poverty

The ongoing financial crisis has had many effects throughout the world. Political leaders are coming and going from office, banks are being bailed out, and central banks are pumping billions of dollars of borrowed money into securities to boost investor confidence.

 
With such high-level people and institutions involved, the media often overlooks how the financial crisis is affecting people in developing countries. One of the most serious problems, besides huge worldwide job losses, is the continuation of the "food crisis".

In his blog post below, Nate mentions the stark contrast in life expectancy rates between the developed and developing world. It reminded me of something I read recently in Duncan Green’s book From Poverty to Power. Green writes:

“From cradle to grave, a person’s life chances are dominated by the extraordinary levels of inequality that characterize the modern world. A girl born in Norway will almost certainly live to old age. If she is born in Sierra Leone, however, she has a one in four chance of dying before her fifth birthday. A Norwegian girl can expect to go to a good school, followed by university, and to be healthy and cared for right through old age. In Sierra Leone only two in three girls start school at all, and many more drop out along the way…Only one in four women is able to read and write. University is an impossible dream.”

We’ve been hearing a lot of bleak news regarding the global economic crisis. Perhaps this recent update from the World Bank is the bleakest yet. According to the report, the crisis will cause child mortality rates to soar in developing countries; in fact, it predicts that between 2009 to 2015, an average 200,000 to 400,000 more babies may die per year—a total of 1.4 to 2.8 million—if the crisis persists.