End of extreme poverty: A case for action and a plan to start

For 50 years, from 1960 to 2010, poverty reduction was driven by rapid economic growth in poor countries , with most of the benefits accruing to the poor through more employment, better wages, and higher agricultural productivity.

从1960年到2010年的50年里，减贫是由贫穷国家的快速经济增长推动的，穷人通过更多的就业、更好的工资和更高的农业生产率获得了大部分利益。

By 2015, there were 1.1 billion fewer people in extreme poverty than in 1990 .

到2015年，极端贫困人口比1990年减少11亿。

The hope that the remaining 840 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty by 2030 became the foundation of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

到 2030 年剩余 8.4 亿人能够摆脱极端贫困的希望成为联合国可持续发展目标 (SDG) 的基础。

Since 2015, however, poverty has become increasingly concentrated in a few fragile states with limited prospects for private investment or growth.

然而，自 2015 年以来，贫困日益集中在一些私人投资或增长前景有限的脆弱国家。

Over the past decade, poverty reduction has stalled: About 800 million people still lived in extreme poverty in 2025, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for roughly 67% of all people living in extreme poverty.

过去十年，减贫工作陷入停滞：到2025年，约有8亿人仍生活在极端贫困中，其中撒哈拉以南非洲地区约占所有极端贫困人口的67%。

A new model for poverty reduction, based on targeted cash transfers to poor households, has been taking shape for the past two decades.

二十年来，以精准扶贫为基础的扶贫新模式已经形成。

Thanks to AI, improvements in digital payment technologies, and the ubiquitous access to phones that can receive SMS texts, money can be transferred efficiently and effectively to intended beneficiaries.

得益于人工智能、数字支付技术的改进以及可以接收短信的手机的普及，资金可以高效且有效地转移到预期受益人手中。

Evaluations of this model have documented long-term, consistent positive effects on consumption, food security, savings , asset accumulation, children’s school attendance, health service utilization, and resilience to economic shocks.

对该模型的评估记录了对消费、粮食安全、储蓄、资产积累、儿童入学率、卫生服务利用率和经济冲击抵御能力的长期、持续的积极影响。

However, most evaluations are based on pilot programs or relatively small-scale interventions implemented under controlled conditions.

然而，大多数评估都是基于试点计划或在受控条件下实施的相对小规模的干预措施。

Only a limited number of cash transfer programs have been scaled geographically and sustained over long periods, particularly in low-income countries.

只有有限数量的现金转移计划在地域上得到扩展并长期持续，特别是在低收入国家。

As programs expand, new challenges emerge relating to fiscal sustainability, targeting accuracy, administrative capacity, political economy, inflationary effects in local markets, and the extent to which transfers generate lasting productive and labor-market outcomes.

随着计划的扩大，出现了与财政可持续性、目标准确性、行政能力、政治经济、当地市场的通货膨胀影响以及转移在多大程度上产生持久的生产和劳动力市场成果有关的新挑战。

Consequently, important questions remain around the optimal design of such programs, including the appropriate transfer size and frequency, duration of support, targeting mechanisms, conditional versus unconditional transfers, digital delivery systems, and integration with complementary interventions such as livelihood support, financial inclusion, and human capital investments.

因此，围绕此类计划的优化设计仍然存在重要问题，包括适当的转移规模和频率、支持期限、目标机制、有条件与无条件转移、数字交付系统以及与生计支持、金融包容性和人力资本投资等补充干预措施的整合。

Answers to each of these questions shape the long-term effects on poverty reduction, employment, productivity, and economic transformation.

每个问题的答案都会对减贫、就业、生产力和经济转型产生长期影响。

A better understanding is essential for designing cash transfer programs that not only alleviate poverty but can also be scaled to promote broader goals of societal inclusion, resilience, and strong economic growth.

更好地理解对于设计现金转移计划至关重要，这些计划不仅可以减轻贫困，还可以扩大规模以促进社会包容、复原力和强劲经济增长等更广泛的目标。

New research reframes the question of scale from an academic assessment of the “poverty gap” (the theoretical amount to bring all households above the extreme poverty threshold to meet the goal of SDG 1) to costing out, on a country-by-country basis, a program that would bring extreme poverty rates below 1% of the population, using data from the practical experience of targeting in existing programs.

新的研究重新构建了规模问题，从对“贫困差距”（使所有家庭达到极端贫困阈值以实现可持续发展目标 1 的目标的理论金额）的学术评估，到逐个国家计算将极端贫困率降至人口 1% 以下的项目的成本，并使用现有项目目标的实际经验数据。

The headline finding is that in the 23 countries where about half the world’s poor live, it would cost approximately $170 billion per year to reduce poverty from 12% to 1% of the population.

主要调查结果是，在全球约一半贫困人口居住的 23 个国家中，每年需要花费约 1700 亿美元才能将贫困人口比例从 12% 减少到 1%。

This amounts to less than $500 per person.

这相当于每人不到 500 美元。

Extrapolated to the whole world, the cost would represent about 0.3% of global GDP.

推算到全世界，成本将约占全球 GDP 的 0.3%。

Put differently, that’s $30 for every $10,000 of global GDP, or just 14% of the wealth gained by global billionaires in 2025 alone.

换句话说，全球每 10,000 美元 GDP 对应 30 美元，仅占全球亿万富翁仅 2025 年所获得财富的 14%。

The financing needed to end extreme poverty is not a moonshot; it’s a rounding error that the world has simply chosen not to correct.

消除极端贫困所需的融资并不是登月计划；这是一个四舍五入的错误，世界只是选择不纠正。

Calculations of this type reframe poverty eradication as a feasible, targetable financing problem.

此类计算将消除贫困重新定义为一个可行的、有针对性的融资问题。

It is ambitious but not hugely expensive by global standards, small enough that a handful of high-net-worth individuals could have a material impact, and simple enough to be scalable and easily implementable without having to delve into the complexities of institutional reform, structural transformation, and long-run growth that characterized the old model.

它雄心勃勃，但以全球标准来看并不昂贵，规模足够小，以至于少数高净值个人就可以产生重大影响，而且足够简单，可以扩展且易于实施，而无需深入研究旧模式所特有的制度改革、结构转型和长期增长的复杂性。

Already a decade ago, there were more than 200 evaluations of cash transfer programs in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

十年前，拉丁美洲、撒哈拉以南非洲和南亚的现金转移计划已进行了 200 多项评估。

A 2025 meta-study by Crosta et al.

Crosta 等人于 2025 年进行的荟萃研究。

covered 72 programs in 34 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

涵盖 34 个低收入和中等收入国家 (LMIC) 的 72 个项目。

The authors find that unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) have positive average effects on most major outcomes, including consumption, income, labor-force participation, school enrollment, food security, psychological well-being, assets, and child height-for-age, with no evidence on average that cash discourages work.

作者发现，无条件现金转移支付（UCT）对大多数主要结果具有积极的平均影响，包括消费、收入、劳动力参与、入学率、粮食安全、心理健康、资产和儿童年龄别身高，平均而言没有证据表明现金阻碍工作。

The paper also shows that design matters: Streamed transfers are consumed more, lump sums are invested more, targeting women appears to strengthen effects on consumption and income, and ongoing transfers tend to sustain gains better over time.

该论文还表明，设计很重要：流式转移支付的消费更多，一次性支付的投资更多，针对女性似乎会增强对消费和收入的影响，而持续的转移支付往往会随着时间的推移更好地维持收益。

These evaluations, although largely based on fragmented and small-scale programs, are helping to narrow the band of uncertainty around impact.

这些评估虽然主要基于分散的小规模计划，但有助于缩小影响的不确定性范围。

Large cash infusions equivalent to roughly 15% of local GDP in Kenya produced minimal price inflation .

相当于肯尼亚当地 GDP 约 15% 的大量现金注入将物价通胀控制在最低水平。

That result suggests macroeconomic risk may not be a major problem.

这一结果表明宏观经济风险可能不是一个主要问题。

Exchange rate effects from sustained foreign-currency inflows, political economy dynamics around targeting and phasing, and the design choices between lump-sum and recurring payments all remain serious concerns—but have not been tested at national scale.

持续的外汇流入、围绕目标和分阶段的政治经济动态以及一次性支付和定期支付之间的设计选择所带来的汇率影响仍然令人严重担忧，但尚未在全国范围内得到检验。

Whether transfer effects are heterogeneous across household types, and whether the macroeconomic results observed at the village level would replicate where fiscal and monetary feedback loops operate differently, are genuinely open empirical questions.

不同家庭类型之间的转移效应是否存在异质性，以及在财政和货币反馈循环运作方式不同的情况下，在村庄一级观察到的宏观经济结果是否会复制，这些都是真正开放的实证问题。

Acknowledging these limits is a reason to design for learning rather than to delay.

承认这些限制是为学习而设计而不是拖延的一个理由。

The case for a national-scale program is precisely that these questions require national-scale evidence to answer.

国家级计划的理由恰恰是这些问题需要国家级的证据来回答。

A program structured from the outset around rigorous evaluation—and run in partnership with a government that can take it to scale if it succeeds—is more likely to generate usable knowledge and durable outcomes than a further accumulation of small pilots.

一个从一开始就围绕严格评估构建的项目——并与政府合作运行，如果成功，可以将其扩大规模——比进一步积累小型试点更有可能产生可用的知识和持久的成果。

Government partnership converts a philanthropic experiment into a test of state capacity, building the administrative infrastructure for digital transfers, the targeting mechanisms, and the monitoring systems within a national government in ways that outlast any individual funder.

政府伙伴关系将慈善实验转变为对国家能力的测试，在国家政府内建立数字传输的行政基础设施、目标机制和监控系统，其方式比任何个人资助者更持久。

A program that runs in parallel to the state, without embedding capability within national systems, cannot be replicated at scale even if it succeeds.

与国家并行运行、没有将能力嵌入国家系统的计划即使成功也无法大规模复制。

The case for action is a no-lose proposal.

采取行动的理由是一个不会失败的建议。

Even under pessimistic assumptions, millions of people would receive direct cash income.

即使在悲观的假设下，数百万人也将获得直接现金收入。

If only 10% of recipients escape extreme poverty permanently, that’s still 500,000 to 1 million people lifted out of deprivation by a modestly sized program.

即使只有 10% 的受助者永久摆脱极端贫困，仍然有 50 万到 100 万人通过一个中等规模的项目摆脱了贫困。

The case for trying does not require agreement on the probability of full success.

尝试的理由并不需要就完全成功的可能性达成一致。

And if it does succeed, the result would carry the evidentiary weight needed to reshape how international financing approaches extreme poverty—something no subnational pilot, however carefully designed, can achieve.

如果它确实成功，其结果将具有重塑国际融资解决极端贫困问题所需的证据价值——无论设计多么精心，地方试点都无法实现这一目标。

Put differently, a national-scale program can serve as a policy prototype: a real government-embedded intervention that improves lives immediately while generating evidence on the questions that only implementation at scale can answer.

换句话说，国家规模的计划可以作为政策原型：真正的政府嵌入干预措施，可以立即改善生活，同时为只有大规模实施才能回答的问题提供证据。

None of this is a claim that cash transfers are sufficient on their own to build durable development.

所有这些都并不是说现金转移本身就足以实现持久发展。

They do not build roads, staff clinics, or train teachers.

他们不修建道路、员工诊所或培训教师。

The argument here is narrower: For the several hundred million people currently below the international extreme poverty line, a well-designed digital cash transfer program at national scale is likely to produce lasting and measurable improvements in well-being.

这里的论点比较狭隘：对于目前处于国际极端贫困线以下的数亿人来说，在全国范围内精心设计的数字现金转移计划可能会带来持久且可衡量的福祉改善。

The approximate cost of a national-scale proof-of-concept—structured as a government partnership with evaluation embedded from the start—is in the range of $1 billion per year in philanthropic seed capital, preferably running for a five-year duration.

全国范围的概念验证（以政府合作伙伴关系的形式构建，并从一开始就嵌入评估）的大约成本在每年 10 亿美元的慈善种子资本范围内，最好持续五年。

The math of this moment is worth stating plainly: The financing needed to run a decisive test at national scale is comfortably within the reach of a very small number of wealthy individuals.

此刻的数学值得明确说明：在全国范围内进行决定性测试所需的资金完全在极少数富人的能力范围之内。

It does not require multilateral consensus or government action to initiate.

它不需要多边共识或政府行动来启动。

It requires a handful of actors with the means and the will.

它需要少数有手段和意愿的行动者。

The case for action is clear—not because the path is certain, but because the cost of trying is affordable and evidence-backed, while the potential benefits are large, scalable, and durable.

采取行动的理由很明确——不是因为路径是确定的，而是因为尝试的成本是可以承受的并且有证据支持，而潜在的好处是巨大的、可扩展的和持久的。

A proof-of-concept that can potentially impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people could be enacted through the following sequence of steps:

可以通过以下步骤来实施可能影响数亿人生活的概念验证：

That is Act 1: a national-scale proof-of-concept, government-embedded and built for learning.

这就是第一幕：全国范围的概念验证，政府嵌入并为学习而构建。

If it works well—and the evidence suggests it will—the focus will shift to how fast such a concept can be globalized to accelerate the end of extreme poverty worldwide.

如果它运作良好——证据表明它会运作良好——焦点将转向这一概念能够以多快的速度全球化，以加速全世界极端贫困的终结。

Understanding the impact of cash transfers at scale is the missing evidence link between existing programs and the rollout of national programs with multiple funders.

了解大规模现金转移的影响是现有计划与多个资助者推出的国家计划之间缺少的证据联系。

The proposal above would provide that evidence.

上述提案将提供这一证据。