The problem is a certain amount of poverty is good for business
World Bank Meeting to Focus on Poverty
By ELIZABETH BECKER
WASHINGTON, April 23 - With the global economic outlook improving, the top economists at the World Bank said the focus of their annual meetings this weekend would be further reducing poverty.
To that end, they will try to persuade wealthy nations to drastically increase their aid to developing nations and bolster programs to halt the spread of AIDS and improve education in poor countries.
Officials of the bank, who are meeting at the same time as officials of the International Monetary Fund, will also wrestle with the Bush administration's desire to see the World Bank and other United Nations affiliates do more to smooth Iraq's transition to a sovereign government. While the handover of power is scheduled for the end of June, the World Bank's president, James D. Wolfensohn, says the bank and other institutions cannot do much more for Iraq until its dangerous security situation improves.
…Using data from the United Nations and the World Bank, Oxfam calculated that seven million cases of H.I.V. could be prevented in the next decade if all children in the world received a complete primary education.
"We knew there was a correlation between the level of education and prevalence rates, but we had no idea how important education was to any prevention program," said Max Lawson, a consultant for Oxfam who helped write the report.
The World Bank has an "Education for All" fast-track program aimed at getting wealthy nations to finance programs that will allow poorer countries to offer primary education for their citizens.
But Mr. Wolfensohn said he was "quite embarrassed" that many wealthy countries had refused to donate more money despite what he said were programs developed in some poor countries that are "very good plans that are well-integrated and well-supported."
