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IFPRI3; ISI; CRP2 ; DSGD; PIM ; PR ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Celebrated for her pioneering work to improve the education, health and welfare of slum children, Margaret McMillan (1860–1931) was an active socialist campaigner and member of the Independent Labour Party. Her involvement with Bradford school boards drew her attention to the poor state of health of the pupils - rickets, scurvy, anaemia and malnutrition were commonplace. Working with her sister Rachel (1859–1917), as well as lobbying for improved standards, Margaret opened the country's first school clinic in Bow in 1908. The sisters' most famous enterprise, the Deptford Camp School, soon followed, and the Rachel McMillan College for training nurses and teachers was founded in 1930. One of her many influential books on pre-school and primary education, this work of 1907 considers the vital role of the school doctor and argues that the practice of poor schoolchildren engaging in part-time labour is detrimental to their well-being

The first decade of the 21st century was extraordinarily good for developing countries and their mostly poor citizens. Their economies expanded at unprecedented rates, resulting in both a large reduction in extreme poverty and a significant expansion of the middle class. In fact, their growth rates were an average 4 percentage points faster than those of the advanced countries—versus only 1.3 percentage points in the 1990s (Figure O.1a). This growth was led by the efforts of China, India, and a small number of other Asian countries, and assisted by the weaker economic performance of the rich countries. Latin America and Africa resumed growth as well, catching up with—and often surpassing—the growth rates they experienced during the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, the developing countries moved more quickly to close the income gap with the advanced countries (Figure O.1b), a process known as economic convergence. More recently, however, that process has slowed down—reflecting a narrowing of the advanced and developing country growth rate differentials since 2010—making it unlikely that poorer countries will be able to close the development gap with richer countries anytime soon. ; PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2 ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)