Poverty pushed 71m into poverty globally in just three months since March 2022, says UN Development Programme
\n ANKARA
\nWar-driven inflation has pushed 71 million people into poverty in just three months since March 2022, according to the UN Development Programme on Thursday.
\n\u201cThe impact on poverty rates is drastically faster than the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic,\u201d said the global development agency.
\nThe analysis of 159 developing countries showed that rising commodity prices are already having immediate and devastating impacts on the poorest households, with clear hotspots in the Balkans, countries in the Caspian Sea region, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
\n\u201cUnprecedented price surges mean that for many people across the world, the food that they could afford yesterday is no longer attainable today,\u201d said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.
\n\u201cWe are witnessing an alarming growing divergence in the global economy as entire developing countries face the threat of being left behind as they struggle to contend with the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, crushing debt levels and now an accelerating food and energy crisis,\u201d urged Steiner.
\nThe report also suggested that targeted cash transfers are more equitable and cost-effective than blanket subsidies.
\n\u201cWhile blanket energy subsidies may help in the short term, in the longer term they drive inequality, further exacerbate the climate crisis, and do not soften the immediate blow of the cost-of-living increase as much as targeted cash transfers do,\u201d said the report\u2019s author George Gray Molina, who is also UNDP\u2019s head of strategic policy engagement.
\n\u201cThey offer some relief as an immediate band-aid, but risk causing worse injury over time,\u201d he said.
\nAccording to the World Bank, the Covid-19 pandemic alone has pushed debt in developing countries to a 50-year high, equivalent to more than two-and-a-half times their revenues.
\nCountries facing the most drastic impacts of the crisis across all poverty lines are Armenia and Uzbekistan in Central Asia; Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Sudan in Sub-Saharan Africa; Haiti in Latin America; and Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia.
\nIn Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Yemen the impacts could be particularly hard at the lowest poverty lines, whereas in Albania, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, and Tajikistan the hits could be hardest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poverty pushed 71m into poverty globally in just three months since March 2022, says UN Development Programme ANKARA War-driven inflation has pushed 71 million people into poverty in just three months since March 2022, according to the UN Development Programme on Thursday. \u201cThe impact on poverty rates is drastically faster than the shock of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[210,20,85,932],"class_list":{"0":"post-270414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-inflation","9":"tag-pakistan","10":"tag-united-nations","11":"tag-war"},"yoast_head":"\n