Poverty may lessen by 2000, except in Africa.

Poverty my lessen by 2000, except in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where poverty is not likely to decline by the year 2000, the World Bank says. While 400 million people elsewhere could rise from poverty by the beginning of the twenty-first century if the Bank's two-pronged strategy is adopted, high fertility rates in Africa would still make the number of the poor swell by nearly 100 million.

The Bank's World Development Report 1990 states that family planning services are vital for poverty reduction, especially where a high population growth rate--such as the 3 to 4 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa--depresses per capita income which results in low wages and growing poverty.

The Report forecasts that some 265 million people, or 43.1 per cent of the population of Africa, south of the Sahara, would live in poverty in the year 2000. In 1985, the figure was 180 million (46.8 per cent). "By the end of the century, sub-Saharan Africa will account for more than 30 per cent of the developing world's poor, as against 16 per cent in 1685."

Even to hold the number of the poor in Africa at the 1985 level will require a massive effort which includes: gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.5 per cent a year--almost 2 per cent higher than projected--a radical restructuring of industry, improved incentives and technology for agriculture and increased allocations of resources to primary education, health care, nutrition, and family planning. "This cannot be achieved unless Governments strengthen their reform efforts and donors increase their assitance", the World Bank states.

According to the Economic Report on Africa--1990, released by the Economic Commission for Africa on 15 May, there was a modest upturn in that continent's economy in 1989, mainly due to a surge in agricultural output and higher oil and mineral export earnings. But overall economic conditions remained precarious.

Africa's share in global trade is estimated to have fallen from 4.7 per cent in 1980 to 2.1 per cent in 1989. Inflation rates remained high on the continent, the Report says. Since 1980, per capita consumption has fallen by about 11 per cent, with far-reaching consequences in living standards and the quality of life.

A brighter picture

elsewhere

The outlook is brighter for other developing regions.

The sharpest fall in the number of the poor will take place in Asia. By 2000, average incomes in East Asia are expected to be 65 per cent higher, virtually eliminating poverty. East Asian countries are expected to reach an annual 5.1 per cent per capital income growth rate.

Per capita incomes in South Asia should keep growing at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent--nearly three times the 1965-1980 rate. China's economy should perform well, although growth of per capita income is expected to fall from 8.7 per cent a year achieved in the 1980s to about 5.4 per cent.

In Latin America, the number of the poor is expected to remain the same. "Nowhere in the developing world are the contrasts between poverty and national wealth more striking than in Latin America and the Caribbean", the Report states. Despites average per capita incomes that are five to six times those in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, nearly one fifth of the population there still lives in poverty.

"This is because of the region's exceptionally high degree of income inequality", it says, adding that raising all the poor in the continent to just above the poverty line would cost only 0.7 per cent of regional GDP--the approximate equivalent of a 2 per cent income tax on the wealthiest fifth of the population.