Coca leaves have been consumed by natives in Bolivia for centuries. The native Bolivian population used coca to treat many medical conditions such as fatigue and altitude sickness as well as hunger and thirst. In many other countries, however, coca consumption is frowned upon and the substance is considered a narcotic.
When Pope Francis recently visited South America in early July, he drank a brew of chamomile, anise and coca leaves — an ancient South American elixir that wards off altitude sickness. This led to some stir on the internet regarding his consumption of coca.
Bolivia is considered a lower-middle-income country, where the gross national income in 2014 was USD $2,830 per person, according to the World Bank. Coca production in Bolivia contributes greatly to the economy and is a means of livelihood for many farmers. It is the second largest producer of coca leaves behind Peru.
During the 1980s, coca production and trade amounted to USD $1 billion in annual exports, according to an analysis by the United States Library of Congress. That number is much higher today: in 2014, Bolivia’s GDP was $34.18 billion, according to the World Bank.
There is, however, a dark side to coca leaves. It is the main ingredient used to process cocaine. Bolivia supplied over 15 percent of the cocaine that reached the streets of the United States in the 1980s, making it a strong target of international criticism from Congress.
At the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, coca was outlawed and Bolivia’s use of coca was greatly limited and restricted. The treaty commanded Bolivia and other Andean nations to ban the consumption of coca leaves amongst their citizens.
In its natural state, the coca leaf is not scientifically harmful, and consuming it is a benign practice that is central to the cultural practice of millions of indigenous South American people. The treaty, however, declares that the exportation of coca is restricted; most countries outside of South America consider the trade and exportation of coca illegal, even in its natural state.
Bolivian prime minister Evo Morales held up a coca leaf at a U.N. narcotics assembly in 2012, defending the practice of chewing coca and urging the council to reconsider its stance on the leaf. He told the council, “Producers of coca leaf are not drug dealers; consumers of coca leaf are not drug addicts.”
But the outlawing of coca over 50 years ago has led to many continuous problems in Bolivia, including the illegal smuggling of coca paste throughout South America in order to process cocaine. The cocaine trail is a lucrative business that entices poor farmers to sell a portion of their crops to support their families.
Drug cartels hold citizens hostage, run prostitution rings and force violence wherever they are operating. In order to profit through the black market, it is in their best interest to see that nations do not work together to solve problems such as legal coca trade.
In 2011, the Obama administration rejected Bolivia’s proposed amendment to change the treaty and allow citizens to chew coca. A change in policy and cooperation between the United States and Bolivia would not only increase popularity among the nation’s people but would also strengthen drug prevention efforts throughout the region.
The move would allow farmers to legally sell their goods, encouraging them to not trade their crops to drug traffickers. The sales would boost the economy of Bolivia and other South American countries, allowing more resources to be allocated to fighting the real violent criminals.
In turn, the United States would also get more cooperation from the Bolivian government, gain trust and better strategically combat cartels. Not all of the problems with drugs can be solved with a single policy, but together, by working to carefully reform international coca laws, the United States can help reduce poverty and illegal drug operations that are plaguing North and South America.
– Adnan Khalid
Sources: About Coca Leaf, CNN, Library of Congress, The Guardian, UNTC, Washington Office on Latin America, World Bank
Photo: Indian Country Today Media Network
Turkey’s Legal Move Benefits Syria Aid Efforts
After years of stalled negotiations, eight international aid organizations have finally been granted legal status in Turkey. The decision, announced in the days leading up to Turkey’s parliamentary elections last month, will allow the NGOs to more efficiently conduct humanitarian work in neighboring Syria.
The international NGOs, including the Norwegian Refugee Council and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), provide assistance to Syrians affected by the ongoing civil war. The groups distribute much-needed food, water, medical aid and housing materials. With Turkish legal status, aid workers can more easily cross the border into Syria.
Most NGOs working in Syria have their offices “for legal and security reasons” inside the southern Turkish border. For many of these organizations, bureaucratic technicalities have slowed the registration process. MSF says that the Turkish government took eight years to review its application.
Tensions between the government and rival parties could also be to blame for the delays. MSF representative Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa explains, “We’ve been perceived as supporting the Kurdish agenda, for working in the southeast, but we simply worked there because more difficult displacements were happening in the east of the country.”
A Turkish government official reported that 42 international NGOs working in Syria are now legally registered in Turkey. Organization leaders hope that the recent changes will lead to improved relations with Turkish authorities.
Legal recognition ensures that the NGOs receive tax bonuses and waived export fees for goods bought in Turkey. It also allows the groups to more easily rent office space and handle bank transactions.
The newly registered NGOs will also be cleared to work, for the first time, with Turkey’s rapidly growing refugee population. As the civil war in Syria drags on, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey is expected to reach two million by the end of the year.
The international humanitarian community has praised the recognition of the eight NGOs as a “step in the right direction” for Turkey. Many believe that the announcement signals a change in Turkey’s management of the humanitarian crisis.
The NGO decision comes at a transitional time for Turkish politics. In the recent general elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in 13 years. The loss has effectively destroyed the president’s attempts to amend the constitution and expand his executive powers. In the coming weeks, his party will attempt to form a coalition government.
Despite President Erdoğan’s seemingly autocratic tendencies, the AKP has been the most pro-refugee of the four parties in parliament. While in power, the AKP has spent close to $6 billion accommodating the Syrian refugees. However, the president’s “open door policy” for Syrians has become increasingly unpopular as Turkey’s economy has declined. Some anti-Syrian demonstrations have even turned violent, with Turks attacking refugees with knives and sticks.
While the Syrian refugees could not vote in last month’s elections, they have a lot riding on the impending government changes. Experts say that the turning tide of public opinion will likely force the new government to tighten restrictions on the Syrians.
– Caitlin Harrison
Sources: Vice News, IRIN News, IRIN News 2, The Guardian
Photo: IRIN News
Haiti’s Cholera Pandemic: Fighting for a Place in the Public Eye
With the eyes of the world’s worries turned towards Africa’s Ebola crisis, many have not noticed that since 2010, cholera has infected over 730,000 people and killed over 9,000 Haitians.
Never declared an official state of emergency, the cholera pandemic in this island country has gone unnoticed by entire sectors.
The virus came to the country through the United Nations, when volunteers from Nepal practiced unsafe sewage disposal at a base in a rural area of the country. Groups and activists are currently fighting to have the United States take responsibility for bringing the pandemic into Haiti.
The outbreak began in September of 2010, ten months after the devastating earthquake in January of that year.
Nongovernmental organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations worked toward stemming the spread, and aid poured in. Tolls were worst from 2010 to 2012, but after that, death tolls were being cut almost in half annually. With the launch of 2013’s “10 Year Plan for the Elimination of Cholera in Haiti,” and 2014’s Total Sanitation Campaign, eradication of the disease seemed within reach.
However, in the first quarter of 2015, the number of cholera cases in the country tripled in comparison to the first quarter of 2014. The resurgence seems to have started in the slum of Martissant in September of 2014. Exhausted medical volunteers, who have not been paid in months, work tirelessly in Cholera Treatment Centers (CTCs), administering an oral rehydration solution and IV drips as patients lay in “cholera cots,” which have holes in the bottom with a bucket underneath to accommodate severe diarrhea experienced by cholera patients.
Efforts to fight the disease have been largely prevention-based, with an emphasis on sanitation through the use of various levels of disinfectant and the provision of chlorine to the population. However, to many Haitians, public outreach efforts seem not only redundant but unhelpful. Not surprisingly, being told to “wash your hands” and “keep yourself clean” by glossy pamphlets and foreign officials while your family members are dying does not offer much comfort. Citizens know what to do, but cholera still lingers.
At this point, a shift is being made towards the use of vaccinations, as one called Shanchol in particular gains favor for repeatedly demonstrating its effectiveness. For example:
When compared to other forms of cholera vaccination, it is impressive because it is supposed to last at least five years; it is two-dose regimen costs only $3.70 (and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working to bring prices down even lower); it is ingested orally rather than injected, and it is able to enter the gut and prevent transmission.
The battle against the disease is ongoing, as is the legal fight between several Haitian organizations and individuals and U.N. representatives to hold the United Nations accountable for bringing “U.N. Cholera” to the country.
However, even with what some are calling the “fight for justice,” and the relative lack of awareness of the pandemic in light of the African Ebola crisis, there is hope for the cholera victims of Haiti in more ways than one.
With the rise of the Shanchol vaccine, a resurgence of cases that brought with it a resurgence of awareness, an impassioned population and the tireless volunteers or long-unpaid workers working to combat the disease, cholera is facing some formidable foes.
– Em Dieckman
Sources: GizModo, Miami Herald, New York Times, The Atlantic
Photo: Flickr
HIV Prevention Through Childhood Education
Oftentimes, medical interventions in the developing world consist of sending and administering medical supplies, personnel and medical training. However, when it comes to HIV prevention, secondary school education might be a “two birds, one stone” scenario, cost-effectively cutting down the rate of new infections in the first place rather than focusing on expensive treatment.
Traditional HIV/AIDS reduction programs such as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have focused on primary school education and generally expanding access to information regarding HIV/AIDS as a prevention strategy. However, programs like PEPFAR generally don’t go so far as to include secondary school education as a strategy, which can be a rather ambitious objective.
A recent study published by The Lancet suggests that secondary school education ought to be the main feature of programs such as PEPFAR.
The study correlates a drop in new cases of AIDS with extra schooling in Botswana. Jacob Bor of Boston University School of Public Health, one of the co-authors of the study, made this point succinctly saying, “investments in secondary schooling are a slam dunk and should go alongside biomedical interventions in any effective HIV prevention strategy.”
According to the study, young people who attended an extra year of secondary school were 8.1% less likely to contract HIV. Girls, in particular, were 11.6% less likely if they attended at least two years of secondary school. The study found that there was no such correlation with primary school attendance. Apparently, the greater impact on preventing new cases of HIV in girls might be due to the fact that there are simply more women with the virus to begin with; in 2013, almost 80% of new adolescent infections in Sub-Saharan Africa occurred among girls.
Because AIDS has a disproportionate impact on women, secondary school education might even represent a grand slam of development objectives, improving health, education and gender equality; expanding opportunities for women and girls is widely regarded as one of the most effective poverty-reduction strategies.
The Millennium Development Goals included the objective of achieving a universal primary education for all children, which even now is a lofty goal. However, to realize a substantial improvement in AIDS reduction as well as other related goals, universal secondary school education might need to be included in the next set of global development objectives.
– Derek Marion
Sources: SciDevNet, The Lancet, PEPFAR
Photo: Flickr
The MDGs Are the “Most Successful Anti-Poverty Movement in History”
The MDGs proved the power behind global action. This reassured the United Nations that this methodology demonstrates success and shows encouraging results. The United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations monitored more than 28 countries during the fifteen years to determine the results of eight MDGs, the first of which was a reduction in global poverty.
The results were highly satisfying. The United Nations noted that the MDGs showed shortcomings in its inability to reach the most vulnerable and did little to improve the conditions of the “ultra-poor,” but the U.N. Secretary-General firmly stated that these “successes should be celebrated [by] our global community,” while staying “keenly aware of where we have come short.”
The success of these developing countries was a direct consequence of “targeted interventions, sound strategies, adequate resources, and political will.” While the U.N. Secretary General’s special adviser, Jeffery Sachs, states that the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposal will be “the greatest, most complicated challenge humanity has ever faced” due to a “juggernaut of a world economy is pressing against the finite limits of the planet,” the MDGs are a shining beacon of hopeful resolve.
The global problems of the world are a global and generational responsibility that Sachs believes “requires the best intellects around the world to help solve [these] problems and design new, more sustainable systems.” Innovation is key. Sachs states that the world needs to reimagine its vision for the future in order to make the improvements envisioned in the SDGs to be proposed in September.
Millennium to Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations clearly visualizes a future that, as Ban states, “strives to reflect these lessons [learned from the MDGs], build on the successes and put all countries together, firmly, on track towards a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable world.” The SDGs aim to take a working methodology, global action and universal cooperation to see extreme poverty eliminated by 2030.
– Felicia L. Warren
Sources: UN 1, UN 2, UN 3, The Guardian
Photo: The Guardian
Experience Poverty Challenge: Empathy as the Catalyst for Change
The general challenge is to simply spend three days living on only $1.50. The provisions that can be bought on this insignificant amount seem near to none, but that is the point. The goal of the challenge is for those participating to be sponsored for his or her participation. Funds received for fulfilling the terms of the challenge go to a sponsored charity.
The sponsored charity is the Deworm the World Initiative. This charity focuses its efforts on the provision of life-saving medicines to those who live in poverty, conditions where individuals can hardly afford food, let alone healthcare.
Half of the world spends $2.50 or less on food a day and this quantity of income highly suggests an inability to afford basic healthcare. Furthermore, the charity does not limit its expectations and goals to resolving a lack of healthcare issues produced by poverty.
The Deworm the World Initiative aims to tackle poor living conditions as a whole through the “Evidence Action Beta” (EAB) approach. “Beta,” in this case, refers to the “beta” testing solutions that focus on efforts that have been tested and proven to maximize results and minimize possible consequences of intervention.
This means research-based solutions. An example of this is seen in the charity’s approach towards what they call “seasonal hunger.” During certain times of the year, some developing countries experience famine due to changing environmental conditions. One working solution that EAB noticed was a success with travel subsidies for work migration.
These travel subsidies would allow individuals to leave their families during these seasonal famines and work in neighboring locations. This would allow the families to receive capital and resources from the work-migrating individuals, which would show improvements in consumption and nutrition in these affected areas.
In order to participate in this challenge and support this innovative charity, one can visit www.experiencepoverty.causevox.com.
– Felicia L. Warren
Sources: WTXL, Experience Poverty, Evidence Action
Photo: Experience Poverty
The Young Syrian Refugees
Since the civil war in Syria broke out just three years ago, four million people have sought refuge in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. So far, 100,000 have been killed. 7,000 of them are children.
The Middle East’s biggest refugee camp, Zaatari, lies in Jordan. It shelters 120,000 Syrians in a community divided into 12 districts. It costs $500,000 to run the camp. Camp workers dole out 500,000 pieces of bread and 3.5 million liters of water a day. Three-fourths of residents are women and children.
Of the 650,000 people that fled Syria to arrive in Turkey, one-third are allowed into refugee camps. There is no room for the res; they have to fend for themselves. Nizar Najjar is the assistant director of Camp Bab al-Salameh. He explains, “Sometimes we do not have the capacity to receive new refugees. Some people (are forced to) just put up their tents in fields.”
Those in camps do not have it much better. Dr. Al-Naser is a part of a group called “Medical Relief for Syria”. He says that the spread of disease is a big concern. “It’s a problem with sanitation, how to dispose of bathing water and used toilet water. There are lakes of waste in some areas.” Trucks bring in the camp’s only source of freshwater.
Young Syrian refugees are often traumatized. They have faced the horrors of being under siege, losing their homes and being separated from their families. Groups that flee travel by night and hide during the day. Some are shot at by fighter jets. Even once they reach the border, shelling still echoes in the distance.
Sara* is a 12-year old girl who fled Syria with her mother and brother along with her aunt, uncle and grandmother one year ago. She does not know the whereabouts of her father, who was kidnapped in 2013. The family was forced to leave once they lost touch with a brother-in-law that was providing them with money and resources.
Sara’s family arrived at a camp in Lebanon run by activists. They managed to find a simple apartment. It gives them a safe place to stay, but it is not insulated and floods as soon as it rains. Rent and electricity cost $230 each month. Back in Syria, they were a middle-class family, and now charities help them with essentials like food, rent and medical expenses. Sara’s grandmother has diabetes and high blood pressure.
It also costs money to renew visas, which is now mandated every six months. Many times, families are forced to return to Syria because they cannot afford it. It is difficult for refugees to find jobs and earn money. Sara’s 14 year-old brother makes $30 each week working for a nearby mechanic.
Affording school is nearly out of the question with high costs of transportation, books and other fees. Sara loved school back in peace-time Syria and completed grade five. She has not been in school for over three years now but is able to take French and English language classes that are offered by aid agencies in the area.
Antonio Guterres is the UN commissioner for refugees. He asks countries around the world do more to help these displaced people, including raising money to support them and their host countries. The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, makes a similar request. He also hopes to rebuild Syria and add more access to basic public services.
Sara dreams of becoming a doctor and for her country’s healing. “I want this war to end. I expect the world is so much bigger, with so many more people. With time, the world changes. I hope the war will be over one day.”
*Names has been changed to protect her identity
– Lillian Sickler
Sources: Care, Daily Mail, The Guardian, CBS News, World Vison, The Daily Beast, MIC, NPR
Photo: Flickr
Roger Federer Visits Children in Malawi
Roger Federer is an all-star on and off the court, scoring major points for his contributions to ending global poverty.
The tennis player recently visited Malawi to check out the progress of the preschools built through his nonprofit, the Roger Federer Foundation. The Swiss athlete created the charity 10 years ago to help poverty-stricken countries in Southern Africa.
The organization is committed to providing quality education for all children, seeing education as a basic and necessary human right. As a supporter of the Early Childhood Development program in Malawi, the Roger Federer Foundation is making major progress in providing quality education for primary learners.
In Malawi, they’ve built 50 preschools and benefited 37,000 children. During his visit to the country, Federer sat in on classes, helped out in the kitchen and played with the kids during recess. He also had the opportunity to attend the launching of a new childcare facility.
Federer and his foundation aren’t just about sending funds to build preschools; they want to see the impact they are making and physically be apart of making education happen. In addition to their work in Southern Africa, the organization also promotes quality education in impoverished areas of Switzerland, Federer’s home country.
The Roger Federer Foundation believes that the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow and would like to empower children affected by poverty by providing them a sustainable and accessible education. So far, the foundation has benefitted 215,000 children in seven countries, with plans to reach a million children by 2018.
Quality education is fundamental to ending the cycle of global poverty. Education contributes to sustainable living and stronger livelihoods, and preschool education serves as the foundation of learning.
Despite his tough loss at Wimbledon, Federer proves admirable success through the accomplishments of his foundation in bringing education to impoverished youths.
– Sarah Sheppard
Sources: Independent, Roger Federer Foundation 1, Roger Federer Foundation 2
Revolutionary Period Panties in the Developing World
May 28th marks Menstrual Hygiene Day, a day of awareness seeking to break the taboo that exists in cultures and societies around the world. Menstrual Hygiene Day also seeks to raise awareness about the importance of good menstrual hygiene management (MHM).
Why is this so important?
Menstrual Hygiene is fundamental to education, the economy, health, the environment and human rights. Below are some statistics:
What is THINX?
A new company is trying to break the taboo surrounding menstruation, which is usually referred to as the “week of shame” in developing countries. THINX has designed period-proof underwear that they claim protects from leaks and keeps you dry.
The idea emerged when wearing a white skirt to a meeting and was developed over the course of three years of research by three women in New York City who sought underwear that was reliable during their periods. The end result is stain-resistant, anti-microbial, leak-resistant, absorbent underwear with a moisture-wicking layer.
THINX claims they can replace tampons and pads if you’re comfortable doing so. It offers underwear designed for light, medium and heavy days, with the level of absorbency ranging from one half, one, and two tampons worth or absorbency, respectively. They wash just like regular underwear, just cold wash and hang dry.
For the 80 percent of American women who have had accidents and have expressed anxiety during their periods, these period-proof panties may seem like a good investment.
How does your purchase help girls in the developing world?
The three women behind THINX love to travel. While they were in Africa, they met a young girl named Amale on a weekday, asked her why she wasn’t in school, and she said, “It’s my week of shame.” Amale misses about one week of school each month due to her period. She uses things she can find such as sticks, leaves, mud and dirty rags.
The women decided to partner with AFRIpads, an organization based in Uganda that makes washable, reusable cloth pads at an affordable price. The result is that for every pair of underwear you buy, seven washable, reusable pads will be produced for one woman. THINX felt that instead of giving them away, they are helping this movement grow by creating jobs for local women who make these pads and their girls can go to school with no shame. The underwear are currently made in a family-run factory in Sri Lanka.
THINX has received reviews from companies such as ELLE calling them “magic panties” and Fast Company saying they are “ingeniously designed.”
Considering that a woman throws away five or more pairs of underwear every year, it would be a better and more thoughtful investment to buy period panties that are stain-resistant and that help women and girls around the world.
– Paula Acevedo
Sources: Thinx, Menstrual Hygiene Day
Photo: Menstrual Hygiene Day
Bolivian Coca
Coca leaves have been consumed by natives in Bolivia for centuries. The native Bolivian population used coca to treat many medical conditions such as fatigue and altitude sickness as well as hunger and thirst. In many other countries, however, coca consumption is frowned upon and the substance is considered a narcotic.
When Pope Francis recently visited South America in early July, he drank a brew of chamomile, anise and coca leaves — an ancient South American elixir that wards off altitude sickness. This led to some stir on the internet regarding his consumption of coca.
Bolivia is considered a lower-middle-income country, where the gross national income in 2014 was USD $2,830 per person, according to the World Bank. Coca production in Bolivia contributes greatly to the economy and is a means of livelihood for many farmers. It is the second largest producer of coca leaves behind Peru.
During the 1980s, coca production and trade amounted to USD $1 billion in annual exports, according to an analysis by the United States Library of Congress. That number is much higher today: in 2014, Bolivia’s GDP was $34.18 billion, according to the World Bank.
There is, however, a dark side to coca leaves. It is the main ingredient used to process cocaine. Bolivia supplied over 15 percent of the cocaine that reached the streets of the United States in the 1980s, making it a strong target of international criticism from Congress.
At the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, coca was outlawed and Bolivia’s use of coca was greatly limited and restricted. The treaty commanded Bolivia and other Andean nations to ban the consumption of coca leaves amongst their citizens.
In its natural state, the coca leaf is not scientifically harmful, and consuming it is a benign practice that is central to the cultural practice of millions of indigenous South American people. The treaty, however, declares that the exportation of coca is restricted; most countries outside of South America consider the trade and exportation of coca illegal, even in its natural state.
Bolivian prime minister Evo Morales held up a coca leaf at a U.N. narcotics assembly in 2012, defending the practice of chewing coca and urging the council to reconsider its stance on the leaf. He told the council, “Producers of coca leaf are not drug dealers; consumers of coca leaf are not drug addicts.”
But the outlawing of coca over 50 years ago has led to many continuous problems in Bolivia, including the illegal smuggling of coca paste throughout South America in order to process cocaine. The cocaine trail is a lucrative business that entices poor farmers to sell a portion of their crops to support their families.
Drug cartels hold citizens hostage, run prostitution rings and force violence wherever they are operating. In order to profit through the black market, it is in their best interest to see that nations do not work together to solve problems such as legal coca trade.
In 2011, the Obama administration rejected Bolivia’s proposed amendment to change the treaty and allow citizens to chew coca. A change in policy and cooperation between the United States and Bolivia would not only increase popularity among the nation’s people but would also strengthen drug prevention efforts throughout the region.
The move would allow farmers to legally sell their goods, encouraging them to not trade their crops to drug traffickers. The sales would boost the economy of Bolivia and other South American countries, allowing more resources to be allocated to fighting the real violent criminals.
In turn, the United States would also get more cooperation from the Bolivian government, gain trust and better strategically combat cartels. Not all of the problems with drugs can be solved with a single policy, but together, by working to carefully reform international coca laws, the United States can help reduce poverty and illegal drug operations that are plaguing North and South America.
– Adnan Khalid
Sources: About Coca Leaf, CNN, Library of Congress, The Guardian, UNTC, Washington Office on Latin America, World Bank
Photo: Indian Country Today Media Network
New Study Finds 1.6 Billion in Multidimensional Poverty
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index released by Oxford examined 101 countries and 5.2 billion people. It went beyond the typical measures of poverty to get the more complete picture.
Traditionally, many organizations use income-based measures to determine the extent of global poverty. The World Bank, for instance, uses a threshold of $1.25 per day.
The researchers at OPHI use a more comprehensive metric that looks at health, education and living standards to determine not only the extent of global poverty but also where the poor tend to live.
That has produced a few interesting results. The World Bank estimates just over one billion people live on less than $1.25 a day, placing them under the threshold of global poverty. However, using the multidimensional poverty measure, over 1.6 billion would be considered poor.
Another interesting result is that most of the world’s poor live in so-called “middle-income countries” and many live in countries considered to have high or medium development. Most of the world’s poor do not live in failed states, either.
In several countries, including Egypt, Sudan, Niger and Pakistan, there are more than twice as many poor people as would be reported using the $1.25-a-day threshold.
Most of the world’s poor live in South Asia (54 percent) and sub-Saharan Africa (31 percent), according to the report.
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index looks at a wide variety of development issues, including nutrition, child mortality, years spent in school, sanitation and water. It is a sobering view of global poverty that shows that life can still be difficult for those earning more than $1.25 a day.
In a press release, OPHI director Sabina Alkire said, “This analysis highlights how MPI and monetary poverty measures can complement each other to ensure no one is overlooked.”
The report should provide better insight into the extent of global poverty to allow development agencies to more specifically target those in need.
– Kevin McLaughlin
Sources: Humanosphere, Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, World Bank
Photo: The Telegraph