A lost decade in the fight against poverty
📄 Download BCI 2011 - full size (pdf version)
📍 Press Release
🗺️ See the BCI in an interactive map
Download full size (pdf version)
World trade and per capita income grew faster in the first decade of the XXI century than the decade before, but progress against poverty slowed down. A gap widened, due to the unequal distribution of the benefits of prosperity. Now the boom years seem to give way to a bust. The vulnerable did not benefit from the accelerated growth in the economy, but they will undoubtedly suffer the most with a new contraction.
The Basic Capabilities Index computed by Social Watch looks at basic social indicators. The 2011 figures show that economic performance and well-being of the people do not go hand in hand. Progress on education, health and nutrition was already too slow when gross income was growing fast.
While using the latest available figures, the Index does not yet capture the full impact of the global financial and economic crisis that started in 2008, because social indicators are gathered and published much slower than the economic numbers.
Social Watch is receiving evidence from its members on how the crisis is burdening the most those already vulnerable — and that situation can only become worse if the big industrialized countries enter into prolonged stagnation or recession.
World Trade
Total world exports multiplied almost five times in twenty years, growing from 781 billion USD in 1990 to 3.7 trillion in 2010.
Per Capita Income
The world average income more than doubled from 4,079 USD in 1990 to 9,116 USD a year in 2010.
Basic Capabilities Index
The world average in the index of essential social indicators computed by Social Watch only grew 10% in twenty years, from 79.3 to 87.1.
The Basic Capabilities Index 2011
📊 Download The Basic Capabilities Index 2011 (.ods)
📈 BCI Trends, 1990 to 2011 – Slowing Down
🌍 BCI Trends by Region, 1990, 2000 & 2011
📚 BCI Trends by Component Indicators
🧮 Technical Notes
BCI values for 2011 were computed for 167 countries where data are available out of the 193 UN member states.
Values ranged from 47.9 to 99.5, with Japan, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland and Iceland at the top.
The lowest BCI values are mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with Chad, Sierra Leone, Niger, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau at the bottom.
As in previous Social Watch reports, the countries are categorized into five groups:
Countries with a basic BCI level are close to the maximum possible values of the indicators that constitute the Index and are very likely to have met the MDG targets ahead of the 2015 deadline.
Economic growth does not ensure human well-being
📄 PDF Version | DOC Version
The boom and the busted
📄 PDF Version | DOC Version
A lost decade in the fight against poverty
📄 PDF Version | DOC Version
The virtuous few: clean and dignified
📄 PDF Version | DOC Version
