The percentage of Africans living in poverty has gone down since 1990
but the numbers have gone up due to population growth, World Bank
President Jim Yong Kim said in Accra on Friday, October 16.
Poverty |
Dr Kim who was in Accra to launch a World Bank report “Poverty in a
rising Africa” as part of activities to mark ‘End Poverty Day’, remarked
that the news concerning poverty in Africa over the past two years “is
both encouraging and sobering.”
“Half of all people living in extreme poverty live in Africa.
Compared to 1990, the percentage of people living in poverty in Africa
has dropped significantly but the overall number of people living in
extreme poverty has gone up 63 million”, he said.
Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank
(AfDB) said the story of a rising Africa “not a complete story” though
Africa is rising and is home to six of the ten fastest growing
economies.
He noted that while there is growth in Africa, the growth “is
underlined by high
inequality within countries and between countries”
and while the percentage of the poor in Africa has reduced, the absolute
number of poor people in Africa has risen from 175 million in 1990 to
330 million by 2014.
“That means that Africa accounts for over one-third of all the
extremely poor people in the world. Global poverty is basically one with
an African face.”
“Africa must not have comparative advantage in poverty and Africa must not become a museum of poverty,” he said.
Dr Adesina said efforts to reduce poverty must focus on raising
productivity in agriculture by treating it as a business, and focus on
addressing the continent’s energy shortfall.
According to him, over 620 million Africans do not have access to
electricity and the poor in Africa pay 20 times more for energy than in
developed countries. About 700 million on the continent also do not have
access to clean cooking energy
“Without energy, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises which
account for over 90 per cent of our businesses operate below capacity,
industrialization is stalled and Africa loses, 2 to 4 per cent of its
GDP.
Africa is simply tired of being in the dark. If we get power right we will get everything right in Africa,” Dr Adesina said.
He said African leaders must also work hard to reduce the sources of
fragility as it is also one of the major reasons for slow progress in
poverty reduction, as captured in the report: between 1996 and 2012,
poverty rate declined 100 per cent in non-fragile states compared to
fragile states.
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