World poverty is shrinking rapidly, new index reveals

[alp227]

Source: 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.

It identifies "star performer" nations such as Rwanda, Nepal and Bangladesh as places where deprivation could disappear within the lifetime of present generations. Close on their heels with reductions in poverty levels were Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bolivia.

The study comes after the UN's latest development report published last week which stated that poverty reduction drives in the developing world were exceeding all expectations. It says: "The world is witnessing a epochal 'global rebalancing' with higher growth in at least 40 poor countries helping lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a new 'global middle class'. Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/17/aid-trade-reduce-acute-poverty

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. Damn shame Detroit didn't make the list.

[backscatter712]

2. The 1% is now terrified.

When the poor aren't struggling and desperate, when they're not forced to spend 110% of their energy putting their nose to the grindstone to slow the rate of starvation for their family, they start speaking out, demanding obnoxious things like civil rights, and demanding they get a fair share of the fruits of their labor.

The 1% can't have that...

[primavera]

13. Don't worry

Those are other countries. Here in the US, where most of the 1% are located, they've got us sheeple under lock and key and thoroughly broken.

[Phlem]

3. I'd love to see

the bell curve on this stat including determining factors.

-p

[awoke_in_2003]

5. a rising tide lifts all boats...

while drowning those who don't own boats.

[JCMach1]

6. Nepal... really...? I suppose I imagined Dalit women breaking gravel with hammers

and the 5 year old boy with the beautiful smile and the ring of dirt and glue around his mouth and nose...

Or come visit Nairobi where I am now and we can take a charming visit to Kibera and Mathare.

Is The Guardian becoming neo-liberal?

[pampango]

7. "The study found that in 2013 a total of 1.6 billion people are living in "multidimensional" poverty

Neither the article's author nor the study itself claim that global poverty has disappeared, just that &quot s)ome of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor."

The Guardian article references an Oxford University study which itself confirms a UN report published last week that found "poverty reduction drives in the developing world were exceeding all expectations."

I was in Manila a couple of months ago and I agree with you that examples of extreme poverty everywhere in the world are still all too common. I accept, however, that progress is being made, but with "1.6 billion people are living in "multidimensional" poverty" very much still needs to be done.

The brighter global picture is the result of international and national aid and development projects investing in schools, health clinics, housing, infrastructure and improved access to water. The UN also pointed to trade as being a key factor which was improving conditions in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

Let us hope that this welcome sign of progress is not derailed by who want to curtail those "international and national aid and development projects investing in schools, health clinics, housing, infrastructure and improved access to water." Foreign aid is one of the big budget targets of many on the Ryan's budget and a favorite target of the libertarian/fundamentalist republican base.

[JCMach1]

17. Del Monte has guard posts equipped with rifles

to protect poor people from getting to the pineapples. That guy sitting in the tower benefits from that system and probably makes $2 a day now instead of less than one. He still cannot afford pineapple.

[pampango]

20. All quite true. That over a billion are still poor

does not contradict the findings of the UN and Oxford studies that progress has been made. It means there is still much more work to do.

[JCMach1]

26. I really don't buy the study... I am not an economist, but

it would be good to see a critique of the methodology used.

[pampango]

27. Agree with respect to the methodology of the Oxford and UN studies. They may be flawed.

Also if these studies are flawed, there may be more credible studies that show different conclusions. That would be useful to help understand what is really happening which is preferable to believing that global poverty must be getting better or must be getting worse, because that is what fits the way we see the world.

I don't think that the UN or Oxford University have axes to grind and are intentionally presenting the results of flawed studies. Neither is notoriously conservative or traditionally liberal in the slant of its studies. I just do not want to get in the habit of rejecting studies out of hand if they show results that are not consistent with my worldview. As liberals, I think most of us think that is what conservatives do - reject studies that do not support their chosen position on any number of issue from the effect of raising the minimum wage to the existence of global warming to many other issues.

[Alkene]

8. Yay, Thomas Friedman was right...

(...I think I just threw up in my mouth a lil' bit.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to working on my Walmart employment application.

[DCBob]

9. I know many on this board hate this word but globalization is main reason for this.

imo.

[mpcamb]

10. Good. Now to sustain this....

Let's talk publicly about population control.

(Did everybody just leave the room?)

[Exultant Democracy]

11. Its the rapidly falling birth rates.

[Posteritatis]

12. Whole lot of people actually upset over this. Ugh. (nt)

[lunatica]

14. My first reaction is that this is bullshit

Last edited Sun Mar 17, 2013, 04:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Maybe less of the population is literally living in the garbage dumps, but that certainly isn't an improvement on poverty levels.

[tawadi]

15. +1

[Earth_First]

16. Record numbers of the middle class worldwide are being reduced to poverty levels...

I'm calling bullshit.

[Doctor_J]

18. a lot of it has been offloaded to the US

If the real wages of our working poor decrease by, say, $5000/year, that lifts a lot of people in Dark Africa out of poverty, I guess. Most of the NAFTA opponents predicted this exact thing.

[pampango]

21. "Dark Africa" has come for our jobs, eh?

Of course the stagnation of American wages may just have more to do with our own anti-labor, right-to-work, laws and tax cuts for the rich and increases for the rest of us.

My guess is that if we had progressive taxes, strong unions and an effective safety net we would happy that people in "Dark Africa" were a little better off. We would not be insinuating that their modest success had come at our expense.

[Doctor_J]

22. So the fact that our shoes are now made by workers

making $2/day has no bearing on our situation? That Walmart having a factory in bangladesh isn't hurting US labor?

[pampango]

24. We don't have to wall of the world's poor in order to have a strong middle class.

Every other developed country trades more than the US yet has a stronger middle class. The reason: they have more progressive taxes, strong unions and stronger middle classes.

Waving the $2/day foreign worker bogeyman as the cause of our economic problems is using semi-logic like republicans do when they argue that raising the minimum wage will increase unemployment - "When you raise the price of something, you get less of it." It sounds logical except that real-world experience shows that raising the minimum wage actually increases employment for a variety of reasons.

Similarly progressive countries are not afraid of that scary $2/day worker from "Dark Africa". In fact the EU has one-way free trade with the poorest countries in the world so that they can export their products to Europe without import tariffs. In spite of (because of?) this Europe has the best distribution of income in the world and much stronger unions and middle class than the US has. They seem to know that the African worker is not their enemy.

Europeans tax themselves heavily and progressively, support strong unions and safety net and trade with the rest of the world much more than we do. Too many Americans seem to prefer low/regressive taxes, weak unions and a shredded safety net, then blame our problems on African workers. With low/regressive taxes, weak unions and a shredded safety net we could eliminate every import from every poor country in the world (kind of a walled-off society) and we would still have the same problems.

republicans raised tariffs in 1921 and 1924 which dramatically reduce trade, and guess what happened? By 1929 we had the worst inequality of income that we had ever had in the US - not surpassed until the 'bush tax cuts' destroyed any progressivity in our tax system. Tariffs don't make a strong middle class. If we ignore history and evidence of what works, we mimic what republicans like to do - appeal to emotion and use semi-logic to scare people.

[Kolesar]

29. That was insightful...eom

[nightscanner59]

19. Jeb Bush will see to the demise of that!!!

Bush I was dirty. Bushie II was filthy, evil, super-selfish and self-serving. A third helping would make the movie "idiocracy" a reality series.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. There is no reason for progressives to feel threatened by the possibility that the world is making

progress. It is most likely the case that in the big picture poverty is decreasing - just as violence in the big picture is decreasing. This is not news that any progressive should find disturbing. This is news that progressives should find encouraging. If this data is correct and I think it probably is - we should be rejoicing and shouting the good news from the mountain tops. If the evidence suggest that the world is getting better - Is that not what progressives want to happen?


The data also suggest that there are other ways the world is getting better:

[Dawson Leery]

25. Just wait until the Friedman's Chicago boys get ahold of these nations.

Any progress will be taken back.

[madville]

28. The more the standard of living increases

The more global resources we consume, let's all cheer for perpetual growth while the big loser in this is planet Earth and Mother Nature.