Enterprise Excellence 2

 

Telling Statistics

During the last decade, economic development as lifted millions of people out of poverty. Consider these statistics:

  • While the population of developing countries rose from 4 to 5 billion people, average per capita incomes rose by more than 21%.
  • While 130 million fewer people in living in extreme poverty in 2001 than a decade before, the proportion of people living on less that $1 per day declined by 3% and the under-five mortality rate dropped from 103 deaths per 1,000 births to 88.
  • Life expectancy rose from 63 years to nearly 65 years.
  • An additional 8% of the developing world's population gained access to improved drinking water supply, and 15% more to basic sanitation services.

Such positive statistics, though seldom quoted by intellectuals or by the media, ought to be highlighted and celebrated. However, as we reported in the last edition of Enterprise Excellence, there is still plenty of cause for concern. Here are some further reasons why:

  • The spread of AIDS has been catastrophic, with more than 20 millions lives lost since the first case was detected in 1981.
  • Some regions have made little economic progress or even experienced stagnation or reversal.
  • Rates of economic growth in some areas have been inadequate to yield significant reductions in poverty. From1990 to 2002, for instance, the heavily indebted poor countries say their incomes rise only from $298 per capita to $337 in 1995 dollars.

The economic rise of China and India, the world's most populous countries, accounts for much of the progress toward poverty reduction. As home to more than 2.3 billion people, their advances in poverty reduction drive down averages for the developing world as a whole.

The poverty rate in China dropped from 33% to 17% between 1990 and 2001. In India, it dropped from 42% to 35%.

China's low population growth rate and rapid poverty reduction rates have decreased its poverty headcount by nearly 165 million people since 1990. By contrast, India's declining poverty rates have been offset by population growth, so the number of people there in absolute poverty remains unchanged at approximately 360 million people.

All these statistics and more can be found in the UN Millennium Project's Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (Earthscan, 2005), pp. 13-14. Click here to download.