Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Urban Poverty Part II

Yesterday, I discussed how Economists at the World Bank are trying to track poverty numbers in urban areas. Poverty in the developing world is increasing in urban areas, but what can be done about it. This report on urban poverty put together by the UN Economic and Social Commission of Asia and The South Pacific provides an excellent framework for the discussion. As they point out much of the poor in urban areas are involved with informal sector work. In order to move them out of poverty the country must work to provide access to credit so that small informal sector businesses can grow. There needs to be well distributed information on how to do this along with a well functioning system of property rights. All of these changes are not easy (if they were wouldn’t have a problem).

These last two updates were geared toward my Economic Development students to help them write papers on key problems with urbanization in a country of their choice.

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