Pro-poorest economic growth is necessary to improve all poverty dynamics and to eradicate extreme poverty. The 2000s have been characterised by widespread economic growth and poverty reduction, but in many contexts the poorest people have not benefited from growth as much as the rest of the population, or their well-being has increased only marginally.

Some countries have seen pro-poor growth, and some knowledge exists on the factors that are conducive to it, yet in many parts of the world many poor people are still being left behind. This compels an investigation of what policy interventions are required to achieve pro-poorest growth, whether these differ from previous policy prescriptions and whether they differ for countries at different stages of transformation and engaged in different patterns of economic growth.

This working paper outlines what pro-poorest growth is and why it is necessary, building on the concept of pro-poor growth popularised in the 2000s.