"a remarkable 1.3 billion people have been lifted out of poverty over the past two decades"

[pampango]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-suzman/global-development-a-glas_b_719731.html

The past two decades have delivered unprecedented progress in the quality of life across the developing world. Progress has not been uniform, and there have been setbacks and disappointments. But, overall, the rate of progress in reducing poverty and increasing access to basic health, education, water and other essential services has been without precedent in many countries’ histories.

From the Millennium Development Report Card:

Progress in absolute and relative terms: Top performers

This report argues that it is important to measure progress in both absolute and relative terms.

Absolute progress - Relative progress
1. Benin - Ecuador
2. Mali - China
3. Ethiopia - Thailand
4. Gambia - Brazil
5. Malawi - Egypt
6. Viet Nam - Viet Nam
7. Uganda - Honduras
8. Nepal - Belize
9. India - Nicaragua
10. Cambodia - Armenia
11. Bangladesh - Kazakhstan
12. Honduras - Sri Lanka
13. Mauritania - Cuba
14. Ghana - Mexico
15. China - El Salvador
16. Burkina Faso - Benin
17. Rwanda - Chile
18. Nicaragua - Malawi
19. Guatemala - Gambia
20. Togo - Guatemala

[bobbolink]

1. As usual, poor people in the U.S. don't count, because its getting worse and worse here.

Its articles like this that make it worse for us.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Shh. Shame on you. Worrying about your countrymen isn't very progressive.

:sarcasm: cuz it's the law.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Where is the recognition that the US has **increasing** bpoverty?

[pampango]

8. In 2000 when the UN Millennium Project started the focus was on extreme poverty in the developing

world. It was not set up to address poverty in rich countries largely caused by internal inequitable distributions of income. The report excludes Australia, North America and Europe (except for what they call "CIS Europe" (old East European countries) and "transition countries of South-East Europe".

Maybe we should get on the UN to do a study of poverty and its causes in the developed world. Maybe that would shame our elites (assuming they are "shameable") or motivate the rest of us to change our national priorities.

"The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest."

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml

[dkf]

4. That is the dilemma, isn't it. The rest do better as they do the jobs we used to.

Once our leaders decided we would send out the low education jobs, but didn't make sure our people got a decent education they created an underclass that is growing and growing. The unemployment rate for college grads is 4%. It's the high school of less crowd that bears the brunt of this.

[Raster]

5. They didn't make sure our people got a decent education, because today education is used both as a

tool to keep the lower classes lower and as another parasitical way to monetarily feed of said lower classes. If regular, average, lower-to-middle kids want to get an education, they are probably going to incur TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars of debt just doing so. Debt which cannot be discharged. Debt which grows like a malignant cancer, often relegating college grads to YEARS of debt servitude. Forward-thinking nations PROVIDE quality education to their younger generations. Not the US. It's just another way for the rich to feed off of the rest of us.

[dkf]

6. Community college for the first two years then a state university still seems pretty reasonable.

[billlll]

7. TWO BILLION pushed down by Globalism-- UN report

Into poverty and extreme poverty.

"Huffington is a republican" said one DU post. I have seen LW and RW slant fm her. Confusing. I truSt UN much more.

Also,theory says that corporate Globalism destroys middle classes

Hence poverty spreads.

Can't dnld her column ... Pls someone tell us all the source of her claims.

[conspirator]

9. What does "lifted out of poverty" mean? That is so subjective that it doesn't mean nothing

How many hours do they have to work per week? Can their salary pay for their kids college? etc etc.

[Hannah Bell]

10. i wonder about that spin, too.

[pampango]

11. That's just a summation. The UN bases that on statistics that are in the body of the report.

The UN has measured progress made in 8 areas of development.

* 2.1 Goal 1: Eradicate extreme Poverty and Hunger
* 2.2 Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
* 2.3 Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
* 2.4 Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Rate
* 2.5 Goal 5: Improve maternal health
* 2.6 Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
* 2.7 Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
* 2.8 Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

There are figures on the percentages of people living below various income thresholds, birth weight of babies, infant mortality (and gender differences in mortality), the percentage of children attending school, eliminating gender discrimination in education, maternal mortality, access to reproductive health, halt and reverse the spread of HIV/Aids, universal access to AIDS treatment, access to clean water, and many others.

All these had numerical goals established back in 2000. Some thought the goals were pie-in-the-sky back then, but the amount of progress made is surprising, though as they point out, it's a cause for celebration but not relaxation, as much remains to be done.