Poverty in Africa, Global poverty, Issues, Deaths, Hunger, Statistics, Photos
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POVERTY ON THE RISE IN WEST AFRICA The International Comparison Programme (ICP) of the World Bank has just released a report on the new poverty estimates in the developing world. Entitled as “The developing world is poorer than we thought, but no less successful in the fight against poverty”, the report revealed once again that the number of people living in extreme conditions of poverty has increased dramatically in the recent years.
The report further noted that Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst of all in the fight against poverty worldwide.
New Poverty Line but Still the Dark Picture
Being the first major effort to update data based on 2005 measures of purchasing power parity, the new report updated the 2004 estimates on poverty line which was based on then best available cost of living data from 1993.
“The new estimates are a major advance in poverty measurement because they are based on far better price data for assuring that the poverty lines are comparable across the countries. Data from household surveys have also improved in terms of country coverage, data access and timeliness”, stated Martin Ravallion, Director of the Development Research Group at World Bank.
The new estimates, according to the World Bank, offer a more accurate picture of cost of living in the developing countries and set a new poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day. This new poverty line is the average national poverty line of the poorest 10-20 countries.
The ICP report has shown that the number of people living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in developing countries has reached to 1.4 billion. This is an increase of 400 million people as compared to the 2004 estimates.
Despite all the neoliberal dreams, the persistence of the extreme poverty in many developing countries is interpreted by the critical voices as a clear sign of the failure of Neoliberalism.
Regional Disparity across the Globe
The report also revealed the fact that the neoliberal globalization has deepened the regional disparities across the globe. While the East Asia appears as the major ‘success story’ in terms of the leveling-off the poverty conditions, the Sub-Saharan Africa remains as the key loser from what has been going on.
The report underlined that once the world’s poorest region, East Asia, has managed to reduce the poverty from nearly 80 percent of the population living on less than US$ 1.25 a day in 1981 to 18 percent in 2005. This paramount improvement, according to the report, largely owes to the dramatic progress in poverty reduction in China.
However, the report admits that even this improvement has been insufficient to create a dramatic reduction in the number of poor people, which is currently about 600 million in the region.
The Sub-Saharan Africa, the report specified, has been the worst of all in the efforts to reduce the poverty levels. While in 1981 about 200 million people were living under extreme conditions of poverty, the number was about 400 million in 2005 estimates.
Evaluating the problem of extreme poverty in Africa, Justin Lin, the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank stated: “The new data confirm that the world will likely reach the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the 1990 level of poverty by 2015 and that poverty has fallen by about 1 percentage point a year since 1981. However, the sobering news that poverty is more pervasive than we though means we must redouble our efforts, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
As for the other regions of the world, the report utilizes the median poverty line - US$ 2 a day in 2005 prices. By this standard, the report argues that the poverty rate has fallen since 1981 in Latin America, Middle East and North Africa. However, the report acknowledges that such progress has been insufficient to create a dramatic decrease in the total number of the poor.
Lastly, the report notes that the US$ 2 a day poverty rate has risen in Eastern Europe and Central Asia since 1981 while some progress have been experienced beginning from late 1990s.
EU IGNORING POVERTY In criticism aimed primarily at the United States, Japan and the European Union, a U.N. report said Thursday that rich nations haven't delivered on promises to help the world's poorest nations and must increase aid by $18 billion a year.
The report also criticized the failure of rich and poor countries to reach accord in seven years of negotiations on expanding global trade opportunities for developing countries as a way to reduce poverty. It called for redoubled efforts to produce a new trade treaty.
The report comes ahead of a Sept. 25 meeting of world leaders at U.N. headquarters to boost efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals adopted at a 2000 summit. The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary school education and halting the AIDS pandemic, all by 2015.
The 52-page report, which was produced by more than 20 U.N. bodies and key global financial institutions, focuses on progress in achieving the goal of creating a global partnership for development.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at a news conference that the report "sounds a strong alarm."
"The main message is that while there has been progress on several counts, delivery on commitments made by member states has been deficient, and has fallen behind schedule," he said. "We are already in the second half of our contest against poverty. We are running out of time."
According to the report, aid to developing countries climbed steadily after 1997, peaking at $107 billion in 2005, "boosted by exceptional debt relief in that year." In 2006, however, international aid dropped by 4.7 percent and fell 8.4 percent more in 2007, the report said.
Ban noted that total aid from the world's richest nations amounted to only 0.28 percent of their combined national incomes, far below the U.N. target of 0.7 percent. The only countries to reach or exceed that target were Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
If the donor nations are to meet the 2010 target set at the Group of Eight summit in 2005, aids "will have to increase by $18 billion a year," Ban said. "Of that, $7.3 billion would have to go to Africa."
At that summit, the major industrialized powers agreed to increase yearly aid to developing countries, amounting to an extra $50 billion by 2010 compared to 2004, and to channel $25 billion of the increase to Africa.
Rob Vos of the U.N. Department for Economic and Social Affairs, the report's lead author, said that over the last two years, "development assistance has been going down by all the major donors — the United States, Japan, but also the European Union."
"On average, the European Union gives more in relative terms vis a vis their national income than the other principal donors, the United States and Japan," Vos said. "But we can say to all of them that they have to step up their efforts to meet the commitments they've made ... ."
Carolyn Vadino, a spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said "the U.S. certainly supports the Millennium Development Goals and we're committed to the core issues, reducing poverty and hunger and improving health and education and combatting disease."
"We're the largest foreign assistance donor, and since 2002 we have more than doubled our foreign assistance," she said.
Ad Melkert, associate administrator of the U.N. Development Program, said he hopes the Sept. 25 meeting will remind countries to keep their commitments and promote the transfer of technology — another millennium goal — to address climate change.
Since trade ministers failed to reach a deal at World Trade Organization talks in July, Melkert suggested that negotiations be taken up by heads of state and the U.N. chief
THE POOREST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD THERE are more poor people in the developing world than previously estimated, a new study released by the World Bank has shown. However, the bank notes that poverty rates have been on the downward trend.
The study shows that in 2005, there were 1.4 billion people in the developing world living below the new revised poverty line of $ 1.25 a day compared to 1.9 million in 1981.
This compares to earlier estimates of 985 million people living below the former poverty line of $1 a day in 2004 and about 1.5 billion in poverty in 1981.
The researchers, Martin Ravallion and Shaohua, in their report titled “The developing world is poorer than we thought but no less successful in the fight against poverty,” said the new estimates offered a more accurate picture of the cost of living in developing countries.
“The new estimates are a major advance in poverty measurement because they are based on far better price data for assuring that the poverty lines are comparable across countries,” said Martin Ravallion, the bank director for development research group.
Justin Lin chief, an economist at the bank, said the world was on track as far as meeting the Millennium Development Goals of halving the 1990 levels of poverty by 2015.
“However, the sobering news that poverty is more pervasive than we thought means we must redouble our efforts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.
The report notes that the drop in poverty rates were not uniform worldwide with East Asia reporting a drop of nearly 80% of the population living below $1.25 a day in 1981 to 18% in 2005.
“However, the poverty rate in sub-Saharan Africa remains at 50% in 2005, no lower than in 1981, although there are more encouraging recent signs of progress,” the bank noted. Statistics show that the number of the poor has almost doubled in this region from 200 million in 1981 to 380 million in 2005.
“If the trend persists, the world’s poor will live in Africa by 2015.
Average consumption among poor people in sub- Saharan Africa stood at a meager 70 cents a day in 2005. Given that poverty is so deep in Africa, even higher growth will be needed than for other regions to have the same impact on poverty,” the report warns.
The report attributes the doubling of poverty in Africa to the fact that the new estimates use a more careful assessment of what $1.25 actually buys in different countries as opposed to the value of the American dollar in the US with that in an African country. Another explanation for the rise in poverty numbers is the population growth in Africa.
“While poverty rates declined between 1996 and 2005, it was not enough to counteract the effect of faster population growth,” the report notes. With the changes in the measurement of the poverty the line, Uganda’s rate of 31% may be subject to change.
Economists argue that the report should not be used to make a judgment at national level regarding the improvement or decline in poverty levels between 1981-2001.
“What is important is to look at national poverty lines. This will better answer the question of how poverty in a particular country has changed over time,” said Shantayanan Devarajan, the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa region.
He said reduction in poverty hinged on sustaining high economic growth rates. “There is need for countries to continue pursuing reforms that have begun to pay dividends, to accelerate progress in human development and to close the continent’s massive infrastructure deficit.
Tackling poverty in a multi-pronged approach will yield significant and much faster results,” he stated.
UN food summit seeks action on Africa A UN summit in Rome on the global food crisis asked rich nations today to help "revolutionise" farming in Africa and the developing world to produce more food for nearly a billion people facing hunger.
"The global food crisis is a wake-up call for Africa to launch itself into a 'green revolution' which has been over-delayed," Nigerian Agriculture Minister Sayyadi Abba Ruma said on the second day of the three-day summit.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received a petition signed by more than 300,000 people saying there was no time to lose. He said between $15 billion and $20 billion is needed each year to boost food production to combat hunger.
Mr Ban said the summit was already a success. "There is a clear sense of resolve, shared responsibility and political commitment among member states to making the right policy choices and investing in agriculture in the years to come.
"Hunger degrades everything we have been fighting for in recent years and decades," he told reporters. "We are duty-bound to act to act now and to act as one."
A draft declaration from 151 countries taking part said: "We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all."
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit after soaring commodity prices threatened to add 100 million more people to the 850 million already going hungry and caused food riots that threaten government stability in some countries.
The cost of major food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, with rice, corn and wheat at record highs. The OECD sees prices retreating from their peaks but still up to 50 per cent higher in the coming decade.
Mr Ban's predecessor at the head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, was in Rome to sign an agreement with UN food agencies for a new drive to increase farm production in Africa.
"We hope to spur a green revolution in Africa which respects biodiversity and the continent's distinct regions," said Mr Annan, who chairs the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) which is coordinating the effort.
The scheme will provide technical support to improve soil and water management, access to seeds and fertilisers, and improve infrastructure in "breadbasket" areas of Africa which have relatively good conditions for farming.
The Rome summit will set the tone on food aid and subsidies for the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July and what is hoped to be the concluding stages of the stalled Doha talks under the World Trade Organisation aimed at reducing trade distortions.
As leaders made lofty speeches, many blaming trade barriers and biofuels for driving up prices, delegations worked on a summit declaration for release tomorrow.
A draft of the declaration promised to "stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources sustainability for present and future generations".
The United States found itself on the defensive regarding biofuels, along with Brazil which is the world's largest producer of sugar-cane ethanol, and US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer bristled at the criticism.
"I don't think the United States gets enough credit at all for providing over one half of all the food aid," he said.
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who told the summit yesterday that former colonial power Britain was to blame for many of his country's problems, came under fire from a human rights group which said he was using food as a weapon ahead of a June 27th presidential run-off election.
Human Rights Watch said the Harare government was deliberately stopping food aid being provided to supporters of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
NEWS: POLITICS : ZIMBABWE HARARE, 5 June 2008 - The detention of presidential contender Morgan Tsvangirai by Zimbabwean police for nearly 12 hours on 4 June is another instance of the orchestrated harassment of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters and other organisations regarded as out of step with the 28-year rule of President Robert Mugabe, according to analysts.
CARE International, one of the largest non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in Zimbabwe, has been ordered to suspend its operations for alleged political activity, as have others.
Media reports on 5 June said a convoy of British and US diplomatic staff investigating reports of election violence north of the capital were stopped by a police roadblock at Bindura, 80km from Harare, where the tyres of their vehicles were slashed and a Zimbabwean driver was hauled from one of the diplomatic cars and beaten by police.
Sean McCormack, the US State Department spokesman, said in a televised briefing from Washington that the incident was "unacceptable", had caused "deep distress" and was the action of a government that "does not know any bounds"; the US would take up the incident in the Security Council.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said that party leader Tsvangirai, his deputy, Thokozani Khupe, party chairperson Lovemore Moyo, as well as other senior party officials and their security detail were stopped at a roadblock, and then held at Lupane police station, north of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city.
Tsvangirai, who claims that election rigging cost him victory in the 29 March presidential vote, will contest the run-off ballot on 27 June. He left Zimbabwe soon after the March elections, in which ZANU-PF lost control of parliament for the first time since independence in 1980, and very recently returned to Zimbabwe. He sustained head injuries last year from a beating in police custody and has twice been charged with treason.
Chamisa said the party had confirmed the killings of 60 MDC supporters since the March ballot, but this was "a conservative figure", as ZANU-PF had established "no-go" areas where people were "being killed, buried and forgotten".
One of the people killed was a local MDC organiser, Tonderai Ndira, who had been arrested 35 times and was taken from his house on 14 May by six armed, masked men.
His decomposing body was found a few weeks later. According to reports, a preliminary autopsy by an independent South African pathologist said "it was clear that he died very soon after he was abducted."
Absence of election observers
The promise of a heavier presence by the few election observer missions approved by the government had not led to an increase in their "visibility" Chamisa said.
There was no indication that observers from the African Union, the Pan African Parliament and the Southern African Development Community had deployed to violence hotspots in the northern and western provinces of Mashonaland West, Central and East, Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands.
The president of an MDC breakaway faction, Arthur Mutambara, was released on bail after his arrest under the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act - a few days before Tsvangirai was taken into custody - for allegedly writing falsehoods and "undermining public confidence in the army".
In an article titled A Shameful Betrayal of Independence, Mutambara, whose party won more than 10 legislative seats in the March elections wrote: "Our country is characterised by extreme illegitimacy, where we have an imbecilic and cynical military junta running the affairs of the country."
He also accused the High Court of aiding the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission — accused of favouring ZANU-PF — in delaying the announcement of the 29 March election results.
There was a long delay in announcing the winning party candidates in the election of municipal councils, the senate, parliament, and for the presidency. The opposition charged that the delay enabled election rigging.
Davison Maruziva, the editor of Zimbabwe's independent newspaper, The Standard, was arrested for publishing the article and is also on bail.
Political analyst John Makumbe said the recent "spate" of arrests was part of a strategy to intimidate government critics ahead of the presidential poll run-off on 27 June.
"The government is harassing defenders of people's rights — politicians, civic society members, media practitioners and even clerics - on the assumption that it will cow them into submission, but ZANU-PF ought to know that no amount of coercion will change people's views," Makumbe told IRIN.
He said the police were targeting people who held views contrary to those of the government, and "The state media is full of slanderous content, just as ZANU-PF is pregnant with torturers and murderers but the culprits are never arrested." Makumbe claimed the run-off would not be free and fair because of the harassment of critics and members of the opposition.
On 31 May Eric Matinenga, a human rights lawyer who won a parliamentary seat for the MDC, was arrested. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said in a statement on 2 June that Matinenga was arrested for incitement in rural Buhera, in Manicaland Province. Matinenga has instituted court action to bar the deployment of soldiers in his constituency, on the grounds that they were spearheading a terror campaign.
Military loyal to Mugabe
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), an NGO lobbying for a new, people-driven constitution, has accused the military of acting unconstitutionally by manipulating soldiers to support Mugabe.
The state-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, quoted Maj-Gen Martin Chedondo as telling soldiers: "the Constitution says the country should be protected by voting, and in the 27 June presidential election run-off, pitting our defence chief, Comrade Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC, we should therefore stand behind our Commander-in-Chief [Mugabe]".
