Poverty Reduction
| Key statistics | Key links |
"We resolve further:
- to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world's people whose income is less than one USD a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water (...)"
Extract from the United Nations Millennium Summit Declaration (September 2000).
Key statistics
- More than 2.8 billion people, close to half the world's population, live on less than the equivalent of USD 2 a day. More than 1.2 billion people, or about 20 % of the world population, live on less than the equivalent of USD 1 a day.
- South Asia has the largest number of poor people (522 million of whom live on less than the equivalent of USD 1 a day). Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of people who are poor, with poverty affecting 46.3 % of the region's population.
- Nearly 1 billion people are illiterate; more than 1 billion people do not have access to safe water; some 840 million people go hungry or face food insecurity; about one third of all children under five suffer from malnutrition.
- The top fifth of the world's people who live in the highest-income countries have access to 86 per cent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP). The bottom fifth, in the poorest countries, has about 1 %.
- In 1998, for every USD 1 that the developing world received in grants, it spent USD 13 on debt repayment.
- One child dies every seven seconds from hunger and related causes.
Key links
-
UNDP Poverty Reduction Practice Workspace
The Workspace is intended to be a dynamic space where members can share resources, experiences and lessons-learned, find comprehensive collections of practical tools and research materials and learn the latest Practice news. It already contains over 800 documents contributed by Network members and gleaned from key resources, and will be systematically updated. -
UNDP Millenium Development Goals Intranet
The MDGs Intranet is for UNDP staff who wants to know more about the Goals from the perspective of the Organization. It brings together, in a single place, relevant information that has been either dispersed or not available on the different UNDP networks. - DevLink
website - Poverty topic
For more information on DevLink, click here.
Several key documents, including core UNDG approved documents on the issue of poverty, can be found in this website. A selection of examples and experiences of the UN's work on poverty can also be found in the Best Practices section. This includes examples of Common Country Assessments (CCA) and United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAF) that deal with poverty, as well as information on Theme Groups, UN Country Websites and training materials and events. DevLink also links to a lot of specific pages on UNDG members' websites and connects to UN Country Team sites that contain information on poverty, as well as from other sources outside the UNDG. -
UNDP Human Development Report website
The HDR aims to put people back at the center of the development process in terms of economic debate, policy and advocacy. It is an independent report. It is commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and is the product of a selected team of leading scholars, development practitioners and members of the Human Development Report Office of UNDP. - UNDP
Poverty Report website
Along with UNDP's Human Development Reports, the Poverty Reports are based on UNDP's work in the countries. They emphasize the need for anti-poverty programmes to be comprehensive, integrated in national economic policies and to focus on building national capacity for pro-poor policymaking and institutional reforms. - UNIFEM
website on Women and Poverty
UNIFEM is working to eradicate feminised poverty through its Economic Empowerment Programme. - Netaid.org website
Visitors to this website can learn about poverty-related issues, make their voices heard on matters that concern them, give online to programmes that build opportunities for people living in the world's poorest communities, and volunteer their knowledge and skills from any part of the web-connected world to NGOs. -
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Poverty
website
The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is the principal body through which the OECD deals with issues related to co-operation with developing countries - World Bank Poverty Net website
The international financial institutions of the UN System, among which the World Bank, play a central role in funding numerous programmes that focus on the social aspects of poverty eradication. In 1999, 25 % of World Bank lending went to health, nutrition and education programmes. The WB Poverty Net website provides resources and support for people working to understand and alleviate poverty.