Third World boom raises hopes of end to poverty
By Anthony Browne
LONDON: They are usually seen as lands of poverty and repression where the drinking water is poisonous, stomachs are empty and most adults illiterate. But this week a United Nations report will claim that, while conditions in many places are still bad, the developing world has shown such progress in the last 30 years that it now officially classifies more of the world as developed than undeveloped.
There have been vast improvements in life expectancy, nutrition, adult literacy, poverty and human rights. A child born today in the developing world can expect to live eight years longer than one born in 1970. Adult literacy has risen from 47 percent to 73 percent.
The proportion of rural families with access to safe water has grown fivefold, so that eight in 10 now have clean water. Average incomes have nearly doubled, from US$1,300 to $2,500.
The 2001 Human Development Report, published by the UN Development Program, will say that, far from being a cause for pessimism, the developing world is a source of optimism: "Too few people recognize that the impressive gains in the developing world in the past 30 years demonstrate the possibility of eradicating poverty."
Kevin Watkins, head of policy at Oxfam, said: "There has been unprecedented progress in a whole range of areas, but there is still plenty of doom and gloom out there. The gains have been very unevenly distributed."
Progress has been most rapid in East Asia, with countries such as Thailand and Malaysia closing the gap on industrialized nations, and there have been impressive advances in Latin America and the Middle East. However, progress has been slow in South Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, with large parts ravaged by AIDS, dictatorships and debt, the quality of life has often been falling.
Across the world, life expectancy has risen from 59.9 years in 1970 to 66.4. It has risen far more rapidly in poor countries than in rich ones as medical advances and the principles of public hygiene have spread. Life expectancy has risen by 12 years in South Asia and by 14 years in the Arab states. The only region where life expectancy has fallen is Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, suffering an economic collapse after the fall of communism.
Improved nutrition, poverty reduction, maternal education and better medical services have combined to halve infant mortality. In Latin America, the Caribbean and East Asia, the number of babies dying before their first birthday has fallen by two-thirds to roughly the level it was in rich countries in 1970. Even in sub-Saharan Africa it has fallen by a third. Many of the health advances have been the result of extraordinary economic progress. Industrialization has seen incomes in East Asia quadruple, with the Chinese economy growing four times as fast as Europe's. Even the Indian economy has outpaced that of rich nations.
Although inequality has increased, the economic gains have not generally been by the rich at the expense of the poor. In the past 10 years the proportion of people in developing countries living on less than $1 a day has fallen from 29 percent to 24. However, in sub-Saharan Africa the figure is 46 percent.
Progress in education has been startling. Nearly all children now attend primary school, and the majority in developing countries go to secondary school. Girls are no longer routinely excluded. Thirty years ago they were half as likely as boys to get an education, now there are on average only 10 percent fewer girls than boys in school.
Development has changed the balance of the world. According to the report, the world in 1975 was mostly "low and medium human development". Now it is predominantly "medium and high human development".
The report puts much of the progress down to the spread of democracy and human rights. "The basic conditions for achieving human freedoms were transformed in the past 10 years as more than 100 developing and transition countries ended military or one- party rule. Formal commitment to international standards in human rights has spread dramatically since 1990," it says.
Kevin Watkins said: "Democratization has definitely pushed things in the right direction. The more accountable governments are, the more pressure there is to reduce poverty. Development aid plays an important part in some countries, particularly those in southern Africa. But ultimately it is down to national efforts, and governments being committed to reducing poverty."
-- Observer News Service