NO fewer than 333 million children across the world live in abject poverty, a report by the World Bank, done in conjunction with the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund, UNICEF, has stated.
The report titled ‘Global Trends in Child Monetary Poverty’ noted that most of the affected children are in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America among others.
Speaking on the development, Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva, the Global Director for Poverty and Equity, World Bank, said, “A world where 333 million children live in extreme poverty – deprived not only of basic needs but also dignity, opportunity or hope – is simply intolerable. It is more critical than ever that all children have a clear pathway out of poverty – through equitable access to quality education, nutrition, health, and social protection, as well as safety and security. This report should be a stark reminder that we have no time to lose in the fight against poverty and inequality, and that children must be foremost in our efforts.”
The report was based on three international poverty lines: $2.15 (extreme poverty), $3.65 (lower middle income), and $6.85 (upper middle income), and took into consideration developments from 2013 to 2022.
The estimates show that: The extreme child poverty rate was reduced from 20.7 percent to 15.9 percent between 2013 and 2022. While 49.2 million children were lifted out of extreme poverty, this was about 30 million less than projected in the absence of COVID-19-related disruptions. The extreme child poverty estimate in 2022 (15.9 percent) is on par with the child poverty rate in 2019, indicating approximately three years of lost progress.
“The analysis contains records from 10.4 million individuals from 147 countries, taken from the 2022 spring version of the Global Monitoring Database (GMD) with 2019 as a base year. The GMD is a collection of globally harmonized household survey data compiled by the Data for Goals group of the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice.
“Poverty estimates for 2020, 2021 and 2022 have been “nowcasted”—that is, gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates have been used to forecast household incomes, assuming all households experience equal consumption growth in percentage terms.
“The international poverty lines were updated in 2022. The three poverty lines are: $2.15 (extreme poverty), $3.65 (lower middle income) and $6.85 (upper middle income).
“Approximately 333 million children globally survive on less than US$2.15 a day, 829 million children subsist below a poverty line of US$3.65, and 1.43 billion children are living on less than US$6.85 a day,” the report said.
