The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that years of progress in reducing poverty can quickly disappear when a crisis strikes. Data is also a double-edged sword, requiring a social contract that builds trust by protecting people against misuse and harm, and works toward equal access and representation. More data is available today than ever before, yet its value is largely untapped. It is critical to forge implementation strategies that can rapidly and flexibly respond to close the gaps.įrom information gathered in household surveys to pixels captured by satellite images, data can inform policies and spur economic activity, serving as a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty. For example, at the local level, those who have the least influence in a community might not be able to access basic services. Policy aspirations can be laudable, but there is likely to be considerable variation in the extent to which they can be realized, and in which groups benefit from them.
Too often, there is a wide gap between policies as articulated and their attainment in practice-between what citizens rightfully expect, and what they experience daily. The World Bank provides recommendations for a complementary two-track approach: responding effectively to the urgent crisis in the short run, while continuing to focus on foundational development problems, including conflict and climate change.Ĭlosing the gaps between policy aspiration and attainment How the world responds to these major challenges today will have a direct bearing on whether the current reversals in global poverty reduction can be turned around. Strategies to reach the least well-off must be tailored to each country’s context, considering the latest data and analysis, and the needs of the population. In addition, extreme poverty is now more concentrated in places where it will be hardest to eradicate, including in conflict-affected and rural areas.
The economic recovery has been uneven, affected by rising food and energy prices-due to the war in Ukraine and climate change, among other factors-and high indebtedness in many countries. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt the biggest setback to global poverty in decades. And the challenge is made harder by the fact that extreme poverty is concentrated in parts of the world where it will be hardest to eradicate: in Sub-Saharan Africa, in conflict-affected areas, and in rural areas. Given current trends, 574 million people-nearly 7 percent of the world’s population-will still be living on less than $2.15 a day in 2030. The recent crises have pushed the world further off track from the global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. The recent setbacks took place when the speed of progress toward poverty reduction was already slowing, in tandem with subdued global economic growth. By the end of 2022, as many as 685 million people could still be living in extreme poverty. Rising food and energy prices-fueled in part by the war in Ukraine and by climate shocks and conflict-have hindered a swift recovery. The poorest also faced large setbacks in health and education which, if left unaddressed by policy action, will have lasting consequences for their lifetime income prospects. Their income losses were twice as high as the world’s richest, and global inequality rose for the first time in decades. The world’s poorest people bore the steepest costs of the pandemic. The global extreme poverty rate reached 9.3 percent, up from 8.4 percent in 2019. The number of people in extreme poverty rose by 70 million to more than 700 million people. But the trend was interrupted in 2020, when poverty rose due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis. This mission underpins our analytical, operational, and convening work in about 140 client countries.įor three decades, the number of people living in extreme poverty- defined as those who live on less than $2.15 per person per day at 2017 purchasing power parity-was declining. The World Bank Group’s goals are to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.
0 kommentar(er)
