SOUP kitchens serve the needy for free; restaurants serve the hungry for money. In parts of South Asia,eateries near mosques sometimes tumble into a third category. They feed the destitute sitting patiently outside, whenever a pious or charitable passer-by pays them to do so. Alms-giving of this kind provides one traditional safety net for the destitute in developing countries. But it is, or thankfully,not the only one.
According to a fresh report by the World Bank, developing countries spend an average of 1.5% of GDP on social safety nets designed to stop people hitting rock-bottom. (The wealthy countries in the OECD spend on average 2.7%.) Among these are workfare schemes, and pensions,free school meals and cash handouts, sometimes conditional on recipients sending their children to school, and getting them vaccinated and the like. This spending has reduced the number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day) by 36% on average in the countries examined by the World Bank.
South Asia’s...
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Source: economist.com