Morton Saulo
25 April 2007
Nairobi — Global poverty rates continued to fall in the first four years of the 21st century, according to estimates published in the World Development Indicators 2007.
The World Bank report says developing countries have averaged a solid 3.9 per cent annual growth in GDP per capita a year since 2000, which contributed to falling poverty rates.
However, a recent United Nations Development Programme report revealed shocking disparities between Kenya's richest and poorest regions. It showed that four of eight provinces recorded an increase in poverty levels in 2005.
The Kenya National Human Development Report 2006, also indicated that compared to 2004, poverty has increased marginally in all provinces, except Nyanza, Western and Coast.
The biggest increase in poverty levels were recorded in North Eastern Province, whose poverty index rose from 43 to 50.5 per cent.
But the World Bank report posted on its website on April 14, was more optimistic showing that the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day fell to 18.4 per cent in 2004, leaving an estimated 985 million people in extreme poverty.
Poverty reduction not commensurate with income growth
By comparison, the total number of extreme poor was 1.25 billion in 1990. Two-dollar-a-day poverty rates are falling too, but an estimated 2.6 billion people, almost half the population of the developing world, were still living below that level in 2004.
In the developing world, good economic performance and a lower poverty incidence in most regions have offset a rise in the numbers of poor people that might have otherwise accompanied population growth.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 298 million people were living in extreme poverty in 2004, the same number as in 1999, whereas the number of poor had increased continuously in the previous two decades.
The report says in the past decade, poverty reduction was not always or commensurate with income growth.
In some countries and regions, inequality worsened, as poor people did not reap the fruits of economic expansion, because of a lack of job opportunities, limited education or bad health.
"Growth is essential to reducing poverty, but it isn't the only factor. The World Development Indicators go beyond growth and poverty rates to ask how income is distributed, whether health care and education are improving, and to assess the business environment. These factors affect the quality of people's lives," said FranÁois Bourguignon, the World Bank's Chief Economist.
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