An article from The Economist raises the issue of which countries with SWFs also have large numbers of people living below or near the poverty line.
ECONOMISTS Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo describe the results of a number of household surveys they carried out in developing countries in their new book “Poor Economics”. Their data allow comparisons of the full distribution of consumption per person in a number of developing countries, in addition to the more commonly available figures on the fraction of people living on less than $2 a day. In some of these countries, many of those who consume enough to ensure they do not count as “poor” are in fact only a bit better off than those who do. Nearly 80% of the 30.6% of Bangladeshis who consume more than $2 a day in fact consume only between $2 and $4 a day—still very little indeed. A little bit of bad luck—a single bad harvest, for example—may be all it takes to send them back to living below the poverty line.
ECONOMISTS Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo describe the results of a number of household surveys they carried out in developing countries in their new book “Poor Economics”. Their data allow comparisons of the full distribution of consumption per person in a number of developing countries, in addition to the more commonly available figures on the fraction of people living on less than $2 a day. In some of these countries, many of those who consume enough to ensure they do not count as “poor” are in fact only a bit better off than those who do. Nearly 80% of the 30.6% of Bangladeshis who consume more than $2 a day in fact consume only between $2 and $4 a day—still very little indeed. A little bit of bad luck—a single bad harvest, for example—may be all it takes to send them back to living below the poverty line.
Here are same countries showing their SWF status (data from the SWF Institute or fund websites) and an indication of each country's oil production (noting of course that SWFs also arise from non-oil wealth):
| Country | SWF status | Oil Production bbl/day |
| India | None | 878,700 |
| Ghana | New SWF March 2011 | 7,081 |
| Pakistan | None | 59,140 |
| Bangladesh | None | 5,733 |
| Tanzania | None | No oil |
| Timor-Leste | US$7.7 billion ($7,600 per capita) | 96,270 |
| Cote d'Ivoire | None | 58,950 |
| Indonesia | US$0.3 billion ($1 per capita) | 1,023,000 |
| Morocco | None | 4,053 |
| Nicaragua | None | No oil |
| Guatemala | None | 13,530 |
| Papua New Guinea | None | 35,090 |
| Mexico | None | 3,001,000 |
| Peru | None | 148,000 |
| Brazil | $8.6 billion ($45 per capita) | 2,572,000 |
| Ecuador | None | 485,700 |
| South Africa | None | 191,000 |
| Panama | None | 2 |
If you add them up, these countries between them produce just short of 10% of the world's oil. Because oil is a non-renewable resource it can be viewed as the property of both current and future generations. Only Timor-Leste amongst The Economist's list of poor nations seems to be taking serious steps towards viewing oil as an intergenerational resource. Then again, its people are still living in poverty. But so are those in countries that have far greater petroleum wealth.
