There is as yet no agreed definition of inclusive growth. Ali and Zhuang (2007)
define it as “growth coupled with equality of opportunity.” That is, inclusive
growth focuses on creating economic opportunity and making opportunity accessible
to all. In other words, “growth is inclusive when it allows all members of
society to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from growth on an equal basis,
regardless of individual circumstances” (Zhuang and Ali 2010, p. 9).
Ali and Zhuang (2007) argued that social inclusion is essential to equalizing
opportunity, and the first area of social inclusion relates, especially among the
poor and women, to lack of access to basic education, healthcare, and social protection,
while the second area relates to lack of access to productive employment
and assets such as credit and land. They maintained that enhancing social inclusion
requires public interventions in two areas: (i) investing in education, health,
and other services to expand human capacity, especially of the disadvantaged;
and (ii) eliminating various market and institutional failures and social exclusion
to level the playing field. To do so, the government needs to address all the
market, institutional, and policy failures, and to ensure that people would not be
excluded from participating in and benefiting from growth because of individual
circumstances.