BOOK REVIEW ON THE BOTTOM BILLION: WHY THE POOREST COUNTRIES ARE FAILING AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT

Written by Paul Collier, the book was published in 2007. Collier is an Oxford graduate and worked as the Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at the same university. He is also the former director of World Bank

The book overlay critical viewpoint about countries that lie at the bottom of the global economic system and put forwards a range of reasons behind their failure to grow. It also suggests in detail on how developed countries can respond to such failures.

Heading towards the 'Black hole', according to the author, are those 980 million people, referred to as 'the bottom billion', who are living in 'trapped countries'. Out of the total, seventy percent lives in Africa making the region more impoverished. The writer argues that these bottom billion, living in 58 different nations, are living in such a trap that is not just pulling themselves but can even bring in serious consequences for the rest of the world. Therefore, the author identifies four traps namely: conflict trap, natural resource trap, landlocked with bad neighbors and bad governance.
Similarly, focus is also made on the issue of globalization showing how the economy of the bottom billion is being affected by the trade, migration and capital. In addition, in the later part of the book, the writer put forwards 'instruments' that can help the bottom billion come out of the vicious. In short, these instruments as referred in the book are aid, military intervention, country laws, charters and trade policy. Having all said, the cream of the book is on the agenda for action towards breaking the growth traps.

The End of Poverty How can we make it happen in our lifetime By Jeffrey Sachs

 

Jeffrey Sachs, the author of ‘The End of Poverty’, worked as the Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and as the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He served as economic advisor to countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has made relentless contribution to Millennium development Goals (MDG) and poverty reduction. 

 

The book is an attempt to suggest how the world can get rid of the cases of extreme poverty situations. The writer is not forecasting what will happen; rather he is suggesting what can happen. He believes that our generation holds the capacity to eliminate the extreme poverty in next twenty years. The capacity we have- in terms of wealth of the rich world and the power of knowledge- and through collective decisions- can provide promising ways to fight poverty and shape our future. His insight, conviction and argument-presented in this book- are based on his field experiences over hundred nations with around ninety per cent of the world population.

The book begins with an overview of the distribution of world’s poor by region. The distribution is based on the degrees of poverty- mainly extreme poverty (below $1 per day) and moderate poverty (between $1 per day and $2 per day) - and it shows the situation in 2001. Out of 1.1 billion poor people, 93 per cent live in three regions, East Asia, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1981, the number has increased in case of Africa (almost half of the population already in extreme poverty), but has comparatively decreased in East Asia and South Asia (with an advancement of Information Technology and globalization).

However, the tragedy, Sachs says, is that one sixth of the world population is extremely poor and this portion lives mostly in regions where countries like Malawi, Bangladesh, India and China belong. Therefore, the biggest challenge is to get this one-sixth out of the poverty trap, ensure the one-sixth with basic needs, health, education and nutrition, and to lift them up to the ladder of development. Before this, it is necessary, Sachs says, to understand ‘how we got to where we are’.

Sachs portrays the historical overview of the spread of Economic prosperity with an aim to understand the vast inequality. Until 1800 A.D., poverty is seen among every one (universal poverty) except few rulers and landowners. But since 1800, the era of modern economic growth begins. Technological advancement accelerates the economic growth of Europe and US.  For instance: US per capita attain twenty-five-fold increase ($1200 to $30,000) at an annual growth rate of around 1.7 per cent per year. While the average per capita income of Africa increases by three-fold ($ 400 to $1300) during the time frame of 1820 to 2000 at an annual growth rate of 0.7 per cent per annum.

The primary reason behind uneven growth, according to Sachs, is “the richer countries were able to achieve two centuries of modern economic growth. The poorest did not even begin their economic growth until decades later, and then often under tremendous obstacles”. However, there are many other problems in the complex system of economic growth. Some of these are the Poverty trap, physical geography, fiscal trap, governance failures, cultural barriers, geopolitics, poor Economic policy framework, Lack of innovation and the demographic trap. Nonetheless, there are practical solutions to these problems which can be achieved, but Sachs suggests, it needs, ‘a good action plan with a good differential diagnosis of the specific factors that have shaped the economic conditions of a nation’. He emphasizes the failure of Structural Adjustment Policies-the narrow approach led by IMF and World Bank- is the main reason for putting the development practice in the wrong direction. Therefore, Sachs proposes ‘Clinical Economics’ as a new diagnostic method for development economics that check-lists the complex system of economic growth and find the solution.