A massive achievement
September 18th, 2010 at 7:45 am by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
The share of the population of developing regions whose people live in extreme poverty is expected to fall to 15 percent by 2015, down from 46 percent in 1990, according to the United Nations. The gains stem largely from robust economic growth in countries such as China and India, the world’s two most populous countries.
That is a huge drop for one generation.
As leaders will hear next week at a Un summit in New York, the overall success in cutting extreme poverty is patchy from region to region. According to the World Bank, much of Asia already has met or is on its way to meeting the goal, and Latin America is on track to more than halve its rate from 11 percent in 1990 to 5 percent in 2015; sub-Saharan Africa is likely to fall short at a projected 38 percent.
The problems in Africa often relate to poor governance.
Change came as it did to many villages in China – through an idea and a road. A local official thought the area’s forested mountains and waterfalls could draw tourists, so he drummed up funding to pave the dirt track that was the sole path in and out of Chongdugou. Today almost all the village’s 350-plus families are involved in tourism.
In the 1990s, “people could only feed themselves, and some even starved. Children could not afford to go to school, and many could not even finish primary school,” said Liu Jiandang, a 41-year-old former farmer. “Now, we’ve got paved roads, new houses, phones and vehicles. I run a hotel that can host 20 to 30 tourists and some rooms have TV sets, air conditioners, hot water and bathrooms.”
How selfish of the village. Do they have any idea what their carbon emissions should be. They should go back to starving in poverty.
September 18th, 2010 at 7:55 am
And all since the fall of communism. Funny that…
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 8:45 am
Ironic that just released US “poverty” figures are at a 50 year high.
This isn’t a good measure for the US, although I find it hard to equate what is classed as poverty here or the US with the type of poverty seen in places like Africa.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Put it away (1,066) Says:
September 18th, 2010 at 7:55 am
And all since the fall of communism. Funny that…
Then isn’t it a shame that China is still communist? That they are still a one party state. That much of their growth is becasue of central planning?
Of course, if we want to life Africa out of poverty, we could do that too, simply by exporting our few remaining productive jobs to Africa.
It won’t be long before you see young people standing in shopping malls in Nairobi, Joburg, N’Djamena, Luanda, and Kinshasa, collecting money for Save the Children, surrounded posters of Starving kiwi kids.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Africa will not change much this century, if ever – poverty, disease, corruption, maladministration. Our focus is Asia and due to the economic success of China millions if not hundreds of millions will be lifted from poverty. That is the big story of our hemisphere and a similar story for India – providing they get rid of socialism and corruption.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:16 am
The big story on China is largely ignored.
http://www.newser.com/story/100776/mao-greatest-mass-murderer.html
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:17 am
@MNIJ – You socialists amuse me… saying China is a success because of central planning in one breath and then China has inhumane working conditions because of the greedy western consumer in the next.
A huge part of the China success story is that they work bloody hard and expect the government to get in their way rather than help them. A huge part of NZ’s decline is beacuse we’re bloody lazy and expect the government to do everything for us.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:18 am
IDon’tKnowJack – lol yeah right. China is still resembles communism politically with the one party state and lack of human rights, but all their economic gains have come in direct response to reforms that moved them away from communist economics. Every time they dropped a pilllar of communist economics, their economic performance surged. Funny that.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Red – yes we must never forget that. It astounds me that people today can put their hands up and admit to being communists and even maoists, and most good people will just roll their eyes a little and quietly chuckle at their stupidity and naivity, when these bastards cold-bloodedly murdered far more people than Hitler did. 45 million vs 6 million. When someone says “I’m a communist” your reaction should be the same as your reaction would be if they said “I’m a nazi”, but 7.5 times stronger.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world…
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:35 am
reid – same problem as Africa, bad government. He may have a birth cert from a US state, but Obama’s performance has got “Africa” stamped all over it.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Oh well done Helen.
Another great achievement by the UN and another para in the CV of the greatest leader NZ has ever produced. Astride the world stage, alleviating poverty and lifting millions from starvation. I can barely contain myself from bursting with pride.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:43 am
No. Because it doesn’t matter, and because their government hasn’t [yet] decided to subject them to an eco-guilt tax.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Try aiming your blame back a few years.
“the rise in the poverty level that began a decade ago and accelerated during the recession has wiped out all the gains made during the long run of economic growth and prosperity in the 1990s.”
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 10:21 am
How much carbon will produced now that the socialists are about to melt down Sir keith’s statue to reincarnate it as one of Helen Clark for the front foyerof the UN?
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I was tempted to be generous and regard this abhorrent statement as just another inappropriate joke at the expense of poverty-stricken non-whites until I realised DPF is probably deadly serious. So sad.
The facts are that the average emissions (CO2 equivalent) from, say, an African village is probably less than .4 t/per person whereas we emit about 8 t/person and the US about 20 t/person. African villagers not need to worry about their emissions until we drastically reduce ours. Not only should those villagers not feel guilt, they should feel that they are entitled at last to their fair share.
And it’s entirely fair that these villagers for a time actually exceed our emissions as they move into the post-fossil era in a much wealthier position than has been permitted them in the past by the rich imperial nations.
The way it will work is that the West must donate the new low-carbon technologies now in the pipeline to those African nations so that their carbon footprint never approaches whatever the West’s will be at its worst – and the worst is yet to come, sadly.
Of course, I suppose we could all steal their (many, many) dead infants identities and pretend we are poor black villagers! Would that work? Or would we prefer to become Chinese?
[DPF: You need to read better. The village is Chinese. And China is the world's largest emitter of CO2, and within a decade is likely to be emitting more by themselves than the rest of the world combined.
Yet that growth is what has pushed villages in China out of poverty. And I doubt China is willing to stop its economic growth just to keep the rest of the world happy. So even if the US and EU go carbon neutral, emissions by 2020 will be higher than in 1990]
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Put it away and Pete, you’re actually both right. The US has been extremely poorly served by its politicians IMO since Eisenhower. Reagan was a brief blip of goodness but was somewhat cancelled out by the execrable Bush 41 when he was VP – e.g. it was Bush that did Iran-Contra, just the same way as Bush’s close mate and confidant Cheney, did Iraq.
Sometimes they’re not deliberately bad, as in, do the wrong thing on purpose, but Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama are all deliberately bad. And let’s not mention venal congress after venal congress, again with the odd exception like Ron Paul.
Even a powerful nation like the US cannot stand being undermined from within, for so long before the seeds of destruction start to become visible even to the useful idiots.
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Even China’s corrupted version of Capitalism has been potent enough to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; and free-trade with the rest of the world has been an essential element.
Taken with India, it is a humanitarian achievement of a scale and speed unprecedented in history; and all thanks to evil Capitalism. Compare and contrast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
As for those US “poverty” statistics, a crucial point needs to be understood about them:
http://timworstall.com/2010/09/17/well-let-ritchie-off-this-error/
That contemptible shit John Edwards tried to score political points with such numbers during his presidential bid. His populist “solution”, naturally, was greater state benefits. The problem of course was that, by definition, greater benefits would not change these statistics one jot.
In fact, America’s “poor” are suprisingly well-off:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/01/understanding-poverty-in-america
The real problem with being “poor” in America is the level of crime that makes lives a misery; and much of that is the direct result of prohibition. One day prohibition will end…
Vote:September 18th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Redbaiter [9:16 am] Nazis,Communists, Trotskyists,, whatever. They’re all socialists. The only real difference is the label. It’s OK for other socialists to condemm the Nazis. They committed the unforgivable sin of being nationalists first, and socialists second. Besides, they lost the war. That was in large part because Hitler turned on his fellow partner in mass murder, Stalin. Morally, socialists of whatever stripe are all the same.
After the war, General Eisenhower was offered the chance to meet some of the Nazi generals. He declined, citing the fact that the Whermact ones may have been tolerably alright. But they all served Hitler, and thus were all tarrred with the same brush. To put it another way, evil is indivisible. Your wimpy pinko socialist is on the same moral plane as Mao, Stalin,Hitler etc.
cheers
David Prosser
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