Accra, 16 June Eradicating extreme poverty in the first two decades of the 21st century is a feasible and affordable goal, a United Nations Development Programme report said today. But to achieve this goal, strategies to accelerate economic growth, policies that are targeted at poverty reduction must be pursued by countries caught in stagnation or decline. According to the UNDP Human Development Report 1997 released in Accra today, nearly one-third of the developing world’s population – about 1.3 billion people – live on less than a dollar a day while more than 800 million people do not get enough to eat. The Report, eighth in a series of annual reports commissioned by the UNDP, said “extreme poverty could be banished from the globe within one or two decades. A score of countries are on track to do this…” This year’s report which focuses on poverty said much of the world’s population has benefited from major advances in economic opportunity and human well-being. For the developing world, these gains have covered as much distance in the past 30 years as the industrialised world did in a century. Stressing the imbalances in poverty eradication, the report showed that some regions too often lagged behind others. For instance, Sub-Saharan Africa’s life expectancy at 50 years is 19 years less than the life expectancy in Asia.
