The final push to end extreme poverty

A street vendor waits for customers as she sells chicken outside her makeshift shelter at a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad March 10, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

The year 2015 is the most important for global development in recent memory. In July, world leaders will gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss how to finance development priorities in the years ahead. In September, heads of state meet at the United Nations to establish the Sustainable Development Goals - a group of targets and goals set for 2030. And in December, countries will gather in Paris to work out an agreement on climate change.

This year has also seen the emergence of a major new player in development - the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank led by China, with more than 50 countries and regions signing on as members. With the right environment, labor and procurement standards, the AIIB, and the New Development Bank established by BRICS countries, can become great new forces in the economic development of poor countries and emerging markets.

We hope these new institutions will join the world's multilateral development banks and our private sector partners on a shared mission to promote economic growth that helps the poorest.

The decisions we make this year and the alliances we form in the years ahead will help determine whether we have a chance to end extreme poverty by 2030, the central goal of the World Bank Group.

The good news is that the world has made substantial progress already. Over the past 25 years, we've gone from nearly 2 billion people living in extreme poverty to less than 1 billion. But that means we still have nearly 1 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.

We know it's possible to end extreme poverty in the next 15 years, in part because of the past success, and because we have learned from years of experience about what has worked and what has not. As a result, our advice to governments has evolved over time. Our strategy to end extreme poverty can be summed up in just three words: Grow, invest and insure.

First, the world economy needs to grow faster, and grow more sustainably. It needs to grow in a way that ensures that the poor receive a greater share of the benefits of that growth. We can reach the end of extreme poverty only if we mark a path toward a more robust and inclusive growth that is unparalleled in modern times.

The World Bank Group will continue to support governments and make investments in a broad variety of areas in the fight against extreme poverty. In most of the developing world, though, efforts to end extreme poverty will require us to focus on boosting agricultural productivity.

Helping farmers improve yields requires increasing access to better seeds, water, electricity and markets. According to one study in Bangladesh, six years after constructing 3,000 kilometers of roads to connect communities to markets, household incomes increased by an average of 74 percent.

That's the growth part of the strategy. The second part of the strategy is to invest - and by that, I mean investing in people, especially through education and health. The opportunity to get children off to the right start happens just once. Investments made in children early in life bring far greater returns than those made later on. Poor nutrition and disease can have life-long implications for mental and physical health, educational achievement, and adult earnings.

The final part of the strategy is to insure. This means that governments must provide social safety nets as well as build systems to protect against disasters and the rapid spread of disease.

Ebola revealed the shortcomings of international and national systems to prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. Ebola also taught us that the poor are likely to suffer the most from pandemics.

The World Bank Group has been working with partners on a new concept that would provide much needed rapid response financing in the face of an outbreak, where countries would receive rapid disbursements of funding, which would, in turn, help contain outbreaks, save lives, and protect economies.

We know that ending extreme poverty will be extraordinarily difficult - in fact, the closer we get to our goal, the more difficult it will be.

Governments of the world must seize this moment. Our private sector partners must step up. The World Bank Group, our multilateral development bank partners and our new partners on the horizon must all seize this moment. We must now collaborate with real conviction and distinguish our generation as the one that ended poverty.

We are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty. This is our great challenge, and our great opportunity. The final push must begin right now.

The author is president of the World Bank Group.