"Ultra poor" still suffer as poverty declines

by Kale, Poverty News Blog on Nov 07, 2007

from The Seattle Times

By Henry Sanderson
The Associated Press

BEIJING — The world's poorest people are not seeing the benefits of a global poverty-rate decline driven by Asia's economic growth the past two decades, a report said today.

The report by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute said the world is on track to reach a U.N. target of halving poverty and hunger by 2015.

Yet, those living on less than 50 cents a day — what the institute called the "ultra poor" — have benefited the least from poverty-reduction efforts, the report said.

It estimated 162 million people fell into the poorest category in 2004 while some 838 million lived on between 50 cents and $1 a day. Three-quarters of the world's poorest live in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.

East Asia and the Pacific region saw a 20 percentage-point drop between 1990 and 2004 in the number of people living on less than $1 a day.

Poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa have stagnated from 1990 to 2004, the last year for which data was collected for the survey. Civil conflict, bad infrastructure and a lack of education have hampered growth in that region.

"In sub-Saharan Africa, most of those defined as hungry ... are at risk of dying from extreme hunger or starvation," said an executive summary of the report, titled "The World's Most Deprived, Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger."

The report said inequality remains a problem for fast-developing China.

"The big challenge from here on is that further reduction and elimination of poverty cannot be achieved by further growth," said the institute's director, Joachim von Braun. "That requires a change in poverty-reduction policy from the traditional growth and employment orientation to a much more focused social protection-related policy."

Von Braun said such change would need a continued emphasis on education for low-income groups. Insurance would also lessen the economic impact of health crises among poor families, he said.

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