document: MR Lewis Preston , World Bank president , yesterday promised to strengthen the bank 's efforts to reduce poverty in developing countries . ` Poverty reduction must be the benchmark against which our performance as a development institution is judged , ' he said . However , he failed to respond to demands from the Clinton administration for the bank to set more precise targets for the proportion of lending that should have an explicit poverty focus . In congressional testimony this week , Mr Lloyd Bentsen , US treasury secretary , said the US wanted to see more funding that ` will create social and economic safety nets ' for poor people most affected by war , civil strife and economic mismanagement . ` We will look for specific increases in the share of lending going for these purposes . ' In fiscal 1992 , nearly half of all World Bank adjustment loans failed to include specific poverty reduction measures , in spite of calls from Mr Preston to put greater emphasis on poverty relief . The share of bank lending allocated for ` human resource development ' is still only 14 per cent , in spite of repeated calls from Mr Preston for an increased emphasis on investment in people . At a news conference Mr Preston said the bank was making progress : a decade ago only 5 per cent of bank lending went for human resource development and only 5 per cent of structural adjustment loans had a explicit focus on poverty . But he said the bank had a ` long , long way to go ' . While he expected an increase in the share of bank lending aimed at poverty relief , he declined to set precise targets for bank staff . Mr Preston , however , does intend to take several new steps to sharpen the bank 's focus on poverty . The bank will publish annual progress reports charting its progress in poverty reduction . It will also seek the participation of the poor in the design as well as the implemention of projects . ` We want this to become the norm for our operations in the years to come , ' Mr Preston said . He also released a report , ` Implementing the World Bank 's Strategy to Reduce Poverty - Progress and Challenges , ' that outlines progress to date . This highlights the diversity of performance on poverty reduction in the third world . East Asia has reduced the proportion of people in absolute poverty from over 30 per cent in 1970 to 10 per cent . Sub-Saharan Africa , however , had seen an increase in poverty which now affected half the people in the region . Mr Preston said bank efforts to reduce poverty could succeed only if governments concerned co-operated . Officials cited Indonesia , China , Mexico , and El Salvador as examples of countries that were co-operating well but declined to name poor performers . He said hoped for a clear signal from this week 's meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial countries that they would deliver on commitments for a Dollars 18bn replenishment of resources for the International Development Agency -LRB- IDA -RRB- , the centrepiece of bank efforts to reduce poverty .
extractive_keyphrases: third world developing countries lewis preston world bank poverty relief poverty reduction bank lending adjustment loans