World Bank report shows inequalities threaten diminution in world poverty

Chisinau, 3 October /MOLDPRES/ - The extreme poverty has decreased globally; yet, its eradication is threatened by the worsening of the economic inequalities, according to a World Bank report, published on 2 October and cited by AFP.   

As many as 767 million people were still living with less than 1.90 dollars per day in 2013, of whom almost a half in the Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the most recent data revealed in this document. During one year, this figure shows a 12-per cent decrease of the extreme poverty worldwide, from which over 100,000 million persons took advantage, despite a slowdown in the economic growth, the WB says.     

The decline is even more pronounced for long term. The number of most disadvantaged populations has dropped by more than a half against those almost two billion people recorded in 1990. “Nevertheless, the number of persons deprived of a decent income stays pretty large, “World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said, cited by the report.   

The World Bank is ambitioned to eradicate extreme poverty till 2030; yet, WB warns that this goal will not be achieved without attacking the economic inequalities.  

A World Bank report on poverty in Moldova, launched in last mid-June, shows that the economic growth stood at five percent annually beginning with 2000. At the same time, the poverty rate nationally dropped from 68 to 28 per cent in 2000-2004 and continued the descending evolution to 11.4 per cent in 2014. Nevertheless, Moldova remains one of the poorest countries of Europe, facing challenges of maintaining the progress.  

Besides the increases recorded in terms of non-agricultural salaries, the pensions represented the most important factor which contributed to the rise in incomes for the poorest 40 per cent of the residents and to reduction of poverty, World Bank experts said. “The increase in remittances is slowing, and the state cannot afford a growth of the pensions,” a World Bank chief economist, Maria Eugenia Davalos, said. Davalos is one of the main authors of a study titled, Thus, in the Long Run, Improving of Living Standards Should be Generated by Jobs.      

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor L. Alcaza)