Friday, April 23, 2010

The World Bank's latest World Development Indicators

The World Bank released their latest World Development Indicator report this week. In the report the big Bank claims that 64 million more people will be living in poverty due to the effects of the global recession in 2009.

The report gauges the economies of the world and how well they did in reaching the Millennium Development Goals. The Bank says that the economies of Europe and Central Asia fared the worst in 2009.

From Afrique en Ligne, we read more about the report. You can go to the World Bank website to read the entire book.

``During 2002-2008, low and middle income countries averaged economic growth of 6.2 per cent a year, and during 1999-2005 the number of people living on less than US$ 1.25 a day fell by 325 million.

``In contrast to the record growth in 2000รข"07, the global economy grew only 1.9 per cent in 2008 and declined an estimated 2.2 per cent in 2009, the most severe recession in 50 years,'' it noted.

``As a result, some 64 million more people will be living in extreme poverty by 2010 because of the global economic crisis. The effects on human welfare may be costly and long-lasting," the report said.

It also stated that the effects of the crisis were transmitted from high-income economies to developing economies as exports, private capital flows, commodity prices, and workers' remittances declined.

According to the report: ``Global trade, whose growth had slowed to 3 per cent in 2008, declined an estimated 12 per cent in 2009, while developing economies' trade fell by an estimated 9 per cent in 2009''.

It disclosed that, ``private capital flows to developing economies, after peaking at nearly US$ 1 trillion in 2007, dropped to US$ 765 billion in 2008 and are estimated to have been much lower in 2009''.

1 comment:

David Maxwell Fine said...

I hate the World Bank's way of stating a reduction in those living in extreme poverty as,

"during 1999-2005 the number of people living on less than US$ 1.25 a day fell by 325 million..."

what if they were living on $2 per day? Those numbers tell us nothing...