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‘After China, India success, geography of poverty now in sub-Saharan Africa’

The report states that this achievement in Asia has now shifted “the geography of poverty” to sub-Saharan Africa, which should now be the focus of the “third wave of poverty reduction” until 2050.

The report points out that the progress has been in waves. “The first wave centered on China; the second wave centered on India.

Since 2000, more than a billion people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty, with China followed by India leading the change, according to the Goalkeepers Data Report 2018 on the global progress of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report states that this achievement in Asia has now shifted “the geography of poverty” to sub-Saharan Africa, which should now be the focus of the “third wave of poverty reduction” until 2050.

“Above the extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day, people may still be poor, but they can begin to think beyond mere survival and look to the future,” states the second edition of the report, released by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to track the annual progress of the SDGs laid down in 2015.

The report points out that the progress has been in waves. “The first wave centered on China; the second wave centered on India. As a result of successes in Asia, the geography of poverty is changing: Extreme poverty is becoming heavily concentrated in sub-Saharan African countries. By 2050, that’s where 86 per cent of the extremely poor people in the world are projected to live,” it states, calling for investments in “human capital” — health and education — as a way to eradicate extreme poverty. It states that the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa can break through their stagnation and follow the path of China and India through human capital investments.

The percentage of people living below the extreme poverty line of US $1.90 a day, which was 36 per cent in 1990, has come down to 9 per cent in 2017, as per the report. In South Asia, it has come down from 45 per cent in 1990 to just 1 per cent today, while in sub-Saharan Africa it has merely declined from 59 per cent to 22 per cent in this period.

Bill Gates hailed India’s focus on tackling malnutrition, but said that the low spending on public healthcare is a concern.

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