400 million children live in extreme poverty –World Bank

Displaced Bakassi children

About 400 million children live in extreme poverty worldwide despite a sharp decline in the population of poor children over the past three decades, a new World Bank analysis released on Thursday in Washington DC, United States, indicated.

The report, for the first time, gives an in-depth profile of the poorest people in the world.

It found that, compared to 1981, 721 million fewer people lived in extreme poverty in 2010, or under $1.25 a day, but also concluded that a disproportionate number of children were among them.

Children accounted for one-third of those living in extreme poverty around the world in 2010, compared with only one in five of those living above the poverty line.

In low-income countries, the percentages were worse, with half of all children living in extreme poverty.

The World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, said, “We have witnessed an historic movement of people lifting themselves out of poverty over the past three decades, but the number of children living in poverty alone should leave no doubt that there remains much work to do.

“We can reach our goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity, including sharing that prosperity with future generations, but only if we work together with new urgency. Children should not be cruelly condemned to a life without hope, without good education, and without access to quality health care. We must do better for them.”

World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Kaushik Basu, said, “The finding that over 400 million children live in extreme poverty and children are more likely to be poor than adults is disturbing, since this can exacerbate child labour and create inter-generational poverty traps.

“Hence, if we want to make a sustainable dent on global poverty, this is where we need to focus our attention.”

Six months ago, the Governors of the World Bank Group endorsed two global goals: ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity by fostering income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population in developing countries.

Poverty reduction globally has moved at a faster pace than expected; the Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty between 1990 and 2015 was reached five years ahead of time.

But the World Bank’s analysis underscored the difficulty of reaching the goal by 2030, finding that while the reduction in poverty moved significantly in middle-income countries such as China and India, low-income countries showed much slower progress.

While extreme poverty rates have declined in all regions, the world’s 35 low-income countries, 26 of which are in Africa, registered 100 million more extremely poor people today than three decades ago. In 2010, 33 per cent of the extreme poor lived in low-income countries, compared to 13 per cent in 1981.

The analysts also found that the poor in 2010 were as bad off as they were in 1981, with the exception of India and China. The “average” poor person in a low-income country lived on 78 cents a day in 2010, compared to 74 cents a day in 1981. But in India, the average income of the poor rose to 96 cents in 2010, compared to 84 cents in 1981, while China’s average poor’s income rose to 95 cents, compared to 67 cents.

The report also calculated that the amount of money needed every year to lift more than a billion people out of extreme poverty would be $169bn in 2005. This was less than half in 1981.

The Bank report also provided previously unreleased details about where the world’s poor live and work, as well as their access to basic services.

The analysis found that more than three quarters, or 78 per cent, of those living in extreme poverty lived in rural areas, with nearly two-thirds of the extreme poor deriving their livelihoods from agriculture.

The extreme poor also continue to lag significantly behind in access to basic services, the analysis found. Only 26 per cent of the poor had access to clean water in 2010, compared to 56 per cent among those living above the $1.25 poverty line.

Meanwhile, fewer than half, 49 per cent, of the extreme poor had access to electricity, compared to 87 per cent of the non-poor. And while 61 per cent of those above the $1.25 poverty line had access to basic sanitation, just 20 per cent of the extreme poor had access to similar services, the report showed.

The World Bank Acting Vice President on Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Jaime Saavedra, said, “We need to act urgently, and with a sharpened focus, to implement effective policies in places where poverty remains entrenched, particularly rural areas.”

Punch.