G8 v FAO on global poverty numbers

It has been a year for international reports on the number of poor and how to reduce poverty. In recent months there has been a veritable flood.

There was the joint World Bank-IMF-OECD ``A Better World for All'', the UNDP's Poverty 2000 report, the World Trade Organisation on trade and poverty reduction, the UNDP's annual Human Development Report and, of course, the controversy about the World Bank's 2000 World Development Report which is to focus on poverty.

As if all this was not enough we had last week the ``Global Poverty Report'' which was presented to the G-8 countries at their Okinawa summit.

Prepared by the World Bank, the IMF and the four regional development banks (covering Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas) this report is to be the first of an annual series that will be placed before the G8 at their yearly meetings.

There is nothing new in this new report, which largely puts together the results of past research at the World Bank on the subject.

One aspect of the report that the G8 took positive note of in its communique was that if the ``right conditions are created for growth and social development'' then progress is possible in poverty reduction in the developing countries.

The basis for this observation is the projection in the Global Poverty Report (which itself is taken from the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects 2000) of what impact differing growth rates and unchanging inequality could have on poverty - specifically on the ``international development goal'' of halving by 2015 the proportion of the global population now living in extreme poverty (on less than one U.S. dollar day).

Overall, the projections give a positive picture. If there is no change in inequality and real per capita income grows by between one and five per cent a year, then most countries will meet the 2015 target - some like South Asia will do so by 2008 itself.

However, if inequality worsens by 10 to 20 per cent and growth falls to between zero and four per cent, then the 2015 targets will not be met in any major region of the world, other than East Asia.

However, before the ink has dried on the G8 communique, the Food and Agriculture Organisation has put out what it calls an interim ``technical report'' on projections for agriculture in 2015/2030 that presents a more pessimistic picture on under-nourishment. Of course the report to the G8 analysed income poverty, while the FAO's projections are about deficiencies in calorie consumption.

Though the two are not the same, the FAO's figures suggest a much more dismal scenario in 2015. The 1996 World Food Summit of the FAO had laid down a target of reducing by half the number of malnourished people in the world. Yet, the outlook now is that while the proportion of the world's population which is malnourished will almost halve - from 18 per cent in 1995-97 to 10 per cent in 2015 and further to 6 per cent by 2030 - there will be only a modest change in the number of such people.

In spite of a slowdown in population growth, the decline in the proportion will not mean a substantial fall in numbers. The numbers of under-nourished are projected to decline from 790 million in 1995-97 only to 575 million in 2015 and further to 400 million in 2030. In other words, it will be 2030 and not 2015 when the numbers will halve compared to the mid-Nineties. This is a much more pessimistic projection than that which the multilateral institutions presented to the G8.

CRR

(The Global Poverty Report can be accessed at http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/extme/G8-poverty2000.pdf and the FAO's Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030 at http://www.fao.org/es/esd/at2015/toc-e.htm)

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : Speedera Networks to locate development centre in
           India
Next     : Voodoo of statistics and woes of growth rates