“ There are highly reductionist methods for measuring poverty and extreme poverty that use income levels as the sole parameter. Other, much more sophisticated methods apply a whole series of indicators. As one might suppose, the figures resulting from such disparate methods inevitably differ. For example, if a person is not considered poor because he earns more than one dollar a day, even though he has nowhere to live and cannot attend school, the statistics will report a much smaller number of poor people than if individuals lacking both housing and education are also counted. ”

“ In developing countries, cities offer less and less escape from poverty, particularly in the absence of social services. They are even becoming the venue for a specific form of poverty, where the weakest are even more vulnerable than anywhere else, the obvious targets of prostitution, of crime whether organized or not - and of violence, including violence on the part of the security forces. ”

“ In addition to disparities in national development levels, WHO affirms that there is a phenomenon common to all countries: the increasing poverty of disadvantaged groups and communities, particularly in inner cities in the developed as well as the developing countries. There is a gap not only between rich and poor but also between the poor and the poorest of all, not only between regions and countries but also between population groups in the same country. A disadvantaged subclass exists in every country and also in every town. ”

“ Poverty, a paradox in one of the most prosperous regions on Earth, affects more than 52 million people. Practically one person in seven is threatened by poverty and social exclusion in Europe as a whole. ”

“ Based on those benchmarks, the Bank calculated that that year there were approximately 1.115 billion poor in the developing world, 630 million of them extremely poor. The notable feature of this estimate is that it was used as a baseline by a number of bodies and institutions in the system, sometimes confusingly, without specifying which of the two categories of poor was in question, and at other times critically, raising the extreme poverty line to the level of the poverty line on the grounds that even a dollar a day was an extraordinarily low threshold for measuring extreme poverty. ”

“ Every year, 3 million children in developing countries die for lack of clean water; 12 million die of other causes before their fifth birthday and 130 million have no access to primary school. More than 1 million children are blind for lack of vitamin A and 50 million suffer from serious mental and physical disabilities due to lack of iodine. In low income countries, more than half of the young children are anaemic, thus initiating the vicious circle of poverty - ill nourished mothers give birth to underweight babies, who run the greatest risk of becoming the next generation of the poor. ”

“ The world’s most ruthless killer and the greatest cause of suffering on earth is listed in the latest edition of WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, an A-to-Z of all ailments known to medical science, under the code Z 59.5 which stands for extreme poverty. ”

“ Asia continues to have the highest number of poor in the world, however, even though Africa has the highest proportion. The Standing Committee on Poverty Alleviation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) further states that "Even in Asia and the Pacific, where the growth performance was exceptionally strong, the number of people living in absolute poverty increased, partly owing to continuing population growth." ”

“ These estimates, beyond their obvious discrepancies and inadequacies, show that, in so far as we do have a clearer picture of poverty, the phenomenon is evidently worsening - not only in developing countries but in countries in transition and industrialized countries as well. ”

“ As may be seen, the current trend in indicators is to give the concept of basic needs a much broader meaning than that of food needs. This coincides with the emphasis placed by the Social Summit on the fact that the satisfaction of basic human needs is a decisive factor for the alleviation of poverty and the achievement of real social development. ”

“ The Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995 [4] , states that while poverty affects households as a whole, because of the gender division of labour and responsibilities, women bear a disproportionate burden, and must manage household consumption and production under conditions of increasing scarcity. The situation is most difficult for women in rural areas. ”

“ The region entered the 1980s with an estimated 35 per cent of households living in poverty, down from 40 per cent in 1970; it closed the decade with 37 per cent of households and 44 per cent of the total population in poverty.
42. Galloping and unplanned urban development is both the cause and the effect of spreading poverty. As urban development progresses, poverty, too, develops. Already in the United States, Europe, and Latin America the city has become a centre where extreme poverty flourishes. ”

“ According to a recent United Nations publication on the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, "Of the 5.7 billion people in the world, 1.5 billion are desperately poor and the number is increasing by approximately 25 million a year. ”

“ In developing countries, where many extremely poor people do not even appear on the civil registers, or where the means to compile statistics even on relatively identifiable sections of the population are lacking, the statistics that do exist are far from complete or reliable. ”

“ The panel defined basic needs as being the minimum elements needed to sustain life in all humans without exception, i.e., sufficient and appropriate nutrition, health care and water distribution and sanitation services, but also access to education and information so that individuals and groups can participate in productive activities and make rational use of the basic goods and services at their disposal. ”

“ The fact that the poorest are aware of this lack of consideration can have a direct impact on the findings of surveys to assess poverty. The CEC report mentioned above says that the demeaning nature of poverty induces persons facing major difficulties to refrain from designating themselves as poor in surveys in which they are requested to rank themselves on a scale ranging from wealth to poverty. ”

“ As mentioned above, current indicators generally underestimate poverty. The CEC report says as much, adding that the figures obtained in surveys are based on expenditure. Poor households’ expenditure often exceeds income, however, since they are more likely to accumulate debts than savings. This is particularly true when their income is precarious and fluctuates daily. ”

“ Both boys and girls are highly vulnerable to drug abuse, prostitution and criminal exploitation, and in some regions street children risk summary execution from death squads. As a result of these extremely painful and hopeless living conditions, 55 per cent of children in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil admitted that they had attempted to take their own lives. Recent estimates place the number of street children at as many as 100 million. There may be 40 million in Latin America, 25 million in Asia and 10 million in Africa, with about 25 million in other areas, including the developed world. ”

“ One particular problem, to which poverty and rapid urbanization are major contributing factors, is street children. According to WHO, many of these children are below the age of consent, do not have parents or guardians, do not know a trusted adult who could accompany them for medical treatment and do not have the necessary documentation. ”

“ The expansion of the phenomenon in industrialized countries should not be overlooked. Awareness that the phenomenon had worsened was expressed recently, in 1995, by the Council of Europe which spoke of "a rapidly growing problem"; it noted that "there was currently no shortage of indications showing that poverty and social exclusion were posing an increasing number of problems in all European countries". ”

“ There is a lack of interest in and regard for the poorest section of the population 68. The fact that people living in extreme poverty do not appear in the statistics is not attributable solely to technical difficulties ”

“ As stated in the previous report, the only region where the number of poor has declined in proportional terms was Asia, on account both of the improvement in the situation in India, Pakistan and China, and of the spectacular development of the countries known as the four "dragons". ”

“ With few exceptions, the share of poor households in rural areas was stable or decreased, despite sluggish economic growth. Yet rural areas continued to host the vast majority of the extremely poor, whose incomes would not purchase the minimum basket of food. ”

“ At least four reasons for the lack and inadequacy of the data can be identified:
(a) The poorest people are not contacted when statistics are gathered 65. For example, the above-mentioned CEC report indicates that homeless persons are not covered, and nomads, political refugees, illegal immigrants and inhabitants of shanty towns are inevitably underrepresented. People in socio medical establishments of all types are likewise disregarded even though they are probably poorer than the average. ”

“ This makes it possible to manipulate statistics, by either increasing or, more commonly, decreasing, the numbers of the poor for political, economic or other reasons which have very little to do with combating poverty.
Need for better quantitative and qualitative information on extreme poverty 71. Societies have long been accustomed to a lack of precise information about the poorest sector of the population, and would continue to disregard it if its growth were not starting to prove disruptive. ”

“ However, "the risk of falling into poverty was highest in the former Soviet Union for large families and therefore children, non male headed families and one earner families".
45. During the 1980s, the social composition of groups in the region living in poverty changed substantially. Impoverishment among workers increased most. The living standards of residents in urban centres deteriorated more than those of farmers. ”