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	1.3 billion people are multidimensionally poor by Achim Steiner, Sabina Alkire UNDP, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative   July 2019   New UN poverty report reveals vast inequalities between countries. (UN News)   There are vast inequalities across countries, and among the poorer segments of societies, says a new UN report published this week.   The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), shows that, in the 101 countries studied - 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income - 1.3 billion people are 'multidimensionally poor'(which means that poverty is defined not simply by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence).   Poverty is everywhere, inequality within countries is massive   'Action against poverty is needed in all developing regions, the report states, noting that Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are home to the largest proportion of poor people, some 84.5 per cent'.   Within these regions, the level of inequality is described as 'massive': in Sub-Saharan Africa it ranges from 6.3 per cent in South Africa to 91.9 per cent in South Sudan. The disparity in South Asia is from 0.8 per cent in the Maldives, to 55.9 per cent in Afghanistan.   Many of the countries studied in the report show 'extensive' internal levels of inequality: in Uganda, for example, the incidence of multidimensional poverty in the different provinces, ranges from six per cent in Kampala, to 96.3 per cent in Karamoja.   Children bear the greatest burden   Over half of the 1.3 billion people identified as poor, some 663 million, are children under the age of 18, and around a third (some 428 million) are under the age of 10.   The vast majority of these children, around 85 per cent, live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, split roughly equally between the two regions. The picture is particularly dire in Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Niger and South Sudan, where 90 per cent or more of children under the age of 10, are considered to be multidimensionally poor.   One section of the report evaluates the progress that is being made in reaching Goal 1 of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, namely ending poverty in all its forms, everywhere.   The report identifies 10 countries, with a combined population of around 2 billion people, to illustrate the level of poverty reduction, and all of them have shown statistically significant progress towards achieving Goal 1. The fastest reductions were seen in India, Cambodia and Bangladesh.   Pedro Conceicao, Director of the Human Development Report Office at UNDP, told UN News that the report 'gives a more comprehensive picture of poverty, and gives an indication of where to target policies that may address the dimensions in which people are deprived, whether it's education, health, or other aspects that could enable people to be lifted out of poverty if these investments are made'.   However, the report notes that no single measure is a sufficient guide to both inequality and multidimensional poverty, and that studies such as the MPI, Human Development Index, Gini coefficient (which measures countries wealth income distribution) and the Palma Ratio, can each contribute important and distinctive information for policy action to effectively reduce poverty.   This year's MPI results show that more than two-thirds of the multidimensionally poor some 886 million people live in middle-income countries. A further 440 million live in low-income countries. In both groups, data shows, simple national averages can hide enormous inequality in patterns of poverty within countries.   For instance, in Uganda 55 percent of the population experience multidimensional poverty; similar to the average in Sub-Saharan Africa. But Kampala, the capital city, has an MPI rate of six percent, while in the Karamoja region, the MPI soars to 96 percent; meaning that parts of Uganda span the extremes of Sub-Saharan Africa.   There is even inequality under the same roof. In South Asia, for example, almost a quarter of children under five live in households where at least one child in the household is malnourished and at least one child is not.   'We need to understand people's different experiences of deprivation. Are they malnourished? Can they go to school? Only then will poverty reduction policies be more effective', said Pedro Conceicao.   Deprivations among the poor vary significantly: in general, higher MPI values go hand in hand with greater variation in the intensity of poverty.   Results also show that children suffer poverty more intensely than adults and are more likely to be deprived in all 10 of the MPI indicators, lacking essentials such as clean water, sanitation, adequate nutrition or primary education.   Even more staggering, worldwide, one in three children is multidimensionally poor, compared to one in six adults. That means that nearly half of the people living in multidimensional poverty; 663 million are children, with the youngest children bearing the greatest burden.   But the new data also reveals an encouraging trend in some countries with those furthest behind moving up faster.   'We looked at data for a group of ten middle- and low-income countries and we found encouraging news that the bottom 40 percent were moving faster than the rest', says Sabina Alkire, OPHI Director. 'A pro-poor pattern that reduces inequalities in several Sustainable Development Goals'.   Within these ten countries, data show that 270 million people moved out of multidimensional poverty from one survey to the next. This progress was largely driven by South Asia: in India there were 271 million fewer people in poverty in 2016 than in 2006, while in Bangladesh the number dropped by 19 million between 2004 and 2014.   In other countries there was less or no absolute reduction, with numbers of multidimensionally poor rising by 28 million across the three African countries considered.   The 2019 global MPI paints a detailed picture of poverty for 101 countries and 1,119 subnational regions covering 76 percent of the global population, going beyond simple income-based measures to look at how people experience poverty every day.   http://hdr.undp.org/en/2019-MPI http://ophi.org.uk/multidimensional-poverty-index/global-mpi-2019/ http://ophi.org.uk/covid-19/ Visit the related web page
	Humanitarian organizations are calling for sufficient funding to reach the most vulnerable by UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs   July 2019   UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock statement to Humanitarian Affairs Segment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.   In the last year, I have travelled to many countries in crisis to see for myself the humanitarian conditions on the ground and to help identify priorities as we move forward.   From Bangladesh to Chad, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Zimbabwe, from Syria to Yemen, from Afghanistan to Indonesia, I've seen incredible strength and resilience in the face of, at times, unimaginable levels of suffering.   Currently 143 million people need life-saving humanitarian assistance. Most of them are women and girls. Many of them are disabled people.   Humanitarian organizations are calling for sufficient funding, through the UN-coordinated response plans, to reach the most vulnerable 107 million of those people.   Conflict, violence and persecution, compounded by climate change, mounting pressures on natural resources, institutional fragility and endemic poverty, continue to drive this suffering. The results are growing food insecurity and mass displacement.   Much of the suffering is also caused by violations of international humanitarian law, with widespread, indiscriminate killing and routine - even deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure like hospitals and schools.   We are also seeing tactics of siege, starve and surrender reemerge, driving up acute hunger.   Rape and other forms of sexual violence are being used as deliberate tactics of war. And aid workers are killed, kidnapped, harassed and intimidated.   According to Humanitarian Outcomes, 2018 was the second worst year on record for aid worker security, with 126 aid workers killed, 143 wounded, and 130 kidnapped.   As of the most recent count, war, violence and persecution have uprooted over 70 million people, an increase of 66 per cent - two thirds - over the past decade.   Most of those people are displaced within their own countries, ripped apart from their local areas and their sources of livelihoods.   At the same time, climate change is causing more frequent and prolonged extreme weather events.   Prolonged and repeated droughts are devastating farmers and herders in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. In the Horn of Africa for example, the chances of drought have now increased from once every seven years to once every two and a half years. While in the Sahel, per capita water availability has dropped by over 40 per cent in the past 20 years.   Storms and flooding are becoming more intense. Cyclone Idai that hit southern Africa in March was the strongest cyclone ever to hit the southern hemisphere.   Last year natural disasters displaced 17 million people within their own borders, and affected a total of 68 million, while causing over $130 billion in economic damage.   Since the World Food Programme and the Food and Agricultural Organization sounded the alarm on rising levels of hunger due to conflict two years ago, food insecurity levels have remained exceptionally high.   143 million people are on the verge of crisis-level food insecurity. Sixty per cent of the more than 820 million hungry people in the world live in conflict-affected countries.   The breakdown of health systems in fragile settings, combined with more urbanized populations and other factors are making it harder to contain disease outbreaks and epidemics.   The current Ebola crisis in the DRC has infected more than 2,000 people, with over 1,500 confirmed deaths, and it comes just a few years after the world's worst ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa.   While we rightly focus on the challenges of meeting the needs of those left behind, let us also note some of our achievements.   The humanitarian system today is effective, more effective in fact than it has ever been. It is reaching, through UN supported efforts, 100 million people in the last year and is unquestionably saving millions of lives.   In the last year, through UN coordinated assistance programmes, we targeted 98 million people with humanitarian assistance and protection, and we raised a record $15 billion to support our appeals.   We helped 7 million children access education, despite being caught up in prolonged emergency situations.   Every month we are reaching millions people caught up in the world's worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen, including providing food and food assistance to 8 million. We are reaching 2 million Somalis helping to stave off another threatened famine and acute severe food insecurity.   None of this work would be possible without the tens of thousands of aid workers who risk their own lives to protect the lives of other people.   I am constantly inspired by the expertise, dedication and human spirit of the many humanitarian workers I continue to meet wherever I travel around the world.   This year we are marking some important milestones. First, we see the 70th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 20th anniversary of the Security Council's Protection of Civilians agenda.   We need to use these opportunities to reaffirm our commitments to uphold international humanitarian law (IHL) and protect civilians in armed conflict.   The laws of war - including the 1949 Geneva Conventions - are cornerstones of the rules-based order. And they are just as relevant today as they were when they were adopted 70 years ago.   The challenge we have right now is not with the content of the law, but with compliance with the law. We need to focus our energies on changing the ways belligerents behave in conflict, including by engaging constructively with non-State armed groups.   States and parties to armed conflict must incorporate and implement IHL norms into domestic law, national policy frameworks, standard operating procedures and rules of engagement.   We also need stronger national and international accountability mechanisms to ensure that perpetrators of violations of humanitarian law, including of sexual-based violence crimes are held accountable. We need to see an end to impunity.   Second, the Secretary-General's climate action summit is an opportunity to turn the tide on climate change, which continues to drive mounting humanitarian need.   A few months ago, as I said earlier, we witnessed the devastating impact of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth on Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. In addition to expanding anticipatory action, we also need to address the root causes of climate change and vulnerability to it.   The Secretary-General's climate action summit is focused on harnessing concrete actions to increase ambition and accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement. http://bit.ly/2xsTOYA   July 2019   Alarming lack of funding for relief work. (Norwegian Refugee Council)   Half way into the year, humanitarian organisations have received only 27 per cent of the money needed to provide relief to people affected by crises worldwide.   "The current lack of funding is alarming. Despite increasing needs, substantially less money is available for humanitarian assistance compared to the same period last year. We are deeply concerned for those people already feeling the hard consequences of cuts, said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).   Every year the UN and humanitarian organisations work together to launch humanitarian appeals based on needs assessments in countries affected by crises.   This year, a total of $26 billion is required to provide relief for around 94 million people in need. So far, donor countries have contributed approximately $7 billion - 27 per cent of the money needed, according to the UN's financial tracking service. This is about $2 billion less than the funding received half way into 2018.   "Let's not be fooled into believing that the amount needed is too high or the job too difficult. It is a question of priorities. The world's total military expenditure has increased to a whopping $1.8 trillion. The cost of closing the humanitarian funding gap and providing people with basic support equals to just about one per cent of this," said Egeland.   For example, the crisis in Cameroon is among the most critically under-funded, with less than 20 per cent of the appeal covered so far this year. Assistance is also falling short for people in DR Congo, a country struck by a toxic cocktail of conflict, mass displacement and Ebola. Even funding for Syrian refugees is drying up.   The current funding crisis is due to a combination of more protracted and longer -lasting humanitarian crises globally and the emergence of more self-interested policies in several rich countries.   "Today many people hit by conflict, drought and starvation do not receive any assistance at all. Mothers are skipping meals to provide their malnourished children with whatever little food is available. Lack of proper latrines lead to the spread of water-borne diseases like cholera. And treatable illnesses are claiming lives due to the lack of medical support. All of this is fully preventable if there was political will," said Egeland.   The Norwegian Refugee Council is appealing to donor countries to increase their humanitarian support and for new donor countries to step forward and disburse funding urgently.   "There is an urgent need for more funding to meet the growing humanitarian needs worldwide," Egeland said. "The disbursement of funding early in the year will also enable a better planned and more efficient humanitarian response," he added.   Facts and figures:   As of July 9, 2019, the total funding registered amounted to $7 billion out of the total appeal for US$26 billion. This means that the appeal was 27 per cent funded.   Total world military expenditure rose to US$1822 billion in 2018, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).   http://www.nrc.no/news/2019/july/alarming-lack-of-funding-for-relief-work/ Visit the related web page
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