World Bank: Biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity report

On October 7, 2020, the World bank released the biennial poverty and shared prosperity report. According to the report, around 150 million people are likely to enter extreme poverty due to covid-19 pandemic in different countries. To counter this, countries should prepare for a different economy by allowing labour capital skills and innovation to move into businesses.

Key findings of the report

• The report says that covid-19 pandemic will push an additional 88 million to 115 Million people to Extreme poverty. this will raise the count of of the poor to 150 million by 2021.
• If the pandemic had not entered the globe, the poverty rate would have dropped by 7.9% in 2020. Unfortunately, the Global recession caused by the pandemic will now push 1.4% of the world population into extreme poverty. The Global poverty rate is projected to increase to 9.2 percent in 2020.
• The new poor being added will be mainly from countries that already have high poverty rates. The significant numbers will be seen in middle income countries. India belongs to the category of lower middle-income country.
• The convergence of the pandemic and economic slowdown along with the pressures created by Climate Change and conflicts has put the goal of ending poverty by 2030 highly challenging. The report says that the Global poverty rate by 2030 could be around 7%.

India

The report says that lack of poverty data from India has made it difficult for the bank to estimate current Global poverty. India is one of the economies with the largest population of extreme power according to the bank.

Background

Between 1990 and 2015 the Global poverty declined at the rate of 1 % per year. Also, the extreme poverty rate declined by 26% during the time period. The distresses created by the covid-19 pandemic is to reverse the scenario.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020