The World Bank estimates, based on updated global price data, that in 2005 there were 1.4 billion people – a quarter of the developing world – living in extreme poverty on less that $1.25 a day, which is the measure for global poverty conditions. The 2005 figures, the latest available, will likely put more pressure on donor countries to combat global poverty. In 1981, data shows that there were 52 % of all developing nations living in extreme poverty, under the $1.25 a day measure. By, 2005, the percentage has almost halved to just 26 %. That is good news for the World Bank because the United Nations is well on target for meeting it’s goal of halving the world’s global poverty conditions by 2015.
However, in 1981, 52 % of sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s poorest nation, lived under the line of $1.25 a day poverty conditions. In 2005, that percentage has not budged. That means about 380 million people live in these conditions now as opposed to the 200 million in 1981. While most developing countries have reduced their poverty rates by 50%, the sub-Saharan African region has managed to increase poverty in 25 years.
People are in dire need around the world to get out of the extreme poverty plaguing their nation. Africa has never seen the Summer Olympic Games in their country. The country is afflicted with constant civil war, competing head of state officials who only want to obtain a dictatorship instead of a democracy, and it is wrecked with individuals hungry for blood diamonds. This a call to help for the political leaders around the world, big corporate donors, and diplomatic activists to turn the African nation into a developed nation full of potential and wonder. It should be a force to be reckoned with, not one that is constantly stomped upon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/washington/27worldbank.html?_r=2&scp=4&sq=poverty&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
-Laura Johnson 8-29-08
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