Ruth Alexander
speaker
4,250 appearances
120 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2011
last heard Aug 2018
Ruth Alexander’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
As Morten Jervin, author of Poor Numbers, How We're Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It, explains.
Now, Razia Khan says the Nigerian national statisticians did manage to survey more businesses than ever before to collect data.
So although to some extent Nigeria's GDP is made up of educated guesswork, we have a much better idea of what's going on in the economy than we ever did before.
So Morten Jervin says you can't reliably compare country with country.
There are too many differences and uncertainties in how GDP figures are calculated in each nation.
But of course Nigerians have been celebrating and feeling positive about their country's newly enhanced economic status.
And you would, wouldn't you, if you just leapt up the world's economic rankings.
But while they may be dreaming of joining the G20, the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, recently put Nigeria in a much less desirable club.
Did I hear right?
Did the World Bank just call Nigeria the biggest economy in Africa, an extremely poor country?
But let's be clear, the World Bank isn't saying that everyone in these five countries is extremely poor, rather that they have a large number of people who are.
Now, this $1.25 a day measure has been criticised, and that's something we've covered here on More or Less before.
And the World Bank says itself that the quality of the surveys varies from country to country, but on the whole, it does think the numbers are useful.
In Nigeria in particular, this hit a raw nerve.
The finance minister was quick to point out that Nigeria is a middle-income country which has a large number of poor people and that's not unusual for developing countries.
It's certainly not surprising that large developing countries with large populations have large numbers of poor people.
If there are any numbers you'd like us to investigate or explain, do please email us.
Our address is moreorless at bbc.co.uk.
And you can also sign up for a free download of this programme at our website, bbcworldservice.com slash moreorless.
Hello and welcome to More or Less, the numbers programme on the BBC World Service.
Showing 1661–1680 of 4,250 · page 84 of 213
← Previous
Next →