Extremely poor children: South Asia has second largest share in world

Islamabad: After Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, including Pakistan, has most of the world’s extremely poor children, reveals a study jointly done by the World Bank Group and Unicef.

“Children living in extremely poor households are concentrated in certain parts of the developing world. Sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest rates of children living in extreme poverty at just under 49 per cent, and the largest share of the world’s extremely poor children, at just over 51 per cent. Since countries without data are not included in the analysis, the real share could be even higher. South Asia has the second highest share at nearly 36 per cent. Over 30 per cent of children living in extreme poverty live in India alone,” said the ‘Ending extreme poverty: a focus on children’ study, the first of its kind.

According to researchers, the exercise done in 2013 was meant to know how many children are living in extremely poor households and where exactly they are located and thus, helping out governments and partners improve the lives of the poorest children and families on the planet.

The findings of the study are stark: Children are most affected by extreme poverty – and by a huge margin.

Based on data from 89 countries representing just over 84 per cent of the developing world’s population, the estimate is that almost 385 million children were living in extremely poor households in 2013. Perhaps most strikingly, children are more than twice as likely to be living in households in extreme poverty — with 19.5 per cent of children in developing countries estimated to live on less than $1.90 a day, compared to 9.2 per cent of adults. This cannot be explained by a large youth population. In fact, children are disproportionately affected, as they make up around a third of the sample population, but half of the extreme poor.

The youngest children are the worst off – over 20 per cent of all children below 5 in the developing world live in extremely poor households, compared with nearly 15 per cent of 15-17 year olds.

As suggested by the study, eight out of 10 of all children in extremely poor households live in rural, rather than urban, areas.

Over a quarter of children living in rural areas live in extremely poor households compared to just over nine per cent of children in urban areas.

Also, children are most at risk of living in extreme poverty in countries that have experienced conflict and where the livelihoods of citizens are threatened by a range of factors including inadequate national economic management, a lack of policies to combat inequity and a weak civil society.

“Nearly 58 per cent of children who live in such countries affected by conflict and fragility live in extremely poor households.”

According to researchers, it is not only extreme poverty that disproportionately affects children, but poverty more widely.

They looked at higher poverty lines - such as those living under $3.10 a day, which includes people living in moderate and extreme poverty.

When all those living on less than $3.10 were examined, children remained far worse off.

“Around 45 per cent of children are living in households subsisting on less than $3.10 a day per person, compared with nearly 27 per cent of adults. The analysis shows that across all possible poverty lines, children are the worst affected.”

The researchers feel addressing the multidimensional aspects of child poverty is crucial.

According to them, in the face of a global economic slowdown, ending extreme child poverty by 2030 will not be easy. However, the change is possible.

Around the world, the World Bank Group and Unicef are already working with governments and other partners to address child poverty and to promote a range of cross-sectoral investments in the early years of life.

They are supporting programmes that take monetary and non-monetary approaches — ranging from cash transfers, to broader work to help children move out of poverty, such as nutrition, health and education programmes.

Also, they are working to help governments and other partners to reform entire healthcare, education and social systems – with the aim of benefiting society as a whole as well as protecting children’s futures.

In the study, the World Bank Group and Unicef urged governments to ensure that child poverty is routinely measured and addressed at the national level as countries work towards both ending extreme poverty by 2030 and improving the wellbeing of their poorest citizens; make deliberate policy decisions that will ensure a country’s economic growth benefits all of its citizens, including making sure children are fully considered in poverty reduction plans, and strengthen child sensitive social protection systems, including cash transfer programmes that give direct payments to families to help lift children out of poverty and protect them from its impacts.

They also called for the prioritisation of investments in education, health, nutrition, clean water, sanitation and infrastructure that benefit the poorest children and prevention of people from falling back into poverty after setbacks like droughts, disease or economic instability.