Cape Times

3 PERCENT TARGET IS IN DOUBT

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SUB-SAHARAN Africa (SSA) has little or no chance of achieving the UN target of having not more than 3 percent of its population living in extreme poverty by 2030, the Daily Nation reported yesterday, citing a new World Bank report. The rate of poverty reduction is decelerati­ng, despite the dramatic decline of poverty in many parts of SSA since the early 1990s. Government statistics from 2015 showed that more than half of the 736 million poor people on the globe resided in SSA and more than 85 percent of the poor resided in either that region or South Asia. More than half of the world’s extremely poor, 368 million people, live in just five countries: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, which also happen to be the most populous countries in South Asia and SSA. Nigeria is expected to overtake India in terms of having the most people living in extreme poverty; that is, living on less than $1.90 (R25.43) a day.

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