# Bill Gates predicts 'almost no poor countries' by 2035. Is he delusional? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 22, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459 "2014-01-22T17:03:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/21 "2014-01-23T00:29:36Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Maybe a few of the countries in the Low-income economies ($1,035 or less) bracket might move up to the next bracket. > > So Gates is talking about countries reaching the Lower-middle-income economies ($1,036 to $4,085) bracket? That’s still an impoverished group. India and Pakistan have a educated middle class that has a relatively comfortable life. But isn’t there a lot of poverty too? I’m not sure what the numbers are. Right. This isn’t about transforming the world’s poorest people into middle class citizens at a Western standard. This is more about improving the overall level of the poorest countries/economies. In many of these poorest countries, the primary economic activity is _desperately trying to grow enough food to not starve_. If you improve the health, sanitation, basic infrastructure, and governance, even the subsistence farmers can have a better life. They won’t lose as much precious time and resources to disease and corruption. That means they can grow a bit more food, and with improved infrastructure they can sell some of their crop, and buy tools or fertilizer to further increase their productivity. They can afford to send their kids to school. Eventually, with sufficient infrastructure and a better educated population, the country can attract foreign investment to develop manufacturing. It’s about transforming countries where the vast majority are in abject poverty to countries with poverty that isn’t as bad, where there are some industrial jobs and the nucleus of a middle class. I’ve read and heard some things recently about the living and working conditions in Bangladeshi garment factories. The life is almost incomprehensibly impoverished compared to the middle class Western lifestyle I enjoy. But people keep flocking to the city to get these jobs, because they offer a major improvement over their parents’ lives as subsistence farmers. (I welcome any corrections of my misimpressions from **even sven** or anyone else!) ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/22 "2014-01-23T00:35:17Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Here’s the winner of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s [Reinvent the Toilet Challenge](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2012/08/bill-gates-names-winners-of-the-reinvent-the-toilet-challenge). The requirements were that it required no piped water, sewer or electrical connections, and could transform the waste into something useful. > > Dammit, Dewey! Very kewl link! Gracias! ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/23 "2014-01-23T03:50:20Z")
Re: India and Pakistan have a educated middle class that has a relatively comfortable life. But isn’t there a lot of poverty too? I’m not sure what the numbers are. ‘A lot of poverty’ in India is rather an understatement. If you look at individual states, and compare them using the Human Development Index, the most thriving states have a HDI roughly equivalent to Russia or Montenegro, the worst states have a HDI equivalent to Burundi or Sierra Leone. The most populous state (UP) has actually seen a regress in the last few years. [List of Indian states and union territories by Human Development Index - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index) **even sven** I’m much less sanguine than you about African development, but what do you do in international development? I was a Peace Corps volunteer for about three years, and while I work in academic research now, I have a number of friends still working in the international development area. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/24 "2014-01-23T04:04:08Z")
Right now I work on developing technology for monitoring and evaluation. Are your friends in DC? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/25 "2014-01-23T04:18:06Z")
My friends are all over, some of them are still in Madagascar or elsewhere in Africa. My best friend lives in DC though. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/26 "2014-01-23T05:04:55Z")
The MMR vaccine alone has drastically reduced the death rates from measles across the world. India just got rid of polio. Efforts are being made to get even more access to vaccines to poor people. That would help a lot in developing countries by reducing infant mortality rates and decreasing overall death and disability rates. Gates and his wife have probably saved more lives than anyone on the planet. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’s completely right on this prediction as well. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/27 "2014-01-23T14:20:46Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Gates and his wife have probably saved more lives than anyone on the planet. Quite. And yet we still get people who think he’s just doing this to sell “smartphones and Windows 8”. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/28 "2014-01-23T16:02:23Z")
I went back and collected some data. In 1991, the World Bank considered 52 countries to be low income. In 2002, that number had risen to 64. Currently, there are 36 low income countries. I think it is pretty remarkable that the number of low income countries has been cut almost in half in the last ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/29 "2014-01-23T17:51:48Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Quite. And yet we still get people who think he’s just doing this to sell “smartphones and Windows 8”. Yea, well, its going to take saving more people than that to sell me Windows 8. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/30 "2014-01-23T21:24:56Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > The world IS a better place than it’s ever been before because of technological advancements. Agreed, as \*\*even sven \*\*has amply demonstrated. > [@](#): > > If advancements continue exponentially, his prediction could very well be true. Unlikely, even given such an exclusive definition of “poor” that Sudan is not included and Angola is two tiers above “poor”. It is difficult for people in North Atlantic countries to grasp just how poor other parts of the world are and how sparsely held together civil society and capitalist institutions (or their surrogates) are in some regions. I hope to see the marked improvements in the next two decades, but it’s unrealistic to think that almost all countries will have a standard of living comparable to Albania’s\* by 2034. \*My arbitrary definition of “not poor,” even though something as flimsy as a MLM scheme wreck the economy only a decade ago. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/31 "2014-01-23T22:23:57Z")
Yeah, nobody is saying everyone is going to have a Prius and an iPhone. The type of “not poor” being referenced here is having access to basic healthcare, universal primary education, a trained birth attendant at every birth, houses that withstand ordinary hazards, access to clean water and a sanitary toilet, no raging epidemics, etc. Achieving that won’t solve all of the worlds problems, but it will alleviate a lot of needless suffering and put people in a positions where they can continue to improve their lives. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/32 "2014-01-23T22:35:30Z")
[Here’s the actual document.](http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/) Here’s the quote: > [@](#): > > I am optimistic enough about this that I am willing to make a prediction. By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. (I mean by our current definition of poor.)[2] Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer. Countries will learn from their most productive neighbors and benefit from innovations like new vaccines, better seeds, and the digital revolution. Their labor forces, buoyed by expanded education, will attract new investments. > > [2] Specifically, I mean that by 2035, almost no country will be as poor as any of the 35 countries that the World Bank classifies as low-income today, even after adjusting for inflation. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/33 "2014-01-24T02:11:42Z")
I’m sure this point has been made thoroughly in other discussions of his remarks, but this is all assuming there is no exchange of nuclear weapons (on any scale larger than tactical warheads; the existence of such arsenals means there is a chance greater than 0 that they will be used, and the quick-launch protocols make it even more likely), and no ongoing environmental catastrophe. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459/34 "2014-01-24T03:21:26Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Yeah, nobody is saying everyone is going to have a Prius and an iPhone. . I don’t know about Prius but mobile phones have probably pulled more people out of poverty than any other device in years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates-predicts-almost-no-poor-countries-by-2035-is-he-delusional/679459.md?page=1)