Economic slowdown to push 100m into poverty
IRIN, 12 September 2008 - Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, warns in
a
new report that the gains made in reducing extreme poverty are under
threat from the rise in global food and fuel prices and global economic
slowdown.
In the UN's Millennium Development Goals Report 2008, launched on 11
September, Ban writes: The largely benign development environment that has
prevailed since the early years of this decade, and that has contributed to
the successes to date, is now threatened. The economic slowdown will
diminish the incomes of the poor; the food crisis will raise the number of
hungry people in the world and push millions more into poverty; climate
change will have a disproportionate impact on the poor.�
According to World Bank data, the number of extreme poor has fallen from
1.8 billion to 1.4 billion between 1990 and 2005, with the biggest gains
made in eastern Asia, in particular, China. In sub-Saharan Africa and the
Commonwealth of Independent States, however, the number of poor has
increased in the same period.
These figures confirm that the global poverty rate is likely to be halved by
2015 achieving the first MDG.
However, the worldwide increases in food prices will push another 100
million people into absolute poverty, according to the UN report.
Even though the proportion of people worldwide suffering from malnutrition
and hunger has fallen since the early 1990s, the number of people lacking
access to food has risen. With recent increases in food prices, it is
estimated that one billion people will go hungry, while another two billion
will be undernourished,� the report states.
Sub-Saharan Africa's poverty rate is constant at 50 percent, while East Asia
cut its rate over 25 years from almost 80 percent to less than 20 percent.
Overall numbers are thus down from 52 percent in 1981 to 26 percent in 2005.
Slight improvements have been seen in primary school enrolment up from 83
percent to 88 percent on average worldwide, although the rate for
sub-Saharan Africa is only 71 percent, with 38 million children of primary
school-going age not in school. In contrast, the enrolment ratio tops 90
percent in Southern Asia, although 18 million children do not attend school.
The fourth MDG, cutting child mortality, also saw improvements, with the
number of deaths of under-fives falling below 10 million for the first time
in 2006, to 9.7 million. The rate has declined from 93 to 72 deaths per
1,000 live births between 1990 and 2006.
However, in 62 countries under-five mortality is not falling fast enough to
meet the target of reducing the mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015.
Improving maternal health, goal five, has seen the least progress maternal
mortality rates fell by less than 1 percent a year between 1990 and 2005,
significantly below the 5.5 percent annual improvement needed to meet the
target.
In sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest level of maternal mortality,
progress was negligible. A woman's risk of dying from pregnancy-related
causes is about one in seven in Niger, against one in 17,400 in Sweden,
according to the report.
Progress on universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS by 2010 and of
halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015 has been limited. The
majority of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, 60 percent of
them are women; globally, the numbers have risen from around 30 million in
2001 to 33 million in 2007.
However, access to anti-retroviral treatment improved by 42 percent in 2007;
by the end of that year, three million people were receiving treatment in
development countries, out of an estimated 9.7 million in need.
On the second prong of goal six, combating malaria, about 250 million
insecticide-treated bed nets are needed to reach 80 percent coverage in
sub-Saharan Africa alone, states the report. Funding so far is sufficient
for 100 million nets, and between 350 and 500 million cases of malaria occur
worldwide.
Halfway to the target year, said Ban, it is clear that we are not on track
to meet the Goals, especially in Africa. And new global challenges an
economic slowdown, high food and fuel prices, and climate change threaten
to reverse the progress we have made.�
A high-level meeting of premiers and private sector, NGO and civil society
leaders on 25 September will seek to address these challenges.
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