A recent post on the World Bank’s blog highlights some of the triggers of the current humanitarian crisis of refugees, the causes and the solutions are offered in this insightful article by ebbf member World Bank’s Director of Indicators Group Augusto Lopez-Claros. “This phenomenon, of widening income gaps in the future notwithstanding the presence of higher growth rates in the poor countries today is what Homer-Dixon (p. 189) calls “the dirty little secret of development economics.”
“Collier argues that economic development is very much about giving ordinary people the hope that, at some point in the not too distant future, their children will have access to the same opportunities available to children in Germany and Sweden and other rich countries. The notion of convergence … will gradually see in the developing world the unfoldment of the policies and institutions that have propelled the rich countries to levels of wealth and prosperity never before reached in the last several thousand years of recorded history. In the absence of that hope, smart, motivated people will seek to escape from their societies and try to look for those opportunities elsewhere.
This creates a huge challenge for the recipient countries if the numbers are large enough to put strains on rich country budgets and infrastructures and it can deprive the sending countries of essential human capital. Hence the central importance of a focus on shared prosperity; it matters not only for development outcomes, but it also clearly has a security and political dimension that goes far beyond a narrowing of income differentials.”