世行：非洲极端贫困问题加剧 | 双语试读

世界银行上周警告，新冠疫情可能会在2020年使7000万至1亿人陷入极端贫困。即使2021年全球经济反弹，但极端贫困人口中比例最高国家的经济增速不会超过其人口增长速度。而跟据世行预测，尼日利亚、印度和民主刚果这三个国家的贫困人口将占世界的三分之一以上，南亚贫困人口数量也可能大幅增长，特别是印度。

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2018年十月刊《杯水车薪》并试听音频

Poverty estimates

A thin gruel

贫困估测

杯水车薪

Extreme poverty is changing, making it harder to wipe out极端贫困的问题正在发生变化，加大了根除它的难度

HANS ROSLING, a Swedish academic who died in 2017, became famous for telling people that the world was faring better than they believed. One of his favourite examples was the rapid decline in extreme poverty. Sadly, just as Rosling’s elegant charts and YouTube talks drilled that story into people’s minds, the facts began to change.去年去世的瑞典学者汉斯·罗斯林（Hans Rosling）因为告诉人们世界的发展好过他们所想而一举成名。他最喜欢引用的例证之一是极端贫困人口急剧减少。可惜，当罗斯林简洁明晰的图表和他在YouTube上的演讲让这个说法渐渐深入人心之时，事实却开始发生变化。On September 19th the World Bank released estimates for extreme poverty in 2015, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day at 2011 purchasing-power parity. The good, Roslingish news is that poverty continued to diminish (see chart). In 2015 the extreme poor numbered 736m people, or 10% of the world. The Bank’s best guess for 2018 is 8.6%.世界银行于9月19日公布了对2015年极端贫困人口的估计。极端贫困的标准为按2011年购买力平价计算，每日生活费不超过1.90美元。带有罗斯林色彩的好消息是贫困率持续下降（见图表）。2015年的极端贫困人口为7.36亿人，占全世界人口的10%。世行对2018年数字的最高预期是8.6%。

The bad news is that poverty is becoming harder to tackle. Over the past few decades, rapid economic growth and the expansion of welfare in Asia have borne down on extreme want there. That leaves sub-Saharan Africans as a growing majority of paupers. African poverty is especially intractable because of weak economies, high birth rates and the fact that many poor Africans are not even close to the $1.90 line. Between 2013 and 2015, the World Bank thinks, the poor population of sub-Saharan Africa grew from 405m to 413m. As a result, the global poverty rate is going down about half as quickly as before.坏消息是解决贫困问题的难度正在加大。过去几十年来，亚洲经济迅速发展、福利扩大，极大地缩减了该地区的极端贫困人口。这使得撒哈拉以南非洲地区成为了贫困人口的大多数，而且绝对数字还在加大。经济低迷、出生率高，再加上很多穷苦的非洲人离1.90美元的极端贫困线都还差得远，非洲的贫困问题因而尤其棘手。世行估计，2013年到2015年间，撒哈拉以南非洲地区的贫困人口从4.05亿增长至4.13亿。结果，全球贫困率的下降速度较之前放慢了约一半。The latest estimates contain another nasty surprise. In the Middle East and north Africa the number of deeply impoverished people appears to have almost doubled in two years, from 10m to 19m. Two war-torn countries, Syria and Yemen, explain this growth. It is hard to be certain, given the difficulty of collecting data. But the Middle Eastern jump hints at a broad change. Increasingly, extreme poverty is found in chaotic, ill-governed places. Figures on hunger released earlier last month suggest that it is growing in Venezuela.最新的估计还包含了另一个意料之外的坏消息。在中东和北非，赤贫人口的数量在两年内似乎翻了将近一倍，从1000万增长到1900万，叙利亚和也门这两个饱受战火蹂躏的国家是原因所在。考虑到收集数据的难度，很难对贫困状况有确切的了解。但中东贫困人口激增意味着形势发生了广泛的变化。极端贫困越来越趋向于发生在混乱和治理不善的地方。上月初发布的有关饥饿状况的统计数字显示，在委内瑞拉，饥饿问题愈演愈烈。There is a broader lesson in that, says Laurence Chandy, director of data and research at UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund. The world has been preoccupied with the task of pulling people out of extreme poverty. But there was always another challenge, which is becoming more pressing. How can entire populations be prevented from falling into it?联合国儿童基金会数据与研究司司长劳伦斯·钱迪（Laurence Chandy）说，这种变化传达出一个覆盖面更为广泛的教训。一直以来，全世界一门心思帮助人们摆脱极端贫困。但令一个挑战始终存在，且正变得愈发紧迫——怎样避免一整个国家或地区的人口堕入极端贫困？■

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