Eliminating Human Poverty: Macroeconomic and Social Policies for Equitable GrowthThis book focuses on the provision of basic social services - in particular, access to education, health and water supplies - as the central building blocks of any human development strategy. The authors concentrate on how these basic social services can be financed and delivered more effectively to achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. Their analysis, which departs from the dominant macro-economic paradigm, deploys the results of broad-ranging research they led at UNICEF and UNDP, investigating the record on basic social services of some 30 developing countries. In seeking to learn from these new data, they develop an analytical argument around two potential synergies: at the macro level, between poverty reduction, human development and economic growth, and at the micro level, between interventions to provide basic social services. Policymakers, they argue, can integrate macro-economic and social policy. Fiscal, monetary, and other macro-economic policies can be compatible with social sector requirements. They make the case that policymakers have more flexibility than is usually presented by orthodox writers and international financial institutions, and that if policymakers engaged in alternative macro-economic and growth-oriented policies, this could lead to the expansion of human capabilities and the fulfillment of human rights. This book explores some of these policy options. The book also argues that more than just additional aid is needed. Specific strategic shifts in the areas of aid policy, decentralized governance, health and education policy and the private-public mix in service provision are a prerequisite to achieve the goals of human development. The combination of governance reforms and fiscal and macro-economic policies outlined in this book can eliminate human poverty in the span of a generation. |
Contents
Introduction | |
Integrating macroeconomic and social policies to trigger synergies | |
Macroeconomic policies and institutions for propoor growth | |
The inadequacy of public spending on basic social services | |
PART Public expenditure on basic social services | |
The distribution of benefits of health and education spending | |
Policies to enhance efficiency and improve delivery in the public | |
Governance reforms to address the systemic problems of state | |
Promoting complementarity between public and private provision | |
Taxation and mobilization of additional resources for public social | |
The consistency between aid and trade policies and the Millennium | |
Conclusion | |
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achieved allocation average basic education basic health basic services basic social services benefits budget capability approach capital Chapter China costs Côte d’Ivoire debt decline developing countries Development Assistance Committee discussed donors economic growth effective efficiency enrolment ensure evidence external financing fiscal funds global health and education health services high-achieving countries higher households human development impact improve increase India industrial policy industrialized countries inequality institutions interventions investment labour Latin America low-income countries macroeconomic macroeconomic policies Madhya Pradesh Mehrotra Millennium Development Goals million mortality nutrition OECD outcomes poor population poverty reduction PPPs primary education private sector problems programmes PRSPs public expenditure public spending quintile rates reduce reforms revenue role rural areas share South Asia sub-Saharan Africa subsidies synergies teachers trade UNDP UNICEF University urban water and sanitation World Bank