Global poverty

Mr. Buhari Abdu in his letter on Nov. 11 about corruption in Asia and Africa mentioned "the UN global poverty report released on June 12, 1997". The report is called the Human Development Report (HDR) 1997, an annual report commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) since 1990 and this year it focused on global poverty. Following are excerpts from the report that may give more information on the issue of poverty, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

"More than a quarter of the developing world's people still live in poverty as measured by the human poverty index ... About a third -- 1.3 billion people -- live on incomes of less than US$1 a day" (P.3).

"South Asia has the most people affected by human poverty. And it has the largest number of people in income poverty: 515 million. Together, South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia and the Pacific have more than 950 million of the 1.3 billion people who are income-poor" (P.3).

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of people in -- and the fastest growth in -- human poverty. Some 220 million people in the region are income-poor. Indeed, the sub-Saharan and other least developed countries are poverty stricken -- and it is estimated that by 2000 half the people in sub-Saharan Africa will be in income poverty" (P.3)

"Nearly a billion people are illiterate. Well over a billion lack access to safe water. Some 850 million go hungry or face food insecurity. And nearly a third of the people in the least developed countries -- most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa -- are not expected to survive to age 40" (P.4).

"Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have the highest incidence of both income and human poverty -- at about 40 percent" (P.6).

"Children and women suffer the most. Nearly 160 million children under age five are malnourished, and more than 110 million children are out of school. At 538 million, women constitute nearly two thirds of the adult illiterates in developing countries. The maternal mortality rate is nearly 500 women per 100,000 live births" (P.24).

For the first time this year the report introduced a human poverty index which, instead of measuring poverty by income alone, uses indicators of the most basic dimensions of deprivations "the percentage of people expected to die before age 40, the percentage of adults who are illiterate, and overall economic provisioning in terms of the percentage of people without access to health services and safe water and the percentage of underweight children under five" (P.14).

The analysis and policy recommendations in the HDR do not necessarily reflect the views of the UNDP, its executive board or its member states. The authors of the report maintained their independence of views and professional integrity.

UNDP has made the eradication of poverty its overriding priority, as mandated by 185 governments represented in the world Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995.

SAMSUDIN BERLIAN

Public Affairs

UNDP, Jakarta