09 October 2014, LAGOS – The World Bank has said that Nigeria will be one of 10 countries that, in the year 2030, will remain as the main contributors to global poverty.
It said that the scenario requires that in Nigeria, currently contributing heavily to global poverty numbers, growth rates need to rise, but not to a degree that is entirely unimaginable.
It stated that in Nigeria, the growth rate needs to pick up from 2.3 to 3.2 per cent growth in real term. According to the report Nigeria will contribute another 61.5 million poor people to the global total.
According to the World Bank, much more work needs to be done to end poverty and close the gap in living standards between those in the bottom 40 per cent and the top 60 per cent of the population around the world.
The report details, for the first time, the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity, measured as income growth of the bottom 40 per cent. GMR 2014/2015 continues to monitor progress on the Millennium Development Goals, which inspired the WBG twin goals. “The world has made great progress in the last quarter-century in reducing extreme poverty – it was cut by a stunning two-thirds, and now we have the opportunity to end poverty in less than a generation,” said World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim.
“But we will not finish the job unless we find ways to reduce inequality, which stubbornly persists all over the world. This vision of a more equal world means we must find ways to spread wealth to the billions who have almost nothing.”
The report notes that much success has been achieved in reducing extreme poverty – those living on less than a $1.25 a day.
However, the number of poor remains unacceptably high, at just over 1 billion people (14 per cent of the world population) in 2011, compared with 1.2 billion (19 per cent of the world population) in 2008.
Forecasts in the report show that poverty will remain stubbornly high in the South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, where an estimated 377 million of the world’s 412 million poor will likely reside in 2030.”
*Omoh Gabriel – Vanguard
