World poverty is shrinking rapidly, new index reveals, By Tracy McVeigh, March 16, 2013, The Guardian: “Some of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor, according to a groundbreaking academic study which has taken a new approach to measuring deprivation. The report, by Oxford University’s poverty and human development initiative, predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates…”
Tag: Human development
UN Rural Poverty Report
Rural areas face challenges to eradicate extreme poverty, By James Melik, December 6, 2010, BBC News: “Some 350 million people living in rural areas being lifted out of extreme poverty in the past decade, according to The Rural Poverty Report, published by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a United Nations (UN) agency. However, in spite of this, more than a billion people around the world still continue to suffer. The UN describes extreme poverty as living on less than $1.25 (80p) a day. But factors such as human development, a lack of basic needs, vulnerability, livelihood, unsustainability and social exclusion are also considered in the report, which reflects on rural areas across the world and the implications for global food security. The last report came out in 2001 but, according to IFAD’s president Kananyo Nwanze, ideally it should come out more frequently. ‘You shouldn’t have to wait 10 years for a report of this nature,’ he says…”
UN Human Development Report
- UN rethinks how to measure, define ‘poor’, By Jina Moore, November 5, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “The United Nations is starting to rethink that question. The UN Development Program yesterday unveiles this year’s Human Development Report and the Human Development Index (HDI), the annual statistical extravaganza that offers an alternative to GDP as a measure of well-being. This year, the HDI does something new for the poor: It multiplies them. The report introduces a new measure for poverty. Called the ‘multidimensional poverty index’ (MPI), it’s a different way of thinking about who is or isn’t poor. The old way was (comparatively) easy: Count the number of people who live on less than $1.25 a day. The report still does that, but it augments that income standard with a, well, multidimensional index…”
- Human development report shows great gains, and some slides, By Neil MacFarquhar, November 4, 2010, New York Times: “The world has made significant progress in income, education and health over the past 40 years, but the gains have been uneven and in some places war and the ravages of AIDS shortened life spans, according to a United Nations report on Thursday. Over all, average life expectancy around the globe jumped to 70 years in 2010, up from 59 in 1970. School enrollment through high school reached 70 percent of eligible pupils, up from 55 percent, and average per capita income doubled to more than $10,000 in the 135 countries for which numbers were available. The statistics cover about 92 percent of the world’s population…”