The World Bank’s Food Price Watch, published 15 February ahead of the Paris G20 meeting, shows that the World Bank’s food price index rose by 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011. It is 29 percent above its level a year earlier and is only 3 percent below its 2008 peak, with the result that 44 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty since June 2010, according to the bank. Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than US$1.25 a day.
Wheat prices have doubled and maize (corn) prices rose 73 percent between June 2010 and January 2011. The cost of rice has risen more slowly, slowing down the slide into deep poverty in some parts of the world.
The broader picture hides the multiple facets of the impact of food prices on poverty: maize crops have been good in many African countries, easing the situation there, but in Haiti, fears of cholera, which has hospitalized 150,000 people, is keeping migrant workers out of the rice fields and a ripe crop risks going unharvested.
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Three new aspects of development included in 20th anniversary edition of key UN report
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Three “three multi-dimensional measures of inequality and poverty” are for the first time included in the 2010 UN Development Programme’s annual index of human development, the 20th edition of the report. Gender inequality; losses in human development due to inequality in health, education and income; and overlapping deprivations suffered by households in health, education and living standards are the three new areas measured. The overall picture is one of virtual stagnation, with Brazil as the only country showing significant improvement.
The new tools have prompted some shifts in where countries stand with the index. Switzerland, for example, has moved down to 13th place, penalized largely because the number of years of obligatory education, just over 10, is less than in some other countries.
Norway remains firmly at the top of the list, followed in the top 10 by Australia, New Zealand, United States, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden and Germany.
Human Development Index trends by country (table), 1980-2010
Full report available online
Francis Blanchard, former ILO director-general
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Francis Blanchard, a French citizen who was director-general of the ILO (International Labour Office) from 1974 to 1989, died Wednesday 9 December 2009, at the age of 93.
He joined the ILO in 1951, where his first assignment was as deputy chief of the manpower division. He was appointed deputy director-general in 1968 with responsibility for technical cooperation and regional activities.
Road building project in Nepal, © 2009 SDC Nepal
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland announced that it was upgrading its diplomatic presence in Nepal to ambassadorial level. Thomas Gass, currently Switzerland’s ambassador to the UN in New York, will take up his post in the capital Kathmandu early August to coincide with the 50 years celebration of development cooperation with Nepal later this month.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Nepal (SDC and SDC/Nepal) has concentrated on projects such as infrastructure and forestry, and has financed the upkeep of more than 3,000 bridges in the remote Himalayan country. Since the 1990s, SDC has supported the peace process and good governance. Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries with a per capita income of less than $350, and has been wracked by internal dissensions that saw the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic regime in 2008.
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Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The percentage of the working population that is considered “poor” by the federal government fell slightly in 2007, from 5 percent to 4.4 percent, largely due to a good economy that year, says the federal statistical office (OFS), which publishes the figures. The OFS notes, however, that that there is always a lag time between changes in the economy in either direction and the percentage of working poor.
