Experimental Blog # 196

Quotations and comments from "The Great Surge" - The Ascent of the Developing World by Steven Radelet

"In 1993 almost 2 billion people around the world lived in extreme poverty < > Then, for the first time in history, the number began to fall < > in just eighteen years the number was cut by almost half: by 2011, it was down to just over 1 billion < > The proportion of the population of developing countries < > in extreme poverty {was} 42 percent in 1993 to < > 17 percent in 2011."
"In 1983 seventeen developing countries were democracies; by 2013, the number had more than tripled to fifty-six ..."

"The unprecedented progress in the world's poorest countries is ultimately good for the richest countries, and for the whole world."
" ... development helps spread and deepen shared values of openness, prosperity, and freedom."

"China accounts for about 60 percent of the decline in extreme poverty between 1993 and 2011, or about 560 million of the < > 955 million people. What about the other 395 million?" "In India, the number of extreme poor peaked in 2002 at 476 million; nine years later{!}, it had fallen < > to 300 million." The author lists about 33 other countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe that make up the rest of the decline in extreme world poverty.

"...the end of the Cold War meant the fall of dozens of dictators - on both the right and the left < > and new economic opportunities in dozens of developing countries around the world."
"Communism, totalitarianism, and strong forms of state control lost credibility."

The author emphasizes how important government and foreign aid, properly given, in education, infrastructure, and health care are vital to the economic development of the whole country.