Improvements in the emerging markets are a welcome way to take our focus off the political world scene. New reports of declining rates of absolute poverty bring positive news about the progress being made in a market that has a long way to go. This data is, indeed, encouraging, but rising income is only one way to measure the improving state of humanity – let’s not forget the other indicators.
When it comes to nutrition, life expectancy, infant and child mortality rates, and education, great progress is being made throughout the world. This is especially true of poor countries. In sub-Saharan Africa for example, absolute improvements in human well-being are taking place, while the quality-of-life gap with the rest of the world is also being narrowed.
According to the latest data, the share of humanity living on less than $1.90 per person per day, adjusted for purchasing power, shrunk from 42.2 per cent in 1981 to 10.7 percent in 2013 (the last year for which data is available). That’s a reduction of 75 per cent over a comparatively short period of 32 years.
The greatest reduction in extreme poverty happened in East Asia (from 81 per cent to 3.7 per cent) and South Asia (from 55 per cent to 15 per cent). The data for sub-Saharan Africa is incomplete. In terms of absolute poverty reduction, sub-Saharan Africa is a laggard. But, on other measures of human well-being, sub-Saharan Africa outperforms the world average.
In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy rose from 48.5 years to 59.9 years. That’s a 24 per cent improvement (ie, twice the global average). Although quoting United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which measure human progress over a shorter period of time. According to the UN, the region is falling behind on other Sustainable Development Goals looking in sub-Saharan Africait shows that only two countries in sub-Saharan Africa are on track to reduce maternal mortality to below 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030 (part of SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages).
Enrolment at all education levels is up. Globally, the primary school completion rate rose from 80 per cent in 1981 to 90 per cent in 2015 – a 13 per cent improvement. In sub-Saharan Africa it rose from 55 per cent to 69 per cent over the same time period – a 26 per cent improvement (ie, twice the global average).
An estimated 260 million children and young people are still not enrolled in school. According to the recent World Bank education report, a further 330 million may be in school but are learning little. Yet global funding for education is falling woefully short: The United Nations has estimated an annual spending gap of $39 billion in what is needed to reach the Sustainable Development Goals’ education targets.
The United States’ recent decision to defund UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural, scientific, and educational organization, has also put the spotlight more firmly on the GPE as the education sector struggles to establish leadership as well as finances.
Absolute poverty has been drastically reduced in much of the developing world. But even in places where absolute poverty persists at unacceptable levels, such as sub-Saharan Africa, much progress is being made in other areas of human well-being. In fact, the world’s poorest region is catching up with the world average at a very fast pace.
We at Kumbaya believe that every life should be nurtured and saved, every child should have access to the basic building blocks of education, and every woman should be taught the basics of nutrition, personal hygiene, and health. Knowledge is so often the best conversion tool to move out of poverty, and we must persevere in our efforts to connect the unconnected to not only deliver the basic needs of power, light, and connectivity, but to most importantly facilitate the use of these basic things to deliver knowledge.