Last updated on October 30, 2011
That’s the title of a new paper in World Development by Andy Sumner, a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex. Here is the abstract:
This paper argues that the distribution of global poverty has changed and that most of the world’s poor no longer live in countries officially classified as low-income countries (LICs). It is estimated that the majority of the world’s poor, or up to a billion people, live in middle-income countries (MICs). This pattern is largely as a result of the recent graduation into the MIC category of a number of populous countries. The paper discusses the trends in the distribution of global poverty, and opens a wider discussion on the potential implications for aid and development cooperation.
This new paper looks like it is the published version of a Center for Global Development working paper published in October 2010 titled “The New Bottom Billion,” which is a play on the title of Paul Collier’s book The Bottom Billion.
To listen to an IDS podcast featuring both Andy Sumner and Paul Collier, who disagrees with Andy’s conclusion, click here. To follow Andy on Twitter, click here.