Assault on world poverty: problems of rural development, education and health

Among our century's most urgent problems is the wholly unacceptable poverty that blights the lives of some 2,000 million people in the more than 100 countries of the developing world. Of these 2,000 million, nearly 800 million are caught up in what can only be termed absolute poverty-a condition of life so limited as to prevent realization of the potential of the genes with which they were born; a condition of life so degrading as to be an insult to human dignity. The collection of papers in this volume, while dealing with five related subjects, share a common theme. They seek to analyze the causes of that poverty, to examine ways in which it can be alleviated, and to outline programs in which the World Bank plans to help.
These sector policy papers reflect a sobering fact: that although there has been encouraging economic growth in most of the developing countries over the past three decades, a very large proportion of their people have not shared in its benefits. On average, the poorest 40% of their societies is not much better off than it was.