§ Lord Juddasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they accept the methodology employed by the World Bank to calculate how many of the world's people are living below the poverty line; what independent studies they have made of the advantages and disadvantages of (a) the rich and (b) the poor in developing countries where neo-liberal policies including privatisation, deregulation and reductions in social spending are being given priority; and what was the conclusion of any such studies. [HL2754]
§ Baroness Amos:DfID uses and quotes the World Bank international absolute poverty figures as its main source of internationally comparable poverty data.
These estimates are widely recognised and used and form the agreed basis for monitoring progress towards the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people in the world living on less than 1 dollar per day. We consider them to be the best available, regularly updated, estimates at the current time and believe them to be reasonably accurate given the many constraints in estimating international poverty. However, it is recognised, as with all such estimates, that there are weaknesses in the data, primarily a result of the poor quality and availability of raw data in many developing countries.
DfID is aware of the importance of improving the data, not least to monitor more effectively progress towards reducing absolute poverty. We are currently supporting the bank's new International Comparisons Programme which will provide a better basis for price comparisons between countries and we expect this to result in large improvements to poverty line data by around 2005.
DfID works with partner governments to undertake studies of the distributional and poverty impacts of policy choices, with a particular focus on the poor and vulnerable; and to ensure that the findings of these studies are fed into policy processes. The aim of such studies, in particular, poverty and social impact analysis undertaken in advance of policy changes, are to improve the poverty focus of macro-economic and structural policy, and to support country ownership of reforms by informing national debate on reform design and make more explicit the trade-offs between policy choices. Findings from poverty and social impact analysis can be used to assess the appropriateness, timing and sequencing of reforms, and to design complementary and compensatory measures for implementation where appropriate.
We have commissioned a five-year Development Research Centre on Competition and Regulation, led 51WA by the University of Manchester, with research institutions in developing countries. It is investigating the policies needed, in a globalising world, to regulate firms and encourage competition in the interests of the poor. Details of the centre are available at www.idpm.man.ac.uk/crc