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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt">MORE THAN l/2 OF THE WORLD’S POOR ARE CHILDREN<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#C00000">More than half of the world’s poorest people are children, even though they (children) represent only 30 percent of the world’s total population and the results only consider
children living in established households.</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#C00000"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Building on new modeling methods developed by World Data Lab, it is now possible to provide preliminary estimates
of poverty trends in every country of the world disaggregated by age. Of the world’s 2.3 billion children (those less than 18 years of age), 301 million live on less than $1.90/day in 2011 PPP. This means that 13 percent of the world’s children are very poor—compared
to 6 percent of adults (Figure 1).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Figure 1: Child poverty is the world’s biggest challenge<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/global_20190620_figure1.png"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:blue;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="768" height="384" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.png@01D52ABF.B92138E0" alt="Child poverty is the world’s biggest challenge"></span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Source: World Data Lab projections, 2019</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">More than half of the world’s poorest people are children, even though they (children) represent only 30 percent of
the world’s total population and the results only consider children living in established households. These findings belie an even harder truth: Children remain both a cause of poverty and its consequence. Families with modest incomes risk falling into poverty
as their families grow. They need to feed more people often with less income when their mothers stay at home. At the same time, it is poor families who have more children,
<a href="http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/about/news/20131204-DemographyLutz.en.html">
<span style="color:blue;text-decoration:none">especially if the mothers did not attend secondary school</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">However, the good news is that child poverty is declining across the world and it is declining faster than the poverty
rate of adults. Under a base-case scenario, World Data Lab projects that by 2030, child poverty will decline from 301 million today to some 233 million.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Figure 2: More than half of the world’s poor are children<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/global_20190620_figure2.png"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:blue;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="576" height="384" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image003.jpg@01D52E51.35DFDD70" alt="More than half of the world’s poor are children"></span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Source: World Data Lab projections</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Amid this context, Africa is at the center of the fight against child poverty due to its rapid population growth,
young(er) population, and larger families than those of other continents. Families with more children tend to be poorer, and today, almost every second baby worldwide is being born into an African family.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">As a result, there are some 228 million children in Africa who live in extreme poverty. They represent over three-quarters
of all the poor children in the world (Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo alone account for over 84 million of these extremely poor children, as compared to 74 million of all poor children living outside of Africa (see Figure 3).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Figure 3: Over three-quarters of the world’s poor children live in Africa<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/global_20190620_figure3.png"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:blue;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="768" height="512" id="Picture_x0020_3" src="cid:image004.png@01D52ABF.B92138E0" alt="Over three-quarters of the world’s poor children live in Africa"></span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Source: World Data Lab projections, 2019</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Too often a familiar refrain is repeated in both traditional and social media: Why can’t we end the world’s most challenging
and persistent problems? Today, with reasonable and credible estimates like those presented above, however, we are now in a position to know exactly what needs to happen to solve the problem of extreme poverty: Focus on the five poorest countries in Africa.
Focus on policies and interventions aimed at improving poor children’s quality of life, well-being, and economic prospects. By following either one (or better yet both) of these paths, anyone from the public sector, private sector, academia, or civil society
can lay claim to making a direct contribution towards alleviating the plight of the majority of the world’s poorest people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">Note: For any questions on the methodology and underlying data models, please direct your requests to</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;color:#101010">
<i><a href="mailto:katharina.fenz@worlddata.io"><span style="color:blue;text-decoration:none">katharina.fenz@worlddata.io</span></a>. We also thank Wolfgang Fengler for his feedback and Martin Hofer for contributing to the data modeling and forecasting.
<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/06/20/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-poor-are-children/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=73930150">https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/06/20/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-poor-are-children/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=73930150</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><i><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
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