The World Bank has stated that economic growth in India has not generated more inequality in the country but criticised developed countries for their slow response in financing the poor nations.According to the chief economist of the World Bank Francois Bourguignon “growth did not generate more inequality (in India).” Bourguignon was addressing a seminar on ‘The poverty-growth-inequality triangle’, organised by ICRIER. He said poverty reduction was possible through reducing inequality.About the developed world, he said, “we didn’t see official development assistance increase as it should be” despite commitment made by the rich countries.Elaborating on the triangle, Bourguignon said there was “an arithematical relationship between the distribution and distributional changes and aggregate income level and growth with the absolute poverty and poverty reduction.”Rapid elimination of absolute poverty was a “meaningful” goal for development and called for strongly country-specific combinations of growth and distribution policies, he said.Poverty reduction in a country was determined by the rate of growth of the mean income of the population and the change in the distribution of income, the bank official said.“The real challenge to establish a development strategy for reducing poverty lies in the interactions between the distribution and growth and not in the relationship between poverty and the growth on one hand and poverty and inequality on the other,” he added.
