World Bank disowns Malawi ‘poverty’ report
The World Bank yesterday moved in to clarify that it has not published any report indicating that Malawi is the poorest country in the world in 2015 in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.
The clarification comes in the wake on an online report purported to have come from the bank, which indicated that Malawi’s GDP per capita is at $226.50—the worst in the world.
In a statement released yesterday, the World Bank country office said in the event of any ranking, the Bretton Wood institution would provide an explanation.
“Annually, the World Bank publishes the World Development Indicators [WDI], which among other data sources, includes statistics on GDP per capita for all countries. The latest WDI report is for 2014 and it presents data available in 2013,” said the statement.
The bank further said the intention of WDI is not to rank, but to provide a compilation of relevant, high-quality and internationally comparable statistics about global development and the fight against poverty.
It said the purpose of publishing GDP per capita figures is not to measure poverty but levels of income per capita.
“Comparisons of living standards across countries are best made using both monetary and non-monetary parameters such as Human Development Indicators and the Multidimensional Poverty Index,” said the statement.
The bank further said in quoting the data, press reports confuse GDP per capita in current United States dollars with GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms.
Stop being in denial. It makes no difference whether the world bank changes the position of our country on the poverty chart. We still are and remains to be the poorest and scam of the earth. This government continues to try and justify the position our country is in. The fact still remains the same. The country is in economic shambles , economic quagmire that the administration has no clue how to get out of. APM continues to beg the donors like a bitch without supper. How pathetic! Malawi continues to be one of the most corrupt country on the continent and Muthalika has made sure that we do not change as he maintains status quo. I wonder if APM is going to ask IMF to change that. This administration can not continue to blame JB for the state of our economy. APM administration has done absolutely nothing to ease the pain Majority of us are feeling. The drop of fuel prices is a world phenomenon that can not be attributed to APM economic policies. This administration is clue less. It continues the corruption status quo. It is not accountable and continues to lie to Malawians. Sadly it is not JB who is behind the wheel of this sinking ship!!!