PRIA, Government Policy, Made Personal

Summary

Tell the Treasury Secretary to tell the U.S. representative at the World Bank and the International Development Association to make it an immediate priority to help countries that borrow money build and keep up statistics that show how the poorest 40% of their people are doing. The statistics must report by sex and age and use measures like death rates, health, schooling, nutrition, wealth, and income. The data should be maintained and published regularly. Congress says measuring the poorest 40% is essential to fight extreme poverty. It notes that useful international indicators exist but some poor countries lack basic data. The World Bank and IDA have the money and skills to help, and this data also helps donors and the banks track the effects of loans and programs.

Title 22, §262p–4f

Foreign Relations and Intercourse, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Congress finds that—

(1)improvement in the capacity of developing countries to measure and monitor regularly the nutritional and physical well-being of the poorest 40 percent of the population of each of such countries is essential to the development of policies to reduce absolute poverty;

(2)internationally accepted statistical indicators that measure reliably the extent of absolute poverty and identify the location and characteristics of the poor are being developed and refined to guide policy formulation and target assistance to the poor;

(3)such guidance by indicators is, however, not able to be used in some developing countries, especially the poorest countries, due to the woeful unavailability of statistical data;

(4)the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association have the technical and financial capability to assist borrowing country governments to develop such statistical measurement capabilities for social indicators necessary for the design and monitoring of poverty-reduction policies for such governments;

(5)availability of social indicator data is also essential to the work of such institutions, particularly in monitoring the impact of structural adjustment lending on the poor; and

(6)availability of such indicators will also facilitate the measurement of progress in the alleviation of poverty by other donor agencies, public and private.

(b)The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association to advocate and support, as an immediate priority, assistance by such institutions to borrowing country governments to develop appropriate statistical measures for assessing the physical well-being of the poor, by sex and age, by using such indicators as mortality, health, education, and nutrition, as well as wealth and income, and maintain and publish such indicators on an ongoing basis.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification section 1611 of Pub. L. 95–118 is based on section 11 of H.R. 4645, One Hundredth Congress, as reported Sept. 28, 1988, and enacted into law by Pub. L. 100–461.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Definitions The definitions in section 262p–5 of this title apply to this section.

§262p–4f Assistance to Countries to Develop Statistical Assessment of Well-being of Poor

Summary

Title 22, §262p–4f

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Citations & Metadata