IDRC Photo: Rusnak, G.

What drives economic growth, and how can growth help to reduce poverty and inequality?

The past decade has shown that economic growth can help lift people out of poverty, and that the increasing integration of the world economy can yield new opportunities for developing countries to grow. Just as clearly, however, growth and globalization have benefited the poor unevenly.

Experience has shown that growth is necessary but not sufficient, and that the pattern of growth is critical in determining the speed and extent of poverty reduction. Markets, other formal and informal institutions, and the combination of public policies all influence growth and poverty outcomes, but their joint effects are still inadequately understood.

Faced with these knowledge gaps and the uneven impact of growth on poverty, developing country governments, analysts, and civil society actors are struggling to draw relevant lessons to guide public policy.

The goal of the GGP program  is to support policy reforms in developing countries aimed at promoting inclusive growth and poverty reduction, and appropriate international integration strategies, by generating necessary evidence and analysis, and by strengthening the capacities for their production and use in democratic policy making.

The program encourages and supports research in three thematic areas:

• drivers and patterns of inclusive growth
• markets, other institutions and inclusive growth
• providing social protection

GGP fosters innovation in development research by prioritizing projects and initiatives that: a) enrich poverty and inequality analyses, b) critically address the question of appropriate levels of policy action, and c) seek to illuminate or positively affect the political economy of policy change for equitable development.

Further general information on GGP is available on the Research Areas and Approach page, and also through the links and documents provided below.

• Objectives of the GGP Program
  

• Background to GGP