First four steps forward, then one step back. But then a step forward again. It might sound like a recipe for a folk dance, but it’s actually about how poverty has been reduced in the world since 2010. Each step in the “dance” corresponds to approximately 100 million people moving above or below the international limit of extreme poverty, which stands at $2.15 a day. Or put another way: In 2010, there were just over 1,100 million extremely poor people in the world. Seven years later, the figure was under 700 million people. But then came the corona. The world’s countries decided to shut down in connection with the pandemic, and this hit the world’s poorest hard because trade and production came to a halt. For the first time in many years, poverty began to rise again. In India alone, millions of poor migrant workers were forced to walk hundreds of kilometers to their villages, because they could no longer earn a living inside the large but closed cities. The number of poor people in the world therefore rose again to 762 million in just one year. This is shown by figures from the World Bank. Big drop in poverty – but not in all countries After the corona panic calmed down, the world has opened up again and it is again possible to find work. This has caused the number of extremely poor to decline once again. In fact, we are now down to 690 million extremely poor in the world, and that is even lower than the previous record in 2017, writes the World Bank. The development pleases Adam Moe Fejerskov, member of the Danish Development Policy Council and senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, where he, among other things, researches global inequality and its consequences. – It is primarily positive that poverty has generally been reduced to the level before Covid, he says. Nevertheless, he also reminds us that progress is very unevenly distributed. – The vast majority of countries that have managed to reduce poverty after the pandemic are relatively well-functioning countries, where there are areas of poverty, but where it is also possible to move up and out of poverty, says Moe Fejerskov. Fewer poor people at all levels In 2015, all the world’s countries agreed to adopt the 17 sustainability goals and the first and most important goal is that extreme poverty should be eradicated by 2030. That is, no people should live below the limit of 2.15 dollars a day . At the same time, it is also intended that the proportion of people in poverty at all other levels should be halved. The different levels are important because when we talk about “extreme poverty” we are talking about the international poverty line of 2.15 dollars a day. This limit has often been criticized for being too low, because you are still very poor even if you get a little over the limit and maybe get an income of three dollars a day. Nevertheless, the international poverty line is used as a general measure of how progress is being made in combating poverty in the world. There are also other poverty lines that are higher. The higher the limit you set, the more poor you can say there are. Regardless of whether you measure poverty at $2.15, $3.65 or $6.85 a day, the curve still looks roughly the same and shows the same “dance steps” over the past decade. We will not completely get rid of extreme poverty by 2030. Although global poverty is now down to a record low level, we could have come much further if it had not been for the pandemic. The corona pandemic has set development back several years, writes the UN in its latest status report on how the sustainability goals are going. This means that the goal of completely saying goodbye to poverty is no longer realistic. – There is absolutely no chance that we will achieve the goal of eradicating extreme poverty completely by 2030, says Moe Fejerskov clearly. – But the goal of eradicating poverty has always been an ambition or an idealistic benchmark that everyone knows we will not succeed in reaching – but which is nevertheless important, because it is so ambitious and unambiguous, and therefore sends a clear signal about where we are on our way. Even if we do not get down to zero poor people, poverty can continue to fall “a couple of percent” more by the 2030 deadline, according to the senior researcher. But as the remaining extreme poverty is largely present in the poorest and weakest countries, it will require a massive change in the efforts directed at these countries if we are to get closer to the target than the estimates expect, he says. – A change that will be completely natural in light of the sustainability goals’ mantra of leaving no one behind, but which not all aid donors have supported enough in recent years, concludes Moe Fejerskov.
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Onward after corona: World poverty is decreasing again and hitting a new record low
