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World Bank denies report on Malawi's global poverty position

Xinhua, February 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

The World Bank Tuesday denied having published a report which ranked Malawi as the poorest country in the world in 2015 as media reported recently.

The media articles alleged statistics quoted from a latest World Bank report pegged Malawi at the top of poverty scale in the world and the news sparked a heated debate among local and international commentators.

But the Bank said in a statement it was not responsible for the quoted statistics and described the report as erroneous.

"The press articles refer to a report allegedly published by the World Bank which has ranked Malawi as the poorest country in the world in 2015; the World Bank has not published such a report, " said the statement.

The statement said the statistics being published erroneously labeled the figures as GDP per capita (Purchasing Power Parity) when in fact they were GDP per capita (Current USD), adding that in quoting the data, press reports often confused GDP per capita in current USD with GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Parity terms.

World Bank releases World Development Indicators (WDI), which among other data sources include statistics on Gross Domestic Production (GDP) per capita for all countries and, according to the statement; the latest WDI available is for 2014 presenting 2013 data.

The Bank added that the intention of WDI was not to rank but to provide a compilation of relevant, high quality, and internationally comparable statistics about global development and the fight against poverty.

"The purpose of publishing GDP per capita is not to measure poverty but levels of income per capita," explains the Bank in its release. "Comparisons of living standards across countries are best made using both monetary and non-monetary parameters such as Human Development Indicators and Multidimensional Poverty Index."

The Bank added that in PPP terms, although Malawi had a low GDP per capita in 2013, it was comparatively not the lowest in the world.

Meanwhile, the government of Malawi Wednesday described the ' false' report on Malawi as "very frustrating" and appealed to the media in the country and beyond the borders to adopt the principle of balancing and verifying in their reporting. Endi