Abstract
Water resources development projects are often seen as means of economic growth. However, whether or not a person has access to resources required for survival depends less on absolute income than on relative income. It is argued that economic growth often raises the incomes of the wealthy faster than that of the poor. Even if all incomes were to increase at the same rate, the consequences would be much the same; i.e. the absolute gap between rich and poor would increase. For example, an annual 3 percent increase in the per capita income (the answer that Brundtland Commission on the Environment and Development proposed for global poverty and environmental problems). That would translate into a first-year annual per capita increase (in U.S. dollars) of $633 for the United States; $3.6 for Ethiopia; $5.4 for Bangladesh; $7.5 for Nigeria; $10.8 for China and $10.5 for India. By the end of ten years, such growth will have raised Ethiopia’s per capita income by $41, while that of the United States will have risen by $7,257. (Goodland et al., 1992).
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Al-Jayyousi, O. (2003). Evaluating the Role of Water Resources Development in Poverty Reduction: A Case Study from Jordan. In: Olcay Ünver, İ.H., Gupta, R.K., Kibaroğlu, A. (eds) Water Development and Poverty Reduction. Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 25. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0423-8_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0423-8_15
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