The Bottom Billion summary

We often hear the term “developing world” used to describe all countries that are not part of the international elite such as the United States or Western Europe. 

Yet, this simplistic way of thinking obscures the huge differences between the poverty faced by developing nations and the poverty of the very poorest nations.

Nothing wreaks more havoc on a country’s economy than war. The sheer cost of violent conflict – a staggering $64 billion on average – and the accompanying humanitarian crises that affect the entire region make war an extremely costly undertaking.

And unfortunately for the world’s poorest countries, they are far more likely to experience such ongoing, costly conflict than wealthier nations. In fact, an extremely poor country stands a depressing 1/6 chance of falling into a conflict over a five-year period.

Although we might intuitively think that additional revenue, especially from a much in-demand resource such as oil or diamonds, could only help a country to achieve economic self-determination, the reality is considerably more complicated – not to mention depressing.

In fact, discovering high-value natural resources can actually damage a country, both economically and politically. 

In this global marketplace, economies are closely connected to each other, and the success of one country flows over the borders of its neighbors. This is especially true for landlocked countries; for example, if a country’s growth increases by 1 percent, then on average its landlocked neighbors’ economies grow by 0.7 percent.

These, however, are global statistics; they don’t reflect the realities for the world’s poorest nations. These nations enjoy only a 0.2 percent growth for every 1 percent gained by their neighbors.

Systems of checks and balances, governmental transparency and fair elections are standards for functioning democracies, partly because they put limits on the ways government corruption can affect societies.

But in some societies, these checks and balances do not exist – and the opportunity for government corruption is very high.

Money that is given by wealthier governments to poorer nations, with the aim to ease economic or humanitarian crises, is called financial aid. It is the largest form of assistance for the world’s poorest nations. 

However, despite its popularity, it is not always the best way to transfer wealth from wealthy to poor countries.

The reason for deploying international peacekeeping forces is not necessarily to defeat an opposing army; the mere presence of a committed foreign military could help to bring peace by preventing conflict from resuming.

This is because foreign militaries act as an independent and neutral source of power, which makes warring parties think twice about reinitiating violence. 

Because the wealthy Western nations tend to be the most economically powerful, they are the ones who establish the norms that the rest of the world must adhere to in order to trade with them.

This immense power gives wealthy countries the opportunity to play a decisive role helping the poorest regions to rise out of poverty. 

The main message in this book:

The world’s poorest population – the one billion people trapped in economic turmoil – are at risk of being permanently left behind in terms of development. Economic stagnation, coupled with specific economic “traps,” cause the disparity of wealth between the world’s poorest countries and developing countries to widen.