Last week I attended a fantastic conference that the Lowy Institute organised on innovative approaches to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was a bit of a star studded line up with a terrific array of development practitioners from civil society, government, the UN and the World Bank.
For me the most interesting question was raised in the first panel. The question concerned the links between economic growth and human development. This produced a diverse range of opinions, as you’d expect.
The World Bank’s view was that robust and sustainable economic growth is the primary driver of human development. At the same time, the Bank acknowledged that inequality is the biggest constraint to achieving the MDGs in the region. That all sounds a bit confused to me so maybe we need to talk some more with them about that.
