The World Bank has revealed why the global goal to end poverty by the year 2030 is unlikely.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, the world financial body on Thursday stated that the global poverty goal is unlikely to be met by 2030 due to “absent history-defying rates of economic growth over the remainder of this decade”
It also attributed this to the high impact of COVID-19 and the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.
According to the bank’s projection, 600 million people, or about 7% of the global population, will still be struggling with severe poverty and subsisting on less than $2.15 a day by 2030.
According to the report, 389 million, or 60 percent of the world’s poor, live in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), making it the most impoverished region.
An estimated 35% of the population lives in poverty there, making it the greatest in the world.
President of the World Bank Group David Malpass commented on the study, saying that, “progress in decreasing extreme poverty virtually stalled” along with sluggish global economic development.
“Of concern to our mission is the rise in extreme poverty and decline of shared prosperity brought by inflation, currency depreciations, and broader overlapping crises facing development,” Malpass said.
“It means a grim outlook for billions of people globally. Adjustments of macroeconomic policies are needed to improve the allocation of global capital, foster currency stability, reduce inflation, and restart growth in median income.
“The alternative is the status quo—slowing global growth, higher interest rates, greater risk aversion, and fragility in many developing countries.”
To achieve the 2030 goal of ending poverty, the Washington-based institution recommended that each country in SSA would need to achieve per-capita GDP growth of 9 percent per year for the remainder of this decade.
“National policy reforms can help restart progress in reducing poverty, the report finds. Stepped-up global cooperation will also be necessary,” the World Bank said.
