Change:
Can we eradicate extreme poverty?

There are many riches in the world – but there is also much poverty. And although the overall percentage of people in poverty has been falling, there are still too many people without enough resources.

In this feature, CGTN investigates extreme poverty – its definitions, its causes, its effects and its ramifications.

But there are also solutions, if we as a species are willing to embrace them – and we'll have a look at one case study of a place brought out of extreme poverty into moderate prosperity.

What does poverty mean?

According to the World Bank, living below the extreme poverty line means surviving on less than $1.90 a day. But poverty means much more than a lack of income and resources. It includes hunger and malnutrition; it means limited access to water, sanitation, education, health, technology and other basic services. Breaking the cycle involves jobs, sustainable enterprises and economic transformation. 

Defeating poverty is the United Nations' top priority, and since 1990, it has made huge strides around the world. The number of people living in extreme poverty fell from 36 percent – more than a third of the world's population – in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015, with women disproportionately affected. 

But global progress has suffered a setback. The World Bank in 2021 said that many people who'd barely escaped extreme poverty will soon be plunged back into it. It's now estimated the pandemic put up to 124 million people into poverty in 2020, and by the end of 2021, that figure is expected to rise to as much as 163 million, with the impact likely to be felt for years to come. 

Not that the pandemic health crisis is the only contributor. The fallout from the pandemic has compounded the impact of conflict and climate change, two key factors which were already slowing progress. 

Climate change is expected to drive up to 130 million people into poverty by 2030 – and the biggest threat is in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where most of the poor live. The World Bank warns that without swift and significant action, ending poverty by 2030 simply won't be attainable.

On 2002's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the then secretary-general of the UN, Kofi Annan, said "Let us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights.

"For the first time in history, in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess, we have the power to save humanity from this shameful scourge. Let us summon the will to do it."

Two decades on, the world's poorest are still awaiting the full force of that will, but the news is not all bleak. During the quarter-century between 1990 and 2015, the world made remarkable progress; reducing the ratio of people in extreme poverty, from one in three to one in 10, meant that more than a billion fewer people were living in extreme poverty than in 1990. 

This progress has benefited from globalization and trade leading to strong global growth and the rising wealth of many developing countries, particularly in the world's most populous regions of South and East Asia. It is this particular progress that provides hope of reaching the UN target: less than 3 percent of the world's population by 2030.

The World Food Program is warning that almost a third of the world's population is now going hungry and in 2021 more than 40 million people are at imminent risk of famine. After 60 years of government programs, international aid and global development, why does extreme poverty and starvation still exist?

CGTN Europe put this question to World Food Program deputy executive director Amir Mahmood Abdullah. He was very clear on what he sees as the main drivers of extreme poverty across the globe in 2021.

When those who work for the World Food Program see people being edged towards the brink of famine, these people are almost always at the mercy of one or more of the three drivers of extreme poverty. 

"We think of it in the terms of the three Cs," he explains. "Conflict, climate crisis and COVID-19 are really pushing people into serious poverty, affecting their livelihoods, putting their lives at risk."

The cost of food staples has gone up exponentially in the past few years. In May 2021, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's price index hit its highest level since 2011. Soy is up 56 percent in 12 months and corn is up 68 percent, forcing millions more into poverty. 

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has been a factor, this isn't just a sudden spike – it's a rising trend, caused by a number of factors.

2. Climate

Words can be important. In the 1950s, scientists began to warn of "global warming," but the phrase was often misunderstood: many thought it simply meant sunnier summers and less severe winters. 

From the 1980s, the alternative phrase "climate change" gained popularity, yet still we headed towards ecological disaster – and over the last 15 years or so, the more neurologically affecting phrase "climate crisis" has been increasingly used.

Now, it's often called "climate chaos" – but however you define it, it is beginning to manifest itself as more intense heat waves, wildfires, frequent extreme rainfall and flooding – all of which are very damaging to farming and agricultural economies. 

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted by nearly 200 countries. It is a legally binding international treaty on climate change to keep the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. For the first time it seemed that a universal approach to tackle global warming and cutting harmful emissions would be able to slow climate change. 

However, action on the agreement has been disappointing – hindered by counter-arguments over the cause and extent of environmental events, arguments propagated by heavy hitters such as former U.S. President Donald Trump, who formally withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in 2020.  

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report in 2021 ahead of COP26 which laid out in no uncertain terms that humanity's role in climate is a "statement of fact" and that many of the predictions for climate change were happening faster than anticipated. As the report put it, the planet is now in a 'code red' alert situation; to halt the rise in global temperatures, humankind must cut global emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by the middle of this century.

While scientific research continues to underline the need for action on climate change, the world's poorest nations are facing enormous exposure to its effects – causing displacement, conflict and economic disruption.

Many governments are unable to deal with widespread food insecurity, water shortages, migration, and increasing competition for scarce resources.

In the Sahel – the immediately sub-Saharan belt of Africa running almost the full width of the continent from Senegal in the west to Eritrea in the east – temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than in the rest of the world. 

Decreased rainfall and depleted soil – due to agricultural overexploitation and progressive deforestation of the savannahs – have deteriorated the land, impacting fertility: The IPCC predicts that agricultural yields will fall by 20 percent per decade by the end of the 21st century in some areas of the Sahel. That's particularly bad news when two in three people in the Sahel countries live from agriculture and livestock. 

In Nigeria, climate change has shifted traditional migratory patterns and intensified resource competition between farmers and herders. This is leading to increased rivalries and violence between communities and encouraging the rise of extremism, kidnapping and banditry. 

In the west African country of Burkina Faso, 5 percent of the population – more than a million people – is now internally displaced. After leaving their homes, where drought has become endemic, thousands of people then faced violent floods that wiped away their shelters.

The Sahel is just one of many regions worldwide where climate change will likely result in mass migration and a new "climate refugees" crisis.

The costs of eradicating poverty can seem high, but the costs of ignoring it can be even higher. 

The World Food Program's Cost of Hunger report in 2020 looked at 21 countries across Africa, finding that up to 44 percent of child mortality is associated with undernutrition – and that stunting through malnutrition is responsible for up to 18 percent of all school repetitions, with stunted children spending up to 3.6 years less in school education. 

This also has economic consequences for the economy: with child mortality reducing the size African workforces by up to 13.7 percent, and up to two thirds of the working-age population in the studied countries having suffered from stunting as children.

"What really matters is the cost of not doing that program," insists the World Food Programme's Amir Mahmood Abdullah, using the example of free school meals to encourage education. "If we don't provide not only the school meal, but the education for children, you are losing trillions of dollars in potential wealth in the future."

What can be done?

Even as president of Hunger Relief International, Rachel Zelon knows that these problems can't simply be ended by putting food on the table. "The conflict and climate crisis are drivers that can't necessarily be solved by an input of food assistance alone," she says. 

Zelon describes stability as a "key" factor – one easily removed by conflict, climate, COVID-19 and indeed corruption. 

"Many of the people that we serve are actually smallholder farmers, people who would normally be producing enough themselves to eat and maybe a little bit extra to sell and make a living," she explains. 

"But if you cannot stabilize them on the land, if you cannot provide them sustenance to help improve their lives, things don't start to get better. And what we have seen is that in areas where we're able to do that, we are moving people out of hunger, out of poverty and starting to improve."

Besides investment, Zelon craves "buy-in" from local and national governments, to invest in infrastructure – in roads, agriculture, education and healthcare – that will, long-term, go a long way to ending poverty.

As she puts it, "If we can't keep people healthy, if we can't educate them, if we can't give them a pathway forward, then we will never be able to eradicate poverty."

UN Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner holds up China as an example of Zelon's top-down buy-in.

"From very early on, there was a strong commitment to deal with poverty eradication and to address those who were not living in the shiny new big cities, those living in rural areas," he says.

"Leaving no-one behind is something that has been integral to many of China's development policies. China's record in lifting literally hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over just two or three decades is without precedent so far."