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SECTION 1 2 3
EXTREME INEQUALITY
There is also strong evidence that the national distribution of income has
a significant impact on other poverty outcomes. Measured on the scale of
average income, both Bangladesh and Nigeria are low-income countries.
Bangladesh is the poorer of the two, 176 but the distribution of income is far
more equal than in Nigeria. The difference in development outcomes speak
for themselves:
• Child mortality rates in Nigeria are nearly three times higher than those
in Bangladesh. 177
• While Bangladesh has achieved universal primary education and eliminated
gender gaps in school attendance up to lower-secondary school levels,
over one-third of Nigeria’s primary school-age children are out of school. 178
In many countries progress on development outcomes has been much
quicker for the wealthier sections of society, and averages have obscured the
widening gap between the rich and poor. In Uganda, for instance, under-five
mortality among the top 20 percent has halved, but for the bottom 20 percent
it has only fallen by a fifth over the same period. In other countries, such as
Niger, progress has been more even, showing that different paths to progress
are possible. 179
FIGURE 4: Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births) in Uganda (2000‐2011) 180
Under-5 mortality rate (per 1000 live births)
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
147.8
159.5
71.1
124
2000
2011
Richest 20% Poorest 20%
EXTREME INEQUALITY UNDERMINES GROWTH
For decades the majority of development economists and policy makers
maintained that inequality had little or no impact on a country’s growth
prospects. This was based on the understanding that inequality inevitably
accompanies the early stages of economic growth, but that it would be
short-lived, as growth would gradually ‘trickle down’ through the layers of
society, from the richest to the poorest. 181 A mass of more recent evidence has
overwhelmingly refuted this assumption and shown that extremes of inequality
are, in fact, bad for growth. 182
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