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Global
Falsehoods How the World Bank and UNDP distort the figures on global poverty
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| New South African Outlook, Vol. 1 no. 1 (January 1999) | |
| The World
Bank (WB) and the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) claim that economic growth resulting from
macro-economic reforms has contributed to a reduction in
the current levels of World poverty. This is accepted
without criticising the way numbers are manipulated,
social realities concealed and economic concepts turned
upside down. The WB, for instance, arbitrarily sets a
"poverty threshold" at $1 a day per capita.
Population groups with a per capita income above this
level are "non-poor".
If we applied US Bureau of Census methodology (based on a minimum diet) to developing countries, the overwhelming majority of their populations would be categorized as "poor". Moreover, household budget surveys for several Latin American countries suggest that at least 60% of the region's population does not meet minimum calorie and protein requirements. In Peru, for instance, following the 1990 IMF sponsored "Fujishock", 83 percent of the Peruvian population were unable to meet minimum daily calorie and protein requirements. The prevailing situation in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where a majority of the population suffers from chronic undernourishment, is more serious. The 1997 UNDP Report points to a decline of one third to a half in child mortality in selected Sub-Saharan countries despite the slide in state expenditures and income levels. It fails to mention that the closing down of health clinics and the massive lay-offs of health professionals responsible for compiling mortality data has resulted in a de facto decline in recorded mortality. Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa
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| Resources | |
This assessment is carried out
irrespective of actual conditions at country level. No
need to analyse household expenditures on food, shelter,
social services; no need to observe concrete conditions
in impoverished villages or urban slums. The absurdity of
this procedure is evidenced by the fact that many
population groups with per capita incomes of even $5 a
day remain unable to meet basic expenditures for food,
clothing, shelter, health and education. The 1997 Report
of the UNDP Human Development Group broadly conveys a
similar viewpoint to that of the IMF and WB; its poverty
estimates portray an even more distorted and misleading
pattern than those of the WB. Its "human poverty
index", based on "the most basic dimensions of
deprivation: a short life span, lack of basic education
and lack of access to public and private resources,"
projects estimates of human poverty totally inconsistent
with country-level realities. For instance, the UNDP
categorizes only 10.9% of Mexico's population as
"poor". Yet since the mid-1980s, Mexico has
seen a collapse in social services, impoverishment of
small farmers and the massive decline in real earnings
triggered by successive currency devaluations. Neither
organisation undertakes comparisons in poverty levels
between "developed" and "developing"
countries.