Poor? Who's poor? Poverty is down
The proportion of people living on less than $1 a day decreased from 40 to 21 per cent of the global population between 1981 and 2001, says the World Bank's latest annual report.
The proportion of people living on less than $1 a day decreased from 40 to 21 per cent of the global population between 1981 and 2001, says the World Bank's latest annual report.
The president of the bank, James Wolfensohn, said in his overall review that the past year had brought with it signs of hope and progress, but it had also brought signs of concern in the fight against global poverty.
On a positive note, new data this year showed that the number of poor people continues to fall. Development indicators were clearly improving in countries that had laid good foundations for growth.
The progress, though, was uneven across the globe. Growth in East Asia had meant that there were 500 million fewer people living below one dollar a day in 2001 than in 1981.
The number of poor people had also fallen in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa, though less dramatically than in East Asia.
However, the absolute number of poor people had risen in African, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.
Wolfensohn recalled his statement at the last annual meeting that the world he 'saw today was a world out of balance.' Of the six billion people of the world today, one billion people live in wealthy countries. They accounted for 80 per cent of the world's gross domestic product, while the other 5 billion have 20 per cent.
While rich countries spent $700 billion a year on defence and transferred $325 billion to agriculture, they devoted only $68 billion as developmental aid.
These global imbalances are reflected in the daily lives of poor people around the world. Two billion people have no access to clean water, 115 million children never get the chance to go to school, and some 38 million people -- 95 per cent of them in developing countries -- are HIV-positive, with little hope of receiving treatment.
the report said -
"So the world is at a tipping point: either we in the international community recommit to delivering on the goals, or the targets we set in a fanfare of publicity will be missed, the world's poor will be left even further behind, and our children will be left to face the consequences," said Wolfensohn.
"So the world is at a tipping point: either we in the international community recommit to delivering on the goals, or the targets we set in a fanfare of publicity will be missed, the world's poor will be left even further behind, and our children will be left to face the consequences," said Wolfensohn.
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