Institute of Development Studies

The New Bottom Billion

22 October 2010

On Wednesday the 27th October, Andy Sumner will tell parliamentarians, NGOs, journalists and development experts, gathered at an IDS event in Westminster, that the nature of global poverty has changed and that they must urgently consider whether the MDGs are fit for purpose to 2015 and beyond.

Andy Sumner's new research, Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion, says that popular understandings of global poverty are based on the false premise that poor people all live in poor countries. In fact, three quarters of the world's 1.3bn or so poor people live in middle income countries such as India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Andy Sumner, a member of IDS' Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team, said:

"In the past poor people lived in poor countries but now there's around 950m poor people, or a new bottom billion, who live in middle income countries. Only about a quarter of the world's poor - about 370mn people or so - live in the remaining 39 low-income countries, which are largely in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a dramatic change from just two decades ago when 93% of poor people lived in low-income countries. This change has major implications for both the achievement of the MDGs and global strategies for poverty reduction beyond 2015."

Next week, those gathered at IDS' event in Westminster, will be told that in the past chronic poverty has been viewed as predominantly a low income country issue. Now though, claims Sumner, such assumptions are misleading because of a number of large countries with millions of poor people in them that have graduated into the middle income World Bank category.

He will say that Paul Collier's approach, in his hugely influential Bottom Billion published in 2007, overlooks close to 70% of the poor people in the world.

The new IDS In Focus Policy Briefing published today summarises Andy Sumner's findings and provides a set of policy implications. It says that a new focus on relative poverty should shape the aid agenda. Aid should be tailored to LICS and MICs so that poverty is targeted wherever it occurs. And a mechanism is needed that shares financial responsibility between richer and poorer countries.

Dangerous Ideas in Development 'Beyond the MDG Summit' will take place on Wednesday 27 September. Places are limited.

Related Events

Dangerous Ideas in Development 'Beyond the MDG Summit: What Next for Global Poverty Reduction?'

Dates: 27 Oct 2010

Related Publications

• Sumner, A. (2011) 'The New Bottom Billion: What If Most of the World’s Poor Live in Middle-Income Countries?', Centre for Global Development (CGD) Policy Brief , Washington, DC: CGD
• Sumner, A. (2011) 'Where do the Poor Live? An Update' , Brighton: IDS
• Kanbur, R. and Sumner, A. (2011) 'Poor Countries or Poor People? Development Assistance and the New Geography of Global Poverty', Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management Working Paper , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
• Sumner, A. (2010) 'Global poverty and the new bottom billion: Three-quarters of the World’s poor live in middle-income countries' , Brighton: IDS
• Sumner, A. (2010) 'The New Bottom Billion and the MDGs – A Plan of Action', IDS In Focus Policy Briefing 16.1, Brighton: IDS
• Sumner, A. (2010) 'Global Poverty And The ‘New Bottom Billion’: What If Three-Quarters Of The World’s Poor Live In Middle-Income Countries?', IDS Research Summary of IDS Working Paper 349, Brighton: IDS
• Sumner, A. (2010) 'Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: Three-quarters of the World's Poor Live in Middle-income Countries', IDS Working Paper 349, Brighton: IDS