I am not holding my breath on this…

Since its inception, the bank has talked about reducing poverty. But for more than 15 years it has focused on market reform policies, offering loans to countries that promised to lift trade barriers, deregulate and privatize industry, and adopt austerity plans to stop deficit spending and reduce inflation. These reforms, which became known as the Washington Consensus, were supposed to unleash the economic potential of developing countries and spur growth. Growth, in turn, was to create opportunity for the destitute and lift them out of poverty.

Many Latin American countries took the loans and adopted the reforms, but they did not have the intended consequences. Latin America’s performance has been disappointing, particularly in comparison with the dynamic economic growth and poverty reduction in Asian countries. The region now has “the highest measures of inequality in the world,” with one-quarter of the population living on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

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