More than 1.4 billion people live in poverty so extreme that they can barely survive, and around 25,000 people die from hunger each day whilst a new billionaire is created every second day. The call for a global safety net has never been so urgent - and compels the international community to transform economic priorities and guarantee the universal securing of basic human needs.
The policy interpretations given
by some critics of the World Bank's global poverty data are yet another form of their own political filtering.
Some people just don't want to accept that the living standards of the poorest
could evolve over time in any way contrary to what their political beliefs would
appear to dictate, argues Martin Ravallion.
For more than half a century, we have believed there is something wrong with the poor that could be not
be cured by a straightforward redistribution of wealth. As the army of the 'working poor' in America continues to grow, a new discovery of
poverty is long overdue, argues Barbara Ehrenreich.
The World Bank's latest data suggests a decline in global poverty throughout every region of the developing world, as well as the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goal on halving poverty well ahead of schedule. But is this really the 'good news' that we are led to believe? By Adam Parsons.
The plans for a Social Protection
Floor deserve to be promoted by progressive governments and civil
society, but they must continue to push for universal social protection and a new economic paradigm beyond the exclusively growth-oriented economy, writes Francine Mestrum.
An economy based on debt not only deepens inequality. It also has a
way of killing freedom and democracy – both at a personal level and at a
national level. Fortunately, there is a plethora of groups and
individuals who are working on alternatives, and there is no shortage of ideas, writes Vanessa Baird.
The world has enough food for everyone, but millions of children face
a life sentence of hunger and malnutrition – the hidden reason so many
die. A report analyses the causes of chronic malnutrition, the solutions, and the politics. By Save the Children.
The fact that hunger still exists shows the urgency of redistributing income and assets to achieve a fairer world, which would only require 1 percent of the current global food supply to feed the 13 percent of the world's population facing hunger, says Duncan Green.