The Research of the World Bank and United Nations Facing Poverty Issues: The Assistance to China

This thesis is to research how International Organizations face poverty issues during post-cold war era. Poverty Issues has been closed up in the international agenda since 1990s. World Bank and United Nations are the main actors leading the tendency of poverty reduction, so the thesis chooses the two above as the research target. The aim of the research is to clear what poverty is, and to show how the concept and measurement of poverty, and poverty reduction strategies has been changed, with the comparison of the poverty reduction strategies they took every decade. he structure of the thesis has six parts. Firstly explain the research methods and review the articles concerning Poverty Issues in chapter 1. In chapter 2, compare the strategies between the two during cold war, in order to show World Bank had the strong influence on international development and poverty concept was mostly explained by economic aspect. In chapter 3, compare the strategies during 1990s. It shows that not only World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also became the leading actors with Human Development, a new concept protesting comprehensive definition of poverty. World Bank adjusted the strategy in 1980s and the strategies the two organizations took were getting similar in the end of 1990s. In chapter 4, compare the strategies after 2000. It shows World Bank and United Nations cooperate to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) till 2015, targeting on Poverty Reduction. World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper (PRSP) becomes the abstract strategy to realize the MDGs.United Nations predicted over 50 countries is difficult to reach the MDGs, and made the progress report of MDGs in every country, so analyze China’s situation concerning MDGs in Chapter 5, as the case study. Both organizations evaluated China succeeded to reduce poverty owe to rapid economic growth, the progress of MDGs in China is very well in general, but there are some goals China possibly may not reach, such as HIV/AIDS, gender inequality, drinking water and environment. Chapter 6 is conclusion.