JICA-RI Co-Hosts a Book Launch for "Last Mile in Ending Extreme Poverty" with the Brookings Institution

Three ingredients are important to end global poverty by 2030: peace, jobs and resilience, JICA Vice President Hiroshi Kato said in a panel discussion July 23, 2015, in Washington, D.C.

Chandy and Kato served on the panel moderated by Kharas, along with Raj Desai, associate professor of International Development, Georgetown University and nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, and Ana Revenga, senior director, Poverty Global Practice at the World Bank.

Kato began by saying that while current trends in poverty reduction make the goal appear achievable by 2030, simply extrapolating from past trends can be problematic. In the past strides made by large countries such as China and India have masked a lack of progress or even regression by other countries, primarily in Africa. But traversing "the last mile" will be difficult because "countries will find it harder to find ways to reduce poverty and the marginal cost of reducing poverty will increase as the absolute level of poverty declines over time."

Kharas asked Desai, a political scientist, whether new political alliances will be necessary to ending poverty. Desai responded that politics will be key, and that to reduce poverty emphasis must be placed on social cohesion.

"We need to reduce targeted preferences so that the medium-level segments of society perceive more benefits to social spending. We need social protection systems that are based more on contributory mechanisms rather than on mere redistribution of wealth," he said.

Moderator Kharas noted that Japan has enjoyed low levels of inequality and asked Kato to comment. Kato said balanced investment in rural and urban areas has been a key to equality in Japan and may be useful in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere.

"Maybe we see a huge underinvestment in agriculture in Africa, and especially in rural areas, which is resulting in the massive extreme poverty in the rural areas, and also pushing the food prices in those countries up, which, again, resulting in the diminished wage competitiveness controversy in those countries," he said.

After the main discussion, a question and answer session was held. The floor with about 140 participants covered various issues on polices such as disabilities, climate change, population, education, etc.

Another member of the audience, said science and technology in Africa have been widely neglected. He noted that innovation in science and technology has been part of the success of most developed countries, and argued that "without the same type of emphasis on science and technology, Africa will remain poor." Then he asked panelists for their thoughts.

Kato said there is a need for an emphasis on science and technology, but that must be paired with an emphasis on job opportunities.