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World
Poverty 'More Widespread'
By Steve Schifferes
Economics reporter, BBC News
28/08/08 "BBC" -- - The World Bank has warned that world poverty
is much greater than previously thought.
It has revised its previous estimate and now says that 1.4
billion people live in poverty, based on a new poverty line of
$1.25 per day.
This is substantially more than its earlier estimate of 985
million people living in poverty in 2004.
The Bank has also revised upwards the number it said were poor
in 1981, from 1.5 billion to 1.9 billion.
The new estimates suggest that poverty is both more persistent,
and has fallen less sharply, than previously thought.
However, given the increase in world population, the poverty
rate has still fallen from 50% to 25% over the past 25 years.
"This is pretty grim analysis coming from the World Bank," said
Elizabeth Stuart, senior policy adviser at Oxfam.
"The urgency to act has never been greater, especially in
sub-Saharan Africa where half the population of the continent
lives in extreme poverty, a figure that hasn't changed for over
25 years."
Regional differences
The new figures confirm that Africa has been the least
successful region of the world in reducing poverty.
The number of poor people in Africa doubled between 1981 and
2005 from 200 million to 380 million, and the depth of poverty
is greater as well, with the average poor person living on just
70 cents per day.
The poverty rate is unchanged at 50% since 1981.
But in absolute numbers, it is South Asia which has the most
poor people, with 595 million, of which 455 million live in
India.
The poverty rate, however, has fallen from 60% to 40%.
China has been most successful in reducing poverty, with the
numbers falling by more than 600 million, from 835 million in
1981 to 207 million in 2005.
The poverty rate in China has plummeted from 85% to 15.9%, with
the biggest part of that drop coming in the past 15 years, when
China opened up to Western investment and its coastal regions
boomed.
In fact, in absolute terms, China accounts for nearly all the
world's reduction in poverty. In percentage terms, world poverty
excluding China fell from 40% to 30% over the past 25 years.
Millennium goals
The new figures still suggest that the world will reach its
millennium development goal of halving the 1990 level of poverty
by 2015, according to World Bank chief economist Justin Lin.
"Poverty has fallen by about 1% per year since 1981," he said.
"However the sobering news that poverty is more pervasive than
we thought means we must redouble our efforts."
Oxfam, however, warns that another 100 million people may be
forced into poverty by rising food prices, as well as the
additional 400 million identified in the new report.
The Bank's findings come as the OECD has reported that many rich
countries have cut back on their foreign aid budgets, with
little sign that the pledge made at the G8 summit at Gleneagles
in 2005 to double aid to Africa by 2010 is being met.
The World Bank's new poverty line of $1.25 per day in 2005 is
equivalent to its $1 per day poverty line introduced in 1981
after adjustment for inflation. The new estimates are based on
675 household surveys for 116 countries, based on 1.2 million
interviews. The data has also been revised on the basis of new
data on inflation and prices from the 2005 ICP survey of world
prices, which showed that the cost of living in developing
countries was higher than previously thought. It does not take
into account the recent increases in fuel and food prices.
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