All Quiet on the Poverty Front

   

The 2009 Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) constructed by Social Watch shows that, even without the not-yet-registered impact of the world economic crisis, most countries in the world are at risk of not achieving their poverty reduction commitments. A significant proportion of the 175 countries considered (42.3%) obtained a BCI rating of low, very low or critical, and barely half the countries for which data is available made progress (52.7%). Countries that started from a very low level are regressing, which worsens the gap and increases the disparity between countries and regions. Only Europe and North America could potentially reach acceptable BCI values by the year 2015. Southern Asia is progressing fast, but its starting point is so low that it will still be far from acceptable in the coming decade. Latin America and the Caribbean are not progressing at all and 41% of the countries that have regressed on the BCI are in sub-Saharan Africa. The numbers reveal a dramatic situation of global inequity.

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> Basic Capabilities Index: a starting point > More effort required from the weakest > Evolution by countries and regions