Learning Lessons: Sharpening the Operational Focus on Inclusive Growth

Abstract

Reducing poverty is a universal goal. But countries are also finding that it is not enough to reduce poverty, and that growing inequality—of opportunities and in outcomes—can make growth socially and politically unsustainable. In the face of increasingly tight resource constraints, it is becoming harder to maintain high growth rates unless it is environmentally and socially sustainable, and it originates broadly, from across the human resource base. In Asia, there is heightened interest in the inclusiveness of the growth process. But that interest needs to be matched by a sharper operational focus—in countries and at the Asian Development Bank—on how better results can be promoted.