The World Bank now has three benchmarks for measuring poverty. The “headline” extreme poverty threshold of $1.90/day will stay, but two new international poverty lines were added for lower middle-income ($3.20/day) and upper middle-income ($5.50/day) countries. While it’s great that the World Bank is bringing a little more nuance to the way we define poverty, it's still a repackaging of Lant Pritchett’s kinky development.

Kinky energy is still a problem for international measures of energy access. The International Energy Agency (IEA), in their 2017 World Energy Outlook have maintained the definition for “modern energy access” at a consumption rate of just 100kwh per person per year in urban areas and just 50kwh for people living in rural households. The IEA reports global energy access progress on these figures. Yet this level of energy consumption is far from anything approaching “modern.” It’s about what’s required to charge a cell phone and power a few lights. And it’s farcical to declare success for crossing this low threshold.

Read the source article at Center For Global Development