Lack of Opportunities Bleed Poverty- World Bank

The World Bank has attributed the high level of poverty in developing countries to disparities in opportunities to help people ascend economic ladder.

The World Bank in its ‘Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World’ report released today said generations of poor people in developing countries are trapped in a cycle of poverty determined by their circumstance at birth and unable to ascend the economic ladder.

Mobility has stalled for the last 30 years, says the report, which tracks economic mobility between parents and their children through the prism of education, a critical asset that influences an individual’s lifetime earnings.

“It looks at people born between 1940 and 1980, and finds that 46 out of 50 countries with the lowest rates of mobility from the bottom to the top are in the developing world,” reads the port in part.

The report further states that gender gaps, however, are closing with girls in high-income countries now out-performing boys in tertiary education and catching up in the developing world.

“In the not too distant future, the share of girls with more education than their parents will exceed the equivalent share for boys globally.”

The report comes days after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that sub-Saharan Africa is set to enjoy a modest growth uptick in 2018 but has indicated that decisive policies are needed to both reduce vulnerabilities and raise medium-term growth prospects.

Malawi is ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world whose people live below a US$1 a day.