Poverty Introduction

Poverty can be defined in many different ways. Some attempt to reduce it to numbers, while others argue that a more ambiguous definition must be used. In the end, a combination of both methods is best. Today, most economists and social workers use two ways to define poverty.

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Social Definitions of Poverty

Some people describe poverty as a lack of essential items – such as food, clothing, water, and shelter – needed for proper living. At the UN’s World Summit on Social Development, the ‘Copenhagen Declaration’ described poverty as “…a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.” When people are unable to eat, go to school, or have any access to health care, then they can be considered to be in poverty, regardless of their income. To measure poverty in any statistical way, however, more rigid definitions must be used.

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Statistical Definitions of Poverty

A Bengali carpenter working. Poor workers in developing countries can lead very insecure lives - a single unforseen event can drive them into poverty.

While there are various numerically defined methods to measure and quantify poverty, two are simple enough that they are often used to define poverty (other methods are examined in the Measuring Poverty I and Measuring Poverty II sections of this site), relative poverty measurement and absolute poverty measurement. Both are based on income or consumption values making gathering information to compile statistics on poverty much easier.

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Relative Poverty

Slideshow:
A Journey Through Poverty: View photos and read observations about poverty from a team member who traveled in Bangladesh, a developing nation in Southeast Asia.

Note: Requires Flash Player.

Relative poverty measures are the simplest ways to determine the extent of poverty in individual countries. Using this method, the entire population is ranked in order of income per capita. The bottom 10% (or whatever percentage the government chooses to use) is then considered ‘poor’ or ‘impoverished.’ This can be fine for country-wide measurements, but it has some major drawbacks in global use. If, say, a 10% relative poverty measurement was applied in a global setting, it would appear that both an industrialized country, such as the U.S., and a sub-Saharan African country had the same 10% poverty rate, even though the conditions of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa are much worse than conditions in the U.S. For this reason, absolute poverty measures are more often used to define poverty on a global scale.

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Income vs. Consumption

A worker breaks bricks to make gravel for use on a road - the job pays around $1 per day.

Before absolute poverty measures can be used to define poverty, researchers must first determine if they want to measure income amounts or consumption amounts. Income refers to the amount of money someone makes, while consumption refers to the monetary value of the goods that person actually consumes. If you earn $4 a day, but are able, through other means, to consume $5 a day, then your yearly income would be $1,440, but your yearly consumption would only be $1,860. The differences can be significant, because depending on their situation poor people may be able to get goods for less. While it might appear at first glance that income and consumption are the same, closer examination reveals that income is just one factor, albeit a large one, which determines consumption amounts.

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Absolute Poverty

Absolute poverty measures set a ‘poverty line’ at a certain income amount or consumption amount per year, based on the estimated value of a ‘basket of goods’ (food, shelter, water, etc.) necessary for proper living. For example, if $5 a day is determined to be the income poverty line in a country, then anyone with an income of less than $1860 would be considered impoverished. If instead a poverty line based on consumption was used, anyone consuming goods with a monetary value of less than $1860 would be in poverty.

Many impoverished people engage in agricultural jobs. Some are 'subsistence farmers,' and are barely able to produce enough food to stay alive.

The most commonly used definition of global poverty is the absolute poverty line set by the World Bank. Poverty is set at an income of $2 a day or less, and extreme poverty is set at $1 a day or less. This line was first created in 1990 when the World Bank published its World Development Report and found that most developing countries set their poverty lines at $1 a day. The $2 mark was created for developing nations with slightly better income levels than their $1 a day counterparts. More developed countries are permitted to set their poverty lines elsewhere (it would be silly to assume a statistically significant group of people in the U.S. made less than $1 a day, though there are obviously many impoverished people living there). For highly industrialized countries, such as Britain, Japan, and the U.S., the absolute poverty line is usually set higher (for example, the line has been set at $14.40 in the past). The 2005 poverty line for single individuals in the United States is set at $26.19 a day.

Note:
In reality, the current ‘$1 a day’ poverty line is $1.08 (the ‘$2 a day’ line is $2.15) in 1993 U.S. dollars, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity. Read More... This means that adjustments are made to the poverty line due to the fact that a dollar in a developing country, such as Sierra Leone, will buy far more than a dollar will in an industrialized nation, such as Japan. Collapse...

As of 2001, 1.1 billion people, or 21% of the 2001 world population, had incomes less than the World Bank’s ‘$1 a day’ line for extreme poverty. 2.7 billion people had incomes less than the World Bank’s ‘$2 a day’ line for poverty. While this is a decline from past years (in 1981, there were 1.5 billion people in extreme poverty), it still means that almost one-half of the world’s population lives in poverty, mainly in sub-Saharan African and South Asia.

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Empowerment

Kathleen McHugh on Poverty:
"Poverty should be defined by an individual's inability to affect change in their lives..." - Kathleen McHugh, 'Save the Children'

One other factor many experts on poverty talk about when they talk about defining poverty is empowerment. 'Empowerment' refers to the ability of an individual to make choices regarding his or her life. Often, the poor are not empowered - they are forced to work at certain jobs or do certain things, and often, this state of existence can be linked to poverty. When people are disempowered, many times, they are in poverty.

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Sources

2005 HHS Poverty Guidelines

Bell, Peter. Telephone Interview. 19 December 2005.

Gilbert, Geoffry. World Poverty. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO 2004

Reddy, Sanjay G. How Not to Count the Poor. Columbia University, 2005.

McHugh, Kathleen. Telephone Interview. 5 January 2006.

UN World Summit on Social Development

U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Income & Poverty Estimates

Wikipedia: Poverty

Wikipedia: Poverty Line

Wikipedia: Purchasing Power Parity

World Bank: PovertyNet: Overview

Poverty in India

According to a recent Indian government committee constituted to estimate poverty, nearly 38% of India’s population (380 million) is poor. This report is based on new methodology and the figure is 10% higher than the present poverty estimate of 28.5%.

The committee was headed by SD Tendulkar has used a different methodology to reach at the current figure. It has taken into consideration indicators for heath, education, sanitation, nutrition and income as per National Sample Survey Organization survey of 2004-05. This new methodology is a complex scientific basis aimed at addressing the concern raised over the current poverty estimation.

Since 1972 poverty has been defined on basis of the money required to buy food worth 2100 calories in urban areas and 2400 calories in rural areas. In June this year a government committee headed by NC Saxena committee estimated 50% Indians were poor as against Planning Commission’s 2006 figure of 28.5%.

Poverty is one of the main problems which have attracted attention of sociologists and economists. It indicates a condition in which a person fails to maintain a living standard adequate for his physical and mental efficiency. It is a situation people want to escape. It gives rise to a feeling of a discrepancy between what one has and what one should have. The term poverty is a relative concept. It is very difficult to draw a demarcation line between affluence and poverty. According to Adam Smith - Man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, the conveniences and the amusements of human life.

Even after more than 50 years of Independence India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 260.3 million are below the poverty line, of which 193.2 million are in the rural areas and 67.1 million are in urban areas. More than 75% of poor people reside in villages. Poverty level is not uniform across India. The poverty level is below 10% in states like Delhi, Goa, and Punjab etc whereas it is below 50% in Bihar (43) and Orissa (47). It is between 30-40% in Northeastern states of Assam, Tripura, and Mehgalaya and in Southern states of TamilNadu and Uttar Pradesh.

Poverty has many dimensions changing from place to place and across time. There are two inter-related aspects of poverty - Urban and rural poverty. The main causes of urban poverty are predominantly due to impoverishment of rural peasantry that forces them to move out of villages to seek some subsistence living in the towns and cities. In this process, they even lose the open space or habitat they had in villages albeit without food and other basic amenities. When they come to the cities, they get access to some food though other sanitary facilities including clean water supply still elude them. And they have to stay in the habitats that place them under sub-human conditions. While a select few have standards of living comparable to the richest in the world, the majority fails to get two meals a day. The causes of rural poverty are manifold including inadequate and ineffective implementation of anti-poverty programmes.The overdependence on monsoon with non-availability of irrigational facilities often result in crop-failure and low agricultural productivity forcing farmers in the debt-traps. The rural communities tend to spend large percentage of annual earnings on social ceremonies like marriage; feast etc.Our economic development since Independence has been lopsided .There has been increase in unemployment creating poverty like situations for many. Population is growing at an alarming rate. The size of the Indian family is relatively bigger averaging at 4.2.The other causes include dominance of caste system which forces the individual to stick to the traditional and hereditary occupations.

Since the 1970s the Indian government has made poverty reduction a priority in its development planning. Policies have focused on improving the poor standard of living by ensuring food security, promoting self-employment through greater access to assets, increasing wage employment and improving access to basic social services. Launched in 1965, India's Public Distribution System has helped meet people's basic food needs by providing rations at subsidized prices. Although it has affected less than 20% of the Poor's food purchases, the system has been important in sustaining people's consumption of cereals, especially in periods of drought. It has provided women and girls with better access to food and helped overcome the widespread discrimination against female consumption within households. It has also reduced the burden of women, who are responsible for providing food for the household.

The largest credit-based government poverty reduction programme in the world, the Integrated Rural Development Programme provides rural households below the poverty line with credit to purchase income-generating assets. Launched in 1979, the programme has supplied subsidized credit to such groups as small and marginalized farmers, agricultural laborers, rural artisans, the physically handicapped, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Within this target population, 40% of the beneficiaries are supposed to be women. Although the programme has reached 51 million families, only 27% of the borrowers have been women. The programme has significantly increased the income of 57% of assisted families.

Rural poverty is largely a result of low productivity and unemployment. The Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, a national public works scheme launched in 1989 with financing from the central and state governments, provides more than 700 million person days of work a year about 1% of total employment for people with few opportunities for employment. The scheme has two components: a programme to provide low-cost housing and one to supply free irrigation wells to poor and marginalized farmers. The public works scheme is self-targeting. Since it offers employment at the statutory minimum wage for unskilled manual labor, only those willing to accept very low wages the poor are likely to enroll in the scheme. By providing regular employment and thereby increasing the bargaining power of all rural workers, the public works scheme has had a significant effect in reducing poverty. It has also contributed to the construction of rural infrastructure (irrigation works, a soil conservation project, drinking water supply). Evaluations show that 82% of available funds have been channeled to community development projects. Targeting was improved in 1996 when the housing and irrigation well components were delinked and focused exclusively on people below the poverty line.

TRYSEM (Training rural youth for self employment) was started to provide technical skills to the rural youth and to help them to get employment in fields such as agriculture, industry, services and business activities. Youth of the poor families belonging to the age-group of 18-35 are entitled to avail the benefits of the scheme. Priority is given to persons belonging to ST/SC and ex-servicemen and about 1/3 seats are reserved for women. Minimum Needs Programme was taken up as an integral part of the 5th Five Year Plan and it was intended to cater to the minimum needs of the people such as rural water supply, rural health, road building, adult education, primary education, rural electrification and improvement of the urban slums etc.With the intention of removing urban unemployment some schemes such as SEPUP (Self-employment programme for the urban poor); SEEUY (Scheme for self-employment of the educated urban youths) .These schemes gives loans and subsidies for the urban unemployed youths to create or to find for themselves some jobs. The SEPUP had provided financial help for about 1.19 urban unemployed youths in the year 190-91.

The participation of civil society organizations in poverty reduction efforts, especially those directed to women, has increased social awareness and encouraged governments to provide better services. Cooperatives such as the Self-Employed Women's Association provide credit to women at market rates of interest but do not require collateral; they also allow flexibility in the use of loans and the timing of repayments. These civil society organizations have not only contributed to women's material well being; they have also helped empower them socially and politically. Such credit initiatives, by bringing women out of the confines of the household, are changing their status within the family and within village hierarchies. The demands of civil society organizations for better social services have spurred the government to launch campaigns to increase literacy and improve public infrastructure. And their calls for greater accountability and real devolution of power are increasing the likelihood that expenditures for poverty reduction will reach the needy, especially women.

The Indian state has undoubtedly failed in its responsibilities towards its citizens over the last 50 odd years. There is a need for the state to move out of many areas and the process has been started with economic liberalization. The process of decentralization should devolute lot more powers, both functional and financial, to panchayats. The lack of transparency and accountability has hampered our economic development at all levels. The problem of poverty persists because of a number of leakages in the system. New laws have to be evolved to ensure more accountability. Bodies like the Planning Commission should be modified into new constitutional bodies that can hold governments accountable for their failure to implement development programmes. A strong system of incentives and disincentives also needs to be introduced. The encouragement of non-governmental organizations and private sector individuals in tackling poverty is imperative, as the state cannot do everything.

Eliminating Poverty through Development in China

Instruction

Inrecent years China has achieved impressive economic growth, and also made remarkable progress in human development. However, contemporary
China is still faced with the great challenge of widespread poverty. This not only constitutes a barrier against China’s pursuit of sustainable economic growth, but also poses a potential threat to China’s attempts to construct a harmonious society in the future. This report, written by three renowned poverty-reduction experts under the aegis of the China Development Research Foundation – one of China’s leading think-tanks – and drawing on the research of over twenty of China’s top scholars in this field, examines China’s efforts to eliminate poverty through development. It analyses all of the key issues, providing a review of China’s past record in poverty alleviation,comparing this with the experiences of other countries, identifying the new characteristics and trends in poverty in recent years, and discussing the factors responsible. It assesses the objectives and success of the poverty alleviation policies adopted by the Chinese government in a comprehensive way, and puts forward suggestions for policy makers. Overall, this report is a valuable account of China’s own thinking on its problems of poverty, and the best ways to tackle it and achieve sustainable economic development.

China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) is a nation-wide non-profit organization founded on the initiative of the Development Research Center (DRC) of the State Council. CDRF’s mission is to advance good governance and public policy to promote economic development and social progress in
China.

Contents

    List of figures
    List of tables
    List of boxes
    Foreword
    Authors’ foreword xvii
    List of contributors xxi

1  Introduction
    A review of China’s poverty and anti-poverty efforts
    Socioeconomic development and poverty reduction
    Evolution of poverty concepts and other countries’ experiences
    This report’s approach

2  New characteristics of poverty in China today
    The absolute poverty line in China
    Poor populations in rural areas of China
    Size and geographical distribution of poor populations in urban areas

3  Analysis of the causes of poverty
    An analytical framework
    Agricultural dependence and natural environmental constraints
    Human capital constraints
    Public services constraints
    Causes of urban poverty
    A brief summary of the causes of poverty

4  China’s poverty alleviation policies: goals and impacts
    Main poverty alleviation policies and their characteristics
    The effects of poverty alleviation policies in rural areas
    The poverty alleviation effects of anti-poverty policies in urban areas
    Conclusive evaluation of China’s anti-poverty policies

5  Governance and poverty alleviation
    The organization of China’s poverty alleviation forces and their functions
    The Chinese Government’s primary experiences in poverty alleviation
    The main problems with the Chinese Government’s administrative practices for poverty alleviation

6  Suggestions for poverty alleviation policies 
    Establish a developmental poverty line and adjust long-term poverty alleviation objectives
    Establish a reasonable credit mechanism for poverty alleviation and define the financial sector’s participation
    Establish and completely implement the social security system for rural and urban areas
    Support the drive for urbanization, and provide social security and public services to migrants from rural areas working in urban areas
    Provide fairer educational opportunities
    Provide more intensive training to rural labourers on employment, occupational skills and labour transfers
    Improve rural medical services
    Establish a reasonable public finance-assisted poverty alleviation mechanism and reinforce governmental oversight
    Expand the role played by non-governmental organizations in poverty alleviation
    In conclusion

Action on poverty leaving women and girls behind - report

Systematic discrimination against girls and women in the world's poorest countries will prevent the United Nations meeting its goals to reduce poverty, according to a report published today by the charity network Action Aid. The report says gender inequality must be put at the heart of the development agenda if those aims are to be met.Action Aid said girls and women were more likely to be poor, hungry, illiterate or sick than boys and men, and called on Britain and other governments to tackle the disparities. Amid growing concern that the millennium development goals set by the UN for 2015 will not be met, the charity said a focus on women was vital to put the international community back on track.

Laura Turquet, the women's rights policy officer of ActionAid, said: "Gordon Brown announced that 2008 would be the year of action on world poverty. But progress can only be accelerated if the world's governments tackle the real reasons why women are being left behind."

The report found that women and girls formed the majority of the poor and hungry, and, in south Asia, women are getting a shrinking share of income as the economy continues to grow. Ten million more girls than boys miss out on primary school, while African women accounted for 75% of all young people living with HIV/Aids.

ActionAid said the aim of universal primary education was being hampered in Africa by the 40bn hours spent by women and children collecting water each year -equivalent to a year's labour for the entire workforce of France.

While it praised Brown for putting development at the top of the political agenda, it said the "critical link" between gender equality and poverty had been lost, and leadership had been missing. "The prime minister's pledge to help accelerate progress towards universal education will not be possible unless the obstacles to girls' attendance are addressed. No 10's new International Health Partnership can only be deemed successful if it has an impact on the scandalous rates of maternal mortality and provides women with access to the safe sexual and reproductive health services they are entitled to."

Brown has issued a "call for action" in 2008 to ensure the UN meets its 2015 goals of halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, cutting infant mortality by two-thirds, cutting maternal mortality by three-quarters and putting every child in school.

A special session of the UN will be held in September to discuss ways of making speedier progress, with discussions centred on four areas: health and education; climate change and the environment; the role of business; and trade and growth.

ActionAid said discussions at the UN and at this year's meeting of the G8 industrial nations in Japan would only succeed if they started with the recognition that the "development emergency is first and foremost an emergency for women and girls".

The report added: "The disproportionate impact of poverty on girls is not an accident, but the result of systematic discrimination." On current trends, the goal of halving hunger would not be met until 2035, 40 countries would not have equal enrollments for boys and girls until after 2025 and current progress in cutting maternal mortality rates was less than one-fifth of what was needed to meet the goal.

The total number of HIV/Aids infections in 2007 was 33 million - the highest ever.

Turquet said: "Getting the goals back on track is about more than governments saving face. Fundamentally it is about women realising their basic human rights. As the lack of progress on maternal health shows, people's lives are at stake."

Counting the poor, courting their votes

POVERTY LINE Counting the poor The Suresh Tendulkar Committee's estimate of poverty in the country has reopened the debate on how the poor should be counted, what benefits they should receive from the state, and how. Food security
INFLATION Albert Pinto's missing anger In the old days, government was responsible for controlling inflation. Now if you feel the pinch of inflation, you have to fend for yourself, and especially because everyone is so busy looking after you. Economy		BPL BENEFICIARIES CIC orders publication of PDS details CIC Shailesh Gandhi orders that information about the public distribution system and its beneficiaries should be made public, offering hope that a corrupt system may finally see some reform. Food security | Delhi | RTI		NREGS A new twist to social audits The district administration in Bihar's Araria district collaborates with a local people's organisation to conduct a social audit of the NREGS. Employment | RTI | Bihar
POVERTY IN ORISSA Starvation deaths continue, as officials demur BPL politics at the central level is skewed, and quotas are fixed for every state, regardless of the actual number of people who need to be protected. Food security | Orissa		BUNDELKHAND Living with drought The rains may have failed Bundelkhand but more than this it is the governments that have forsaken the people over the years. Madhya Pradesh | Uttar Pradesh		OPINION: FOOD SECURITY Food for all? Not through the NFSA. The National Food Security Act proposes to lower ration prices, but would also reduce the quantity of grain that is given to each family. Devinder Sharma | Food security

Today, over 24,000 children died around the world

Author and Page information

• by Anup Shah
• This Page Last Updated Sunday, March 28, 2010

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/715/today-over-24000-children-died-around-the-world.
• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print version
  

Over 24,000 children die every day around the world.
That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 3.6 seconds
• 16-17 children dying every minute
• A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 9-10 days
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 16–40 days
• Just under 9 million children dying every year
• Some 79 million children dying between 2000 and 2007

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. Some more numbers on the state of the world’s children
2. Why is this tragedy not in the headlines?
3. Recent headlines in context
4. About Child Deaths
5. Why is child mortality important to understand?
6. Cautious optimism in reducing child mortality
7. Notes and Sources

1. Sources for child deaths
2. Sources for Haiti comparison
3. Sources for Asia Tsunami comparison
4. Sources for Iraq comparison

Related Information

Some more numbers on the state of the world’s children

From UNICEF, the world’s premier children’s organization, part of the United Nations:

• 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation
• 1 billion children are deprived of one or more services essential to survival and development
• 148 million under 5s in developing regions are underweight for their age
• 101 million children are not attending primary school, with more girls than boys missing out
• 22 million infants are not protected from diseases by routine immunization
• 8.8 million children worldwide died before their 5th birthday in 2008
• 4 million newborns worldwide are dying in the first month of life
• 2 million children under 15 are living with HIV
• >500,000 women die each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth

Source: State of the World’s Children, 2010 , UNICEF, p.18-19. See also ChildInfo.

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Why is this tragedy not in the headlines?

UNICEF’s 2000 Progress of Nations report tried to put these numbers into some perspective:

The continuation of this suffering and loss of life contravenes the natural human instinct to help in times of disaster. Imagine the horror of the world if a major earthquake were to occur and people stood by and watched without assisting the survivors! Yet every day, the equivalent of a major earthquake killing over 30,000 young children occurs to a disturbingly muted response. They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.

— A spotty scorecard, UNICEF, Progress of Nations 2000

Unfortunately, it seems that the world still does not notice. It might be reasonable to expect that death and tragedy on this scale should be prime time headlines news. Yet, these issues only surface when there are global meetings or concerts (such as the various G8 summits, the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005, etc).

Images © UNICEF

Furthermore, year after year, we witness that when those campaigns end and the meetings conclude, so does the mainstream media coverage.
It feels as though even when there is some media attention, the ones who suffer are not the ones that compel the mainstream to report, but instead it is the movement of the celebrities and leaders of the wealthy countries that makes this issue newsworthy.
Even rarer in the mainstream media is any thought that wealthy countries may be part of the problem too. The effects of international policies, the current form of globalization, and the influence the wealthy countries have on these processes is rarely looked at.
Instead, promises and pledges from the wealthy, powerful countries, and the corruption of the poorer ones—who receive apparently abundant goodwill—make the headlines; the repeated broken promises, the low quality and quantity of aid, and conditions with unfair strings attached do not.
Accountability of the recipient countries is often mentioned when these issues touch the mainstream. Accountability of the roles that international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, and their funders (the wealthy/powerful countries), rarely does. The risk is that citizens of these countries get a false sense of hope creating the misleading impression that appropriate action is taken in their names.
It may be harsh to say the mainstream media is one of the many causes of poverty, as such, but the point here is that their influence is enormous. Silence, as well as noise, can both have an effect.

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Recent headlines in context

When initially writing this page, the BBC’s top story on prime time television was about a British child kidnapped in Portugal. This is definitely a tragic story that needs reporting, but why, for the BBC and other British media outlets that pride themselves in outstanding international media coverage, is the plight of millions of children not daily headlines?
Another recent tragedy that sustained days of headline and prime time media coverage was the Virginia Tech massacre’s in the US. When media critics at Media Lens asked for the BBC’s rationale for such sustained coverage compared to more people dying each day in Iraq and receiving just a few minutes in comparison, the BBC responded that it happens every day in Iraq. See Putting Virginia Tech in Perspective for the follow up from Media Lens.
Some people fear there will be fatigue at hearing those depressing stories all the time, or the advertisers will pressure the media companies to put a bit more entertainment or good news on so that buying moods are not affected.
However, news of tragedies in Iraq are also depressing, but nevertheless do received regular headline coverage.
Also there is worry that the lack of sensationalism attached to reporting the same news story each day will result in lower television viewing ratings and this may have various consequences—especially where advertising is concerned.
Finally there is the question of whether people want to hear about such depressing news stories. After all the media feels it is delivering what its viewers would like. However, it is difficult for people to know what they do or do not want to see, if they are never given the options of the alternatives. If the magnitude of this suffering is hardly reported in a sustained manner, how can viewers judge whether they wish to watch it or not?

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About Child Deaths

Of the 8.8 million child deaths (under-5s) in 2008, the vast majority occurred in just two regions:

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Why is child mortality important to understand?

UNICEF summarizes the importance of child mortality:

The under-five mortality rate, often known by its acronym U5MR or simply as the child mortality rate … has several advantages as a barometer of child well-being in general and child health in particular.
First, it measures an ‘outcome’ of the development process rather than an ‘input’, such as per capita calorie availability or the number of doctors per 1,000 population—all of which are means to an end.
Second, the U5MR is known to be the result of a wide variety of inputs:

• the nutritional status and the health knowledge of mothers;
• the level of immunization and oral rehydration therapy;
• the availability of maternal and child health services (including prenatal care);
• income and food availability in the family;
• the availability of safe drinking water and basic sanitation; and
• the overall safety of the child’s environment

… among other factors.
Third, the U5MR is less susceptible to the fallacy of the average than, for example, per capita gross national income (GNI per capita). This is because the natural scale does not allow the children of the rich to be 1,000 times as likely to survive, even if the human-made scale does permit them to have 1,000 times as much income. In other words, it is much more difficult for a wealthy minority to affect a nation’s U5MR, and it therefore presents a more accurate, if far from perfect, picture of the health status of the majority of children (and of society as a whole).

— State of the World’s Children, 2008 , UNICEF, January 2008, p.2 (see also p.149 for more details) [Emphasis and list formatting added]

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Cautious optimism in reducing child mortality

UNICEF also notes that the global child mortality rate declined by over a quarter between 1990 and 2008:

Significant declines in under-five mortality rates between 1990 and 2008 in all regions, Child Survival and Health, ChildInfo, UNICEF, November 2009.

Progress has certainly been made as each year the number of children under 5 dying is slowly coming down. However, as UNICEF cautioned in their State of the World’s Children, 2008 report, “progress has been unevenly distributed” (p.25). For example, good progress was made by a few nations with large populations, but many countries made “no progress or insufficient progress” (p.iii)Also of concern is that the global financial crisis, largely the making of rich countries, is affecting the poorest. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, estimates between 200,000 and 400,000 additional children will die because of this global financial crisis.UNICEF’s State of the World Report 2010 was compiled in August 2009. They noted at the time, “The risks to child rights from the current economic crisis and other external challenges must not be underestimated.” (p. 60). Furthermore, “The full impact of the crisis on child rights will not be evident for some time, and will only become apparent as new international estimates of global poverty, child development and nutrition emerge.” (p.62)

Notes and Sources

Sources for child deaths

These mortality figures are from UNICEF. 79 million covers deaths between 2000 and 2008, the latest figures from UNICEF at time of writing.
The term “Children” in this context means infants under the age of 5. The tragedy is therefore even worse if older children, adults, and the elderly are to be considered.
The approximate number of deaths in those five years is calculated by averaging the deaths per year of known figures and multiplying by 8 years, which gives a total of 79.25 million deaths.
Given the population is increasing, the actual deaths being reduced shows a percentage decline in these deaths over those 8 years, by 0.05%.
In a way, this feels like a very small reduction given that many of the illnesses and conditions that children suffer are easily preventable, technically.
Taking a longer term view, since 1960 (when child mortality numbers were first being recorded) the annual number of child deaths has more than halved, from 20 million in 1960 to just 8.8 million in 2008.
The rate of reduction varies by region, with poorer regions having higher child mortality rates, though all regions are seeing a reduction as the years go by:

In addition, given the population in 1960 was 3 billion whereas 2008 was about 6.73 billion this means that there has been a five-fold improvement in saving lives of children from a percentage basis. That is, although population has increased (a lot), the number of child deaths has reduced even more.

Explanation for five-fold saving»

• 20 million divided by 3 billion is 0.00667.
• 8.8 million divided by 6.73 billion is 0.0013.
• 0.00667 divided by 0.0013 is approximately 5.13

The sources are typically the UNICEF web site and their progress of nations reports. They have a statistical database, which (at the time of writing) uses 2008 as the latest available data.

Child deaths at different intervals

Year	Per year (millions)	Per day	Per hour	Per minute	Per second	Population (approx)	%
Some values have been rounded for display.
2000	11	30,137.99	1,255.71	20.93	0.35	6.1 billion	0.18%
2003	10.6	29,041.10	1,210.05	20.17	0.34	6.3 billion	0.17%
2005	10.14	27,786.30	1,157.76	19.30	0.32	6.45 billion	0.16%
2006	9.7	26,575.34	1,107.31	18.46	0.31	6.5 billion	0.15%
2007	9.2	25,205.48	1,050.23	17.50	0.29	6.65 billion	0.14%
2008	8.8	24,032.88	1,001.37	16.69	0.28	6.73 billion	0.13%

See also the following:

• Progress of Nations 2000, UNICEF, 2000;
• Robert E. Black, Saul S Morris, Jennifer Bryce, Where and why are 10 million children dying every year?, The Lancet, Volume 361, Number 9376, 28 June 2003. (Note, while the article title says 10 million, their paper says 10.8 million.)
• State of the World’s Children, 2005, UNICEF (this cites the number as 10.6 million in 2003)
• State of the World’s Children, 2008 , UNICEF, provides approximate figures for 2006.
• State of the World’s Children, 2009 , UNICEF, provides approximate figures for 2007.
• State of the World’s Children, 2010 , UNICEF, provides approximate figures for 2008.

Sources for Haiti comparison

The BBC reports that “Haiti’s government says about 230,000 people died” in the devastating earthquake in January 2010, although later, a minister said there were 217,000 verified deaths.
At 24,033 deaths per day, that would be 9.04 – 9.57 days.

Sources for Asia Tsunami comparison

This site’s article, Asian Tsunami in December 2004, notes that approximately 230,000 people died in that disaster.
At 24,033 deaths per day, that would be about 9.57 days.

Sources for Iraq comparison

For the Iraq estimate, the John Hopkins study (reported in the Lancet) found 400,000 to 950,000 deaths since the 2003 Iraq invasion (average of some 655,000). Dividing 400,000 by 24,033 gives 16.6, and 950,000 by 24,033 gives 39.5.
As an aside, George Bush and many others dismissed this study in the Lancet as lacking credibility, using discredited methodologies, and instead used the Iraq Body Count statistics (of 30,000 at the time, though it is now reported at about 66,000).
If Iraq Body Count statistics are to be used, then the number of days in which child deaths match the post 2003 Iraq death toll is just two or three days. The Iraq Body Count statistics are often criticized because they rely on mainstream media reporting, which is heavily censored and managed by the US in Iraq. Nonetheless they provided criticism of the John Hopkins study (often referred to as the Lancet study as that is where it was published).
The authors of the study defended it noting that they used the very methodology that the US government is teaching others (and thus dismissed Bush’s claim of using discredited methodologies). The full report in the Lancet also notes that casualty reporting in war time tends to be grossly underestimated, so their numbers may not be as hard to accept as it initially sounds. This caused controversy when reported in October 2006, and is detailed further on this site’s Iraq media reporting section which includes the relevant links.

Raising Awareness for Women & Children Living in Poverty

The purpose of mygroup is to raise awareness for women and children living in shelters and on the streets.Between April 1, 2005 and March 31, 2006, almost 106, 000 women and children were admitted into shelters, most often to escape abuse.Between 1998 and 2006, the admission of women into shelters was relatively stable droping only 3%.In 2006 the number of children admitted into shelters dropped 4% from 2004, these levels were also 25% less than in 1998.So now days the poverty has become a curse for every1.This problem is a mother of all diseases which nurture and nurshes with its womb. Now we all have to put all endeavour to eradicate this problem from root.Our youth have to provide helping shoulder to each other.I encourage you to please join this blog group. I will post periodic updates/news on this board to help keep you in touch with the happenings of the Foundation.  I'd love to hear from you, and greatly encourage your participation. Thanks