ABSTRACT
After three decades of ‘development’, the facts of global poverty represent a shocking measure of failure. 1.3 billion people, more than a fifth of the human race, live in absolute poverty, lacking access to basic necessities such as food and clean drinking water. One-third of the world's children are undernourished, and 12.2 million die before the age of five every year, 95 per cent of them from poverty-related illnesses. Half the world's population lacks regular access to the most essential drugs, and 900 million people are illiterate. Population growth means that most of these are larger absolute numbers than 25 years ago. 1 Since the early 1960s average real per capita income in industrialised countries has more than doubled. In South Asia, starting from a base 40 times lower, it has risen by 80 per cent; in Latin America and the Caribbean, by only 50 per cent. In sub-Saharan Africa per capita income has not risen at all. 2
