The past 30 years have been remarkable for many developing countries while disappointing for countries such as Ethiopia. In the late 1970s China emerged from Cultural Revolution and embarked on reform. As a result more than 1 billion people – one fifth of earth’s population have experienced a period of sustained growth and poverty reduction that has no precedent in human history. In the 1980’s 400 million people in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union embarked on transitions from Command economy towards democracy and market economy. India’s growth began to pick up in the 1980’s, and in the early 1990’s, it initiated far-reaching economic change. Today India is seeing growth and poverty reduction on a scale that would have been dismissed as highly improbable by many analysts in the 1970s and 1980s. Thirty years ago just one-third of the World’s countries could be described as democratic now that share is closer to two thirds… Read more >>