15 - 21 February 2001
Issue No.521
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 15 - 21 February 2001 Issue No.521 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Attacking poverty
Issued once a decade by the World Bank, the report for 2000/2001 titled Attacking Poverty, suggests that the economic reform programmes implemented in developing countries have increased poverty rather than decreased it. To rectify this situation, according to the report, both social and institutional changes are needed to enable lower income groups to benefit from reform.
During the ECES discussion, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Ahmed El-Darsh highlighted the role of the Social Fund for Development (SFD) which was established in the early 1990s to "handle the distortion and ease the impact of reform" by providing employment, through small and medium enterprise schemes. Referring to criticism suggesting that the SFD should be more effective, El-Darsh said, "The government is keen to improve the performance of the SFD and to deal with its negative aspects."
Heba Handoussa, the director of another economic think tank, the Economic Research Forum, expressed reservations about whether the SFD is the appropriate mechanism through which lower income groups can resolve the multitude of problems they face due to the application of economic reform.
Handoussa argued that in this respect the World Bank should play a greater role as coordinator between international donors and the developing countries. This would be done, she added, by adopting a comprehensive strategy by which assets from some of the 20 richest countries would be transferred to the 20 poorest countries.
The need for the SFD to be administered more efficiently was raised by John Page, director of the poverty reduction and economic management network at the World Bank. While the SFD has been successful in attracting foreign grants, it should, according to Page, be more closely supervised and assessed by the government on an ongoing basis so as to ensure that it is achieving the purpose for which it was established.
Ahmed Galal, ECES executive director, was critical of what he described as the general nature of recommendations issued by the World Bank. Instead, said Galal, the bank should provide specific "recipes" which developing countries can modify, utilising the experience of other countries which have already undertaken economic reforms.
Galal said he believed that in order to overcome the negative impact of economic reform in Egypt and alleviate poverty, job opportunities need to be created, domestic savings should be increased to reach 25 per cent of individual income and the financial sector should be reformed. Also of great importance, said Galal, is the implementation of an export regime that would increase exports rather than impede them as is currently the case.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page