Fact Check: Viral report about World Bank stripping India of developing country tag dates back to 2016
Social media users are claiming that the World Bank has stripped India of the developing country tag. Users are also circulating a news clip of Jansatta. Users said India will be placed alongside countries like Pakistan, Zambia, and Ghana.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 22 April 2022 5:16 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Social media users are claiming that the World Bank has stripped India of the developing country tag. Users are also circulating a news clip of Jansatta.
Users said India will be placed alongside countries like Pakistan, Zambia, and Ghana.
Click here to view.
Fact Check
The claim is false.
NewsMeter conducted a google search with relevant keywords. We found a June 5, 2016 report in Jansatta. However, as per the article, the change in category is because of the World Bank's change in the classification of the economies.
Until then, India was considered a developing nation, as World Bank used to place low and middle-income countries under the category of developing countries. However, World Bank has started micro categorization based on the per capita income of the countries and thus stopped placing low and middle-income countries under the developing countries category.
As per the Economic Times article, dated 31 May 2016, World Bank has stopped distinguishing countries as 'developing' and 'developed' countries. And 'with economies becoming less and less homogeneous, the multilateral agency will group countries based on geographical coverage and income levels to capture the changing world', the article reported.
In its World Development Report, 2016, World Bank has stopped using the categorization of 'developing' and 'developed' countries and started grouping countries into Low Income Economies, Lower Middle Income Economies, Upper Middle Income Economies, and High-Income Economies based on per capita income of the countries.
For the current 2022 fiscal year, there is no change in the benchmark for low-income countries, whereas there is a slight decrease in per capita benchmarks for the remaining classifications. India with a per capita GNI of $1920 is placed under the Lower Middle Income Economies.
Hence, the claim is false.
