World development targets in danger - World Bank

Accra (Greater Accra) 27 April ?99

The World Bank on Monday stated that efforts to improve key areas of human development are in danger. It said faltering growth in Asia and Latin America, uncertain prospects for the transition economies in the former Soviet Union and the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa will make it difficult for the international community to achieve development goals for the 21st century.

According to the World Development Indicators for 1999 televised world-wide from Washington DC, developing countries, with the exception of former Soviet Union, grew at a rate of 5.3 per cent from 1987 to 1997.

The report said this raised hopes and encouraged expectations that living standards would continue to increase in the regions of the world.

However, the Asian financial crisis that began in 1997 has tempered those expectations, it pointed out..

The Bank said hard-won increases in life expectancy have been wiped out by HIV/AIDS, with growth in the school-age population outpacing the numbers of primary school enrolments in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Foreign aid levels are at their lowest levels in almost 50 years."

On Eastern Europe, it said millions of people have seen their living standards deteriorate sharply. In mid-1990s about 147 million people in the transition economies of former Soviet Union were living under the poverty line of four dollars a day, as against 14 million people in 1989.

The report revealed that India and China, which account for 38 per cent of the world's population, have avoided the financial crisis that shook Asian neighbours.

World free trade continues to grow despite protectionist pressures in some countries and the impact of the financial crisis in emerging markets.

Low and medium-income countries have seen their tourism earnings surge more than 500 per cent between 1980 and 1997, with the numbers of foreign tourists to those countries expanding from 67.5 million to 2.3 billion within the same period.

The Bank said all developing regions have lost momentum in achieving their poverty reduction goals.

"East and South Asia were the only regions growing fast enough to reduce poverty by half by 2015."

It said inequality has soared in Eastern Europe and other developing countries.

The Bank noted that communications and computer revolutions are expanding the reach of global knowledge.

It mentioned Ghana, Botswana and Djibouti as having 100 per cent digital telephone networks, with Finland as the country with the greatest number of cellular phones.

The report said global per capita water supply is declining, while many developing countries continue to make strides in ensuring universal primary education and equal access to secondary education for boys and girls.