Global poverty to halve by 2015 but Africa lags: report

WASHINGTON-The world is on course to halve extreme poverty by 2015, but Africa will fall far short of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.A new report by the global institutions also warned that urgent action was needed to tackle climate change, which threatens to exact a hefty toll on particularly poor countries and reverse progress in fighting poverty.The 2008 Global Monitoring Report, released ahead of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend, said strong economic growth in much of the developing world had contributed to the decline in global poverty.It said the number of extreme poor-those living under $1 a day-declined by 278 million between 1990 and 2004, and by 150 million in the last five years of that period.Globally about 1 billion people still live in extreme poverty, the report added.The largest reduction in poverty rates was in regions with the strongest growth, in particular in East Asia, including emerging powerhouses China and India, the report said.Still, in Africa progress to cut poverty rates has been uneven, it said, with 18 countries showing strong economic growth of about 5.5 percent over the past decade. Twenty others in Africa, however, many hit by conflict, were trapped in low growth, averaging around 2 percent annually.The report also said that while some progress had been made in meeting eight globally agreed development goals by 2015, prospects were gravest for reducing child and maternal mortality, with serious shortfalls also likely in primary school education, nutrition and sanitation.
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As in the days of Noah....