Last Saturday 60,000 people filed in to New York's Central Park to hear Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys play and to declare with the event's organisers, the Global Citizen group, that the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 was entirely achievable. Wonder interrupted his set to introduce United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, straight from the General Assembly debate, to reinforce the point to a more exuberant audience. A consensus is emerging that ending extreme poverty – defined as ...
Last Saturday 60,000 people filed in to New York's Central Park to hear Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys play and to declare with the event's organisers, the Global Citizen group, that the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 was entirely achievable. Wonder interrupted his set to introduce United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, straight from the General Assembly debate, to reinforce the point to a more exuberant audience. A consensus is emerging that ending extreme poverty – defined as those living on US$1.25 or less a day – by 2030 should top the UN's next list of development goals.
Africa's average growth rates of over 5% a year for the past decade are fuelling hope:
in 1990, 1.9 billion people were living on $1 a day; by 2010, 1.2 billion people were living on $1.25 a day (the new poverty line). In fact, the data is much more ambiguous. This month, finance ministers head for the Annual World Bank Meetings in Washington, where they will hear that higher growth doesn't always translate into lower poverty: in oil-producing countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Gabon, there is just more inequality.
Alongside the Bank's reports, the ministers should read a compelling new survey by the Afrobarometer group on what it calls 'lived poverty' – that is how often a family goes without enough food, medicines, fuel or cash income. Although on this measure poverty has been falling over the past three years in Ghana, Malawi and Zambia, it is rising in Botswana, South Africa and Tanzania, all countries which have robust economies and growth rates. And in many other parts of Africa, the fruits of growth are not reaching the poorest people – or even coming close.
