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So much data indicate the world's progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), a set of targets adopted by world leaders at the UN ten years ago. But the goal-setting exercise has further pitfalls. Too often, the goals are reduced to working out how much money is needed to meet a particular target. Yet the countries that have made most progress in cutting poverty have largely done so not by spending public money, but by encouraging faster economic growth. As Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank's chief economist for Africa, points out, growth does not just make more money available for social spending. It also increases the demand for such things as schooling, and thus helps meet other development goals. Yet the goals, as drawn up, made no mention of economic growth. Of course growth by itself does not solve all the problems of the poor. It is also clear that while money helps, how it is spent and what it is spent on are enormously important. For instance, campaigners often ask for more to be spent on primary education. But throughout the developing world teachers on the public payroll are often absent from school. Teacher-absenteeism rates are around 20% in rural Kenya, 27% in Uganda and 14% in Ecuador. In any case, money that is allocated for such services rarely reaches its intended recipients. A study found that 70% of the money allocated for drugs and supplies by the Ugandan government in 2000 was lost; in Ghana, 80% was siphoned off. Money needs to be spent, therefore, not merely on building more schools or hiring more teachers, but on getting them to do what they are paid for, and preventing resources from disappearing somewhere between the central government and their supposed destination. The good news is that policy experiments carried out by governments, NGOs, academics and international institutions are slowly building up a body of evidence about methods that work. A large-scale evaluation in Andhra Pradesh in southern India has shown, for example, that performance pay for teachers is three times as effective at raising pupil's test scores as the equivalent amount spent on school supplies. And in Uganda the government, appalled that money meant for schools was not reaching them, took to publicizing how much was being allotted, using radio and newspaper. Money wastage was dramatically reduced. The World Bank hopes to bring such innovations to the notice of other governments during the summit, if it can. For if the drive against poverty is to succeed, it will owe more to such ideas and their wider use than to targets set at UN-sponsored summits.
单选题11.According to the text, which of the following merits can't we derive from economic growth?