Vulnerability in Developing Countries

Vulnerability has become the defining challenge of our times. More than one billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty. Facing risks exacerbated by natural hazards, ill-health and macroeconomic volatility, many are mired in inescapable poverty while millions others are on the brink of poverty.

Wim Naud is a senior research fellow at UNU-WIDER. He was previously employed at North-West University in South Africa and in the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the University of Oxford. Amelia U. Santos-Paulino is a research fellow at UNU-WIDER. She has also been a research fellow in the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Mark McGillivray is chief economist at the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). He has also served as deputy director of UNU-WIDER.