Quick Facts
· Recent increases in the price of food have had a direct and adverse effect on the poor and are expected to push many more people – an estimated 100 million – into absolute poverty.
· The proportion of children under five who are undernourished declined from 33 per cent in 1990 to 26 per cent in 2006. However, by 2006, the number of children in developing countries who were underweight still exceeded 140 million .
The MDG(Millennium Development Goals) target of cutting in half the proportion of people in the developing world living on less than $1 a day by 2015 remains within reach for the world as a whole. However, this achievement will be largely the result of extraordinary success in Asia, mostly East Asia. In contrast, little progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (below the Saharan Desert).
Using a new threshold for extreme poverty now set at $1.25 a day in 2005 prices, the Bank concludes that there were 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty in 2005.
With recent increases in food prices, it is estimated that 1 billion people will go hungry, while another 2 billion will be undernourished.
Almost 50 per cent of children are underweight in Southern Asia. This region alone accounts for more than half the world’s undernourished children, while the majority of countries making the least progress in reducing child malnutrition are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Employed persons living in a household where earnings are less than $1 per person a day are considered the ‘working poor’. In sub-Saharan Africa, over half the workers fall into this category.
Slum dwellers, who account for 1 billion of the worldwide urban population, die earlier, experience more hunger and disease, receive less education and have fewer job opportunities.
WHAT HAS WORKED – This is one of many ideas which are working.
Microfinance has helped many of the world’s poor to increase their incomes through self-employment and empowerment. With access to small loans microfinance clients, mostly women, have formed micro-enterprises that generate income. Grameen Bank of Bangladesh is one of the world’s most successful microfinance institutions. From a starting base of 10 members in 1976, Grameen Bank today has over 7.5 million borrowers, 65 per cent of whom have managed to lift themselves out of extreme poverty . Microfinance institutions provided loans to 113 million clients worldwide
There are now thousands of Microfinance organisations that are helping lift people out of poverty. I have found one organisation in particular which is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending organisation you to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe. When you loan your money you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.
I’ll be sharing more about this exciting new concept soon.
