptation for productivity growth. Chapter V looks at trade openness and the catalytic role that the recently negotiated free trade agreement with the U.S. (CAFTA) could have on the Guatemalan economy.Publication Social Gains in the Balance : A Fiscal Policy Challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC, 2014-02-24)In 2012, the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region continued its successful drive to reduce poverty and build the middle class. The proportion of the region's 600 million people living in extreme poverty, defined in the region as life on less than $2.50 a day, was cut in half between 2003 and 2012 to 12.3 percent. Reflecting the upward mobility out of poverty, households vulnerable to falling back into poverty became the largest group in LAC in 2005, and represent almost 38 percent of the population. However, in the last two years, the share of vulnerable households has started to decline. The middle class, currently 34.3 percent of the population, is growing rapidly and is projected to replace the vulnerable as the largest economic group in LAC by 2016. The Southern Cone region (including Brazil) continued to be the most dynamic region and the main driver of poverty reduction in LAC, while poverty in Central America and Mexico proved more stubborn. About 68 percent of poverty reduction between 2003 and 2012 was driven by economic growth, with the remaining 32 percent arising from decline in inequality. Overall, equality of access to basic childhood goods and services has improved in recent years. Yet access can be further improved, and serious issues remain concerning the quality of those goods and services, particularly in education and housing infrastructure. Moreover, access increases with parental education and income or assets, reflecting low intergenerational mobility in many countries in the region. As with poverty reduction, most of the progress in equality of access since 2000 has come in the Southern Cone and the Andean regions, while many of Central America's countries managed only small improvements. There are also severe differences at the subnational level and between urban and rural areas, highlighting the need to strengthen the capacity of local governments to deliver high quality basic services to all their citizens.Publication Ghana - Meeting the Challenge of Accelerated and Shared Growth : Country Economic Memorandum, Volume 3. Background papers(Washington, DC, 2007-11-28)Ghana has done increasingly well in recent years. This report has analyzed these issues in considerable depth, making it a prime reference on Ghana's growth and poverty experience and current policy challenges. The Ghana Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) report presented in these three volumes brings together detailed, relevant analyses of Ghana's growth and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), poverty reduction, infrastructure, agriculture, investment climate, export competitiveness, social inclusion and political economy.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Thailand Monthly Economic Monitor, October 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-22)Fiscal conditions remained stable, with a modest widening of the deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP. New stimulus measures are expected to support short-term demand without breaching the public debt ceiling. Inflation stayed negative, reflecting lower energy and food prices amid subdued domestic demand. The central bank kept the policy rate unchanged, citing limited policy space. Thailand’s growth momentum has slowed further as manufacturing activity and services weakened as projected. Tourism remained subdued, largely due to fewer Chinese visitors. Goods exports also slowed as earlier front-loaded orders faded, particularly in agriculture and industrial goods. The Thai baht depreciated in early October as the US dollar appreciated and the current account turned negative.Publication Regional Poverty and Inequality Update: Latin America and the Caribbean, October 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-23)This brief summarizes recent facts related to poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the latest wave of harmonized household surveys from the Socio-Economic Database for LAC (SEDLAC). This brief was produced by the Poverty Global Practice in the LAC Region of the World Bank.Publication Ukraine Country Environmental Analysis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01)The objective of the Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) is to assess the adequacy and performance of the policy, legal, and institutional framework for environmental management in Ukraine, in light of the decentralization process of environmental governance and wider reform objectives, and to provide recommendations to government to address the key gaps identified. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe and has a population of 43 million, the majority of whom live in urban areas. It is a lower middle income country, with the services, industry and agriculture sectors being main contributors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Ukraine faces a number of environmental challenges, as identified in its National Environmental Strategy 2020 (NES). Key among these are: air pollution; quality of water resources and land degradation; solid waste management; biodiversity loss; human health issues associated with environmental risk factors; in addition to climate change. The scope of Ukrainian environmental legislation is quite broad and comprehensive (more than 300 legal acts) and covers most areas of environmental protection and natural resources management. However, the environmental legislation faces a number of weaknesses:The environmental legislation is largely declaratory in nature and does not have all the essential enforcement mechanisms for the implementation of legal acts and international agreements; Many of the acts are not coordinated with each other; and Legislation undergoes limited analysis of its impact—for example, no in-depth analysis such as Regulatory Impact Analysis is conducted for proposed pieces of legislation.Publication Housing Subsidies for Refugees(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-22)Refugees require assistance for basic needs like housing but local host communities may feel excluded from that assistance, potentially affecting community relations. This study experimentally evaluates the effect of a housing assistance program for Syrian refugees in Jordan on both the recipients and their neighbors. The program offered full rental subsidies and landlord incentives for housing improvements, but saw only moderate uptake, in part due to landlord reluctance. The program improved short-run housing quality and lowered housing expenditures, but did not yield sustained economic benefits, partly due to redistribution of aid. The program unexpectedly led to a deterioration in child socio-emotional well-being, and also strained relations between Jordanian neighbors and refugees. In all, housing subsidies had limited measurable benefits for refugee well-being while worsening social cohesion, highlighting the possible need for alternative forms of aid.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.