On Wednesday, October 9, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said that the organization must seek to halve extreme poverty within the next seven years.

Although progress has been made in the past 20 years, further progress could be more difficult to accomplish. Most of the success in the reduction of poverty has been focused specifically in China, where regions such as South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa remain struggling. The World Bank has provided research showing that if developing countries exhibit historical growth rates for the next 20 years, global poverty would only fall to 8 percent by 2030.

In April, Kim set a goal to lessen the number of people in the world living on $1.25 a day from 18 percent to 3 percent by 2030. However, in an interview with CNN, he said that this figure would have to shrink to 9 percent by 2020 in order for the World Bank to stay on track. He takes full responsibility for setting this target.

To accomplish these ambitious goals, Kim claims that the bank is shaking up its procedures. He claimed that the bank would make $400 million in cuts to its administrative budget as it aims to be both more effective and dexterous. It plans to bring its disparate branches together in development projects that can have the greatest impact while also remaining valuable to middle-income countries. Kim said the reorganization should be finished by the bank’s next fiscal year, which starts in July 2014.

– Sonia Aviv

Sources: GMA News, Reuters, Huffington Post
Photo: NY Times