science

The New Bottom Billion

The New Bottom Billion is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The New Bottom Billion rather than just read about it. In short: The New Bottom Billion refers to the 960 million or so poor people (approximately three-quarters of the world's poorest 1.3 billion people) who live in Middle Income Countries (MICs). Based on research in 2010 by Andy Sumner, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, the New Bottom Billion raises serious questions about Paul Collier’s original Bottom Billion thesis of 2007, particularly in relation…

Key takeaways

The New Bottom Billion belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The New Bottom Billion to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The New Bottom Billion from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The New Bottom Billion refers to the 960 million or so poor people (approximately three-quarters of the world's poorest 1.3 billion people) who live in Middle Income Countries (MICs). Based on research in 2010 by Andy Sumner, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, the New Bottom Billion raises serious questions about Paul Collier’s original Bottom Billion thesis of 2007, particularly in relation to its claims regarding the geographical distribution of global poverty. While Collier argued that the Bottom Billion are to be found in the poorest 60 or so economies, Sumner's research shows that the majority of the world's poor actually live in MICs such as China, India, Nigeria and Indonesia. The New Bottom Billion therefore suggests that poverty is not just a Low Income Country (LIC) problem, and that further policy discussions are called for. The New Bottom Billion has received significant coverage in a diverse range of independent sources, including The Economist, OECD Insights, and various third-party blogs (see External Links below).

Findings Among the key findings — which are based on official World Bank data and country classifications, and are also consistent across monetary, nutritional and multidimensional poverty measures (see for example the Multidimensional Poverty Index) — Sumner’s research shows that:

While MICs account for 960 million of the world's poorest 1.3 billion people, LICs account for just 370 million. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s poor live in stable MICs not affected by major violent conflict. Fragile LICs now account for just 12% of the world's poor. About 23 per cent of the world’s poor live in fragile states if one takes the broadest definition of FCAS (43 countries), and they are split fairly evenly between fragile LICs and fragile MICs. Previous estimates put this figure significantly higher at around one-third. While many of the New Bottom Billion live in China and India, the percentage of global poverty accounted for by MICs minus China and India has still risen considerably from 7 per cent to 22 per cent since 1990.

Significance and implications The New Bottom Billion is important because: It challenges how we view world poverty and its causes. We used to think poverty was due to a lack of resources in 'poor' countries. The New Bottom Billion suggests world poverty isn't primarily about resources for most of the world's poor; it is about inequality — the poor live in countries which are no longer officially 'poor'. It challenges aid allocations and the way donors and NGOs go about poverty reduction. We used to think aid was the answer to poverty. If many countries are no longer officially 'poor' then the allocation of aid needs an urgent global review. This might mean that governance and domestic taxation and redistribution policies become of more importance than Official Development Assistance (ODA). It changes how we view 'developing' countries. There used to be a rich or 'developed' world and a poor or 'developing world', but these findings show that there are only 39 'poor' countries remaining, and that most 'developing' countries (102 countries) are no longer officially 'poor'.

Sources

External links News The Economist, "Measuring Global Poverty: Whose Problem Now?" Sept 30, 2010 OECD Insights, "Where do the bottom billion live" Nov 2 2010 Voice of America, "The New Bottom Billion: Where Are the World’s Poor?" Oct 24, 2010 Fox News, "China rises and rises, yet still gets hefty foreign aid, and some donors are wondering why" Sept 25, 2010 The Guardian, "Which bottom billion?" The Independent, "Adrian Hamilton: Global poverty isn't what it was", Sept 23, 2010 Global Dashboard, "The world’s poor aren’t where we think they are" Sept 23, 2010 Daily Star (Bangladesh), "The great escape" Nov 28, 2010 The Times of India, "World's poor move with India into middle-income bracket" Dec 26, 2010 Blogs Duncan Green's Oxfam International blog, "What should aid focus on, poor people or poor countries?" Oct 6, 2010 Lawrence Haddad's blog, "Where are the Global Poor?" The Guardian 'Poverty Matters' Blog, "It's time to focus on poor people – not poor countries" Aid Thoughts blog, "Will the real bottom billion please stand up?" Nov 1, 2010 One Africa blog, "Where is the bottom billion? and other interesting questions in the run-up to the MDG review summit" Sept 18, 2010 Aid on the Edge of Chaos blog, "MDGs and theories of change" The Times of India Blog, "The politics of aid" Dec 29, 2010 Podcasts Guardian Focus Podcast, "Millennium development goals" Sept 24, 2010 Owen Barder's Development Drums Podcast, "Episode 24: The New Bottom Billion", Dec 4, 2010 IDS Podcast with Paul Collier and Andy Sumner, "The New Bottom Billion"

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The New Bottom Billion

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The New Bottom Billion claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The New Bottom Billion before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The New Bottom Billion ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The New Bottom Billion

In research: The New Bottom Billion appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The New Bottom Billion in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The New Bottom Billion is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Measurements and definitions of poverty, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The New Bottom Billion outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The New Bottom Billion in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The New Bottom Billion means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The New Bottom Billion out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The New Bottom Billion in simple terms?

Why does The New Bottom Billion matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The New Bottom Billion?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The New Bottom Billion.