Poverty reduction needs both aid and trade.

摘要

2005 was the year poverty reduction became fashionable. Popstars, political figures, and swathes of the charity-giving public all bought into the belief that poverty worldwide could be consigned to history. But last week's annual update of the Commitment to Development Index (CDI)-a composite score for rich countries tracking their commitment to combating poverty by analysing the numerous ways in which government policies can affect poor nations-suggests that actual achievements do not match politicians' new enthusiasm.In fact, according to the CDI, seven rich countries-Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Denmark-have all adopted policy changes that amount to going backwards in their anti-poverty commitments during the past 3 years. These results are intriguing because they come at a time when development aid is steadily climbing: it rose by 31-4% to USdollar106-5 billion in 2005. More curious is that two of the countries with negative progress in the CDI list have achieved aid budgets of 0-7% GDP, the target amountagreed upon by world leaders at the Monterrey Financing for Development Conference in 2002. So if aid is going up, why aren't poor countries benefiting?