The World Bank recently underscored the threat that rising poverty and ill-health pose to human existence. Group President of the international financial institution, Jim Yong Kim, raised the alarm in a speech at the recently-concluded 66th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the address entitled "Poverty, Health and the Human Future", Kim outlined the negative consequences of poverty and poor health on human productivity, noting that countries that are committed to eradicating poverty should embrace robust, sustained and all-inclusive economic growth that will anchor on human capital development through investments on education, health and social protection for all their citizens.
We share this concern. This should be a wake-up call for governments in Africa where poverty is dealing a crushing blow on the citizens. It is necessary to invest massively on programmes that will reduce the current troubling poverty rates. The observation of the World Bank? is timely. It unmasks a deeper truth about what most governments in Africa are not doing right in the critical area of poverty reduction.
The World Bank report, which also indicated that some 44 million people have already been cast into extreme poverty due to rising food prices, tallies with similar reports released recently by the African Union Commission (AUC), an organ of African Union (AU); United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA); the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
All these bodies agree that despite Africa's impressive economic outlook in the past decade, not much has been done on poverty reduction, and only little has been achieved in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to the MDGs framework, by 2015, the world is likely to actualize the first targets of the eight MDGs, among them, reducing by half, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. This is good news but, as it has turned out, most?countries, including Nigeria, have fallen short of this target. Meanwhile, 2030 is the time-frame to end?crushing poverty around the world.
Sadly, Nigeria has about 112 million people living in relative poverty, according to figures from the National Bureau for Statistics (NBS). This represents about 69 percent of the nation's population. Poverty rate is expected to rise to 71.5 percent by the end of this year. The report shows that the North-East and North-West of the country are the worst hit by poverty, with 76.3 and 77.7 percent, respectively. Again, this is in spite of government's claims on poverty reduction and achievement of key aspects of the MDGs such as healthcare, employment and social infrastructure that enhance human development. Currently, Federal Government expenditure on public health is less than two percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and child mortality rate now stands at 186 out of every 1,000 live births. Undoubtedly, Nigeria and many sub-Saharan countries of Africa have problems at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of health care system. With such abysmal figures, it is not surprising that the World Bank is worried about rising poverty levels. This is a huge challenge to Nigeria and other African countries.
We urge the government to re-assess its policies on poverty reduction and health care, and fix relevant sectors of the economy. Part of the solution is to invest in reproductive health services as well as in people and their potentials. In addition, we need to accelerate progress on the MDGs. Let us focus on action and policies that are known to be effective, rather than the present uncoordinated approaches that are often designed to win votes during elections. Also, the UNDP amply recognises gender equal
Via: Sun News Online