ZCZC
BCN-21
WORLDBANK-POVERTY-AFRICA
War on extreme poverty faces challenges in Africa: World Bank
WASHINGTON, Sept 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The share of the people living in
extreme poverty around the globe has declined but is falling a slower pace as
the challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa become more acute, the World Bank said
Wednesday.
The slowing decline and uneven success rate raises concerns as more of the
world’s poor become concentrated in a region beset by conflict and the
effects of climate change, the bank said in its annual report.
The global development lender said the percentage of people living in
extreme poverty fell to a new low of 10 percent in 2015 — the latest year
for which data is available — down from 11 percent in 2013, reflecting
steady but slowing progress globally.
The number of people living on less than $1.90 a day, the threshold for
extreme poverty, fell during this period by 68 million to 736 million, the
data show.
“Over the last 25 years, more than a billion people have lifted themselves
out of extreme poverty and the global poverty rate is now lower than it has
ever been in recorded history. This is one of the greatest human achievements
of our time,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said.
But the report shows the rate of decline is slowing, especially in the
least developed countries.
So “if we are going to end poverty by 2030, we need much more investment,
particularly in building human capital, to help promote the inclusive growth
it will take to reach the remaining poor,” Kim said. “For their sake, we
cannot fail.”
As more countries lift people out of poverty, a higher share of the
world’s poor will be concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that
already has high poverty rates of 41 percent, and slow progress, said
Carolina Sanchez-Paramo of the World Bank’s Poverty & Equity Global Practice.
This fight “will be won and lost” in Sub-Saharan Africa, she told
reporters.
There are many conflict countries in the region but they also are more
susceptible to the impact of changing climate, she said.
The anti-poverty efforts also have suffered from a combination of lower
economic growth rates and growth that is “more concentrated in capital
intensive” industries that do not generate as much employment.
That makes the growth less inclusive in some African countries so “it pays
off less in terms of poverty reduction,” she said.
About half of the world’s countries now have poverty rates below three
percent, but the report said the world was not on track to achieve that
target globally by 2030.
BSS/AFP/HR/1055