Where are the worlds’ poor?

There is no consensus on what poverty is amongst the experts and but this is not a debate worthy topic amongst the worlds’ poor. However, to quench our insatiable desire for knowing, we are going to follow the custom and assign definitions for the sake of understanding with or without the world’s poor approval or even knowledge.

Poverty has been classified by Jeffrey Sachs into three; extreme poverty, Moderate poverty and relative poverty.

Extreme poverty means that households cannot meet basic needs for survival. They are chronically hungry, unable to access health care, lack amenities of safe and drinking water and sanitation, cannot afford education, for some or for all the children and perhaps lack rudimentary shelter – a roof to keep the rain out of the hut, a chimney to remove the smoke from the cook stove and basic articles of clothing such as shoes. Unlike any other forms of poverty, it only occurs in developing countries. This represents those who live under 1USD a day.

In moderate poverty, conditions of life are generally met, but just barely. This includes the incomes between 1 USD and 3 USD a day.

Relative poverty is construed as a household income level below a given proportion of average national income. Those who are in this level, in high income countries, lack access to cultural goods, entertainment recreation, and to quality healthcare, education, and other prerequisites for upward social mobility.

World Bank economists Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion estimated that roughly 1.1billion people were living in extreme poverty in 2001 down from 1.5 billion in 1981. It is, however, important to scrutinize these figures to learn whether the whole planet has achieved the gains in order to determine a course of action.

In their 2004 World bank report, How have the World’s poorest Fared since the 1980’s, they first showed the distribution of the world’s poor by region from 1980 to 2004. Looking at the data, we see that overwhelming shares of the world’s poor are in 3 regions, East Asia, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The world’s poor has fallen generally but it has almost doubled in Sub-Saharan Africa from about 150 million people in 1981 to about 310 million in 2001. The greatest fall was in East Asia from 800million in 1980 to 270million in 2001. 

The second data set shows the proportion of the population in extreme poverty, rather than the absolute number. Almost half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is deemed to live in poverty and this number has risen over the period. The proportion of extreme poor in East Asia has plummeted from 53% in 1981 to 15% in 2001. The proportion of those in extreme poverty in Eastern Europe and Central Asia has also shown a small increase from almost 1% in 1981 to 3% in 2004. 

The next data set shows the numbers of moderate poor and the proportion living in moderate poverty. The numbers of the moderately poor in East and south Asia has risen as the poorest households have improved their circumstances from extreme poverty to moderate poverty. In Africa, the proportion of moderately poor has reduced falling to the extreme poor level. There has been a drop in living circumstances. All the countries show an increase in the number of the moderate poor from the 1981 figures.

This report has shown that the world’s poor are in three regions Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia with extreme poverty being concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report, however, has failed to show the poor in the WEIRD countries, Western Educated Industrialized and Developed countries. This is a selection of data of the World Bank to sustain its existence and to determine where next to structure a “development” project and to repel fear of the poor being in the neighborhood of the donors.

In the aim to inform us where the world’s poor are they again engage in this thing called “self-interest” which shifts our focus and less is done to eradicate poverty. May the poor be given back their own voices.
dennis