The Global Situation
Morena Glileas at a Trócaire funded project in Nicaragua
Global population today stands at around 6.3 billion. 1.1 billion, or one in six people, live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1 a day.
More than 38 million people globally are living with HIV. In terms of literacy, 960 million adults in the world cannot read, almost all of them in the least developed countries.
Women and young girls continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty: over 70% of the 130 million children who are out of school, for example, are girls.
Poverty and inequality trends are highly regionalised. Despite advances in reducing poverty in Asia, there are still 1.9 billion people living on less than $2 per day. Literacy in Asia remains a major problem with 41% of adults remaining illiterate.
In Latin America, the picture is very mixed. Many advances have taken place: adult literacy levels now stand at 89%, GDP per capita stands at $7404, and average life expectancy is 72 years. Despite this, poverty fell only slightly in the 1990s: about one quarter of the region’s population live on less than $2 a day and approximately 50 million of them live on less than $1 a day.
Inequality has played a fundamental role in Latin America’s persistent income poverty. It is exacerbated or determined by unequal access to institutions, assets, markets, services and social protection, as well as racial and ethnic discrimination.
Whilst advances in reducing poverty have been made in Asia and Latin America, poverty in Africa has steadily deepened in recent decades. The statistics on all dimensions of human development in Sub-Saharan Africa tell their own story:
- Under-nourishment has fallen in all other regions, but in Africa the prevalence of under-nourishment has risen from 31% in 1992 to 32% in 2002.
- The daily average income of the extreme poor in Africa has fallen in real terms from $0.62 in 1981 to $0.60 in 2001.
- Life expectancy is 67 years globally, but in sub-Saharan Africa it is 46 years.
- Globally, 83% of people have now access to clean water and most countries have made big improvements in the last decade. In sub-Saharan Africa 42% of people still lack a clean water supply.
- In six African countries, the prevalence rates of HIV are above 20% of the population.
Future Projections
Global population is expected to rise to 7.2 billion by 2015, with the largest increases in countries where there is low human development.
According to even the most optimistic predictions, hundreds of millions of people will still be trapped in chronic poverty: 340 million will be in Sub-Saharan Africa and 216 million in South Asia.