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Poverty and empowerment
Fragility is a widespread phenomenon. In seven out of the nine countries where fragility is currently considered particularly alarming, women give birth to more than four children on average. If you compare colour-coded world maps for fragility and fertility (number of children per female), the similarity of the geographical distribution is immediately striking. In fact, the “demographic pressure” factor is one of the twelve criteria that are taken into account when compiling the Fragile States Index.
How exactly do crises and the number of children relate to one another and what needs to happen in order to break the downward spiral of fragility and population growth?
These are some of the questions addressed in the current issue of Development in Brief.
What is the relationship between population growth and fragility? (PDF, 143 KB, accessible)
To mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October 2020, many observers have once again highlighted the enormous successes that the last three decades have brought in alleviating extreme poverty on a global level. However, current analysis casts something of a shadow over this view: on the one hand, the positive trends have slowed considerably in recent years, and the coronavirus pandemic has even raised fears that the trajectory will reverse – at least temporarily. On the other hand, an increasing number of people – including, recently, prominent figures like UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston – are questioning the metric commonly used for measuring poverty to date, namely the World Bank’s USD 1.90 poverty line.
The current issue of “Development in Brief” reports on the debate that has been reignited and the picture that emerges if other poverty metrics are incorporated.
Are the successes in the global effort to alleviate poverty being systematically overestimated? (PDF, 124 KB, non-accessible)
There are scientific debates which suggest that progress in gender equality has lost momentum and even suffered setbacks. This issue of "Development in Brief" summarises the current state of the discussion with a focus on the following questions:
- What is the situation with regard to greater gender equality?
- What are the reasons behind this?
- What measures can be taken?
Has progress towards more gender equality got stuck halfway? (PDF, 56 KB, accessible)
The decline in extreme poverty over the last few years has been remarkable. While in 1990 about 1.9 billion people were affected by extreme poverty, this figure had dropped to 736 million by 2015. But there is still no guarantee that the target will be achieved. A new picture has emerged in recent years, particularly in regional terms: around 85% of all extremely poor people (based on USD 1.90/capita/day) are expected to live in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2030.
To create a more comprehensive picture of global poverty trends, the World Bank now uses two additional indicators to measure absolute poverty for middle-income countries. The current issue of Development in Brief describes these indicators and discusses whether extreme poverty is really on the decline in view of recent developments and regional distribution and whether optimism for 2030 regarding SDG 1 is justified.
The world's population is expected to grow to around 9.8 billion by 2050. This exacerbates the already enormous challenges facing many countries on the path to development – and as they work towards achieving the SDGs. At the same time, around every fourth woman who would like to use contraception in developing countries has no access to options, despite the fact that the right to self-determined family planning is an integral element of the human right to health.
On the occasion of International Women's Day 2019, the current issue of Development in Brief will demonstrate why equality and empowerment of women is more expedient, effective and sustainable than active population policy when it comes to meeting the challenges of demographic development.
Promoting gender equality is more expedient and effective than active population policy
The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by UN member states 70 years ago was a historical moment. It stipulated that every person on this planet – regardless of origin, sex, religion or social status – had the same rights and freedoms, thereby laying the foundation of the international human rights protection system. The human rights laid down in the declaration apply to all political fields including development policy and are a common reference point for development cooperation partners. We are using the anniversary of the declaration as an opportunity to discuss the relationship between human rights and infrastructure expansion as a key development policy concern. What are chances and potential risks, and how should we handle them?
The issue of gender equality was once again on the agenda at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos. According to the current Global Gender Gap Report, even under favourable conditions, it will still likely take until almost the end of this century before gender equality is achieved in the workplace globally — a rather dismal prospect. In addition to the often-discussed differences between the sexes in terms of wages and employment, there are even more drastic gaps when it comes to entrepreneurship and corporate management.
The current issue of Development in Brief provides an overview of the causes behind women's low level of participation as self-employed entrepreneurs and in corporate structures.
Gender equality and entrepreneurship – there is still a lot to do!
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the non-governmental organisation Oxfam, recently caused another stir with current figures on the growing inequality in the world, which is one of the major challenges of our time. The richest percent of the world's population could soon own more than half of global wealth. How the trends are assessed is largely dependent on the degree of inequality, the subject (income versus wealth) and the dimension (national, international, global). These are often used interchangeably in the global debate.
The current issue of Development in Brief presents a differentiated view of trends in global income inequality and outlines three different concepts that are the focus of global inequality discourse.
Since the issue of reducing inequality has been raised to the level of a universal goal within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG 10), widespread debate has flared up in the field of development economics as to how inequality is best measured. The broader public primarily uses relational measurements (income of x% of the richest as a multiple of y% of the poorest), while the field of economics uses the Gini Coefficient. But new measures are emerging at an ever-increasing rate, such as the Theil Index or the Robin Hood Index, for example.
In this issue of Development in Brief, we give you an overview of the most common measurements of income inequality used in expert discussions and present their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Measuring inequality – Important statistics for describing income distribution
The digital transformation offers new global opportunities for economic and social development. However, not everyone benefits equally from their potential: significantly fewer women are online today than men, and women are also strongly under-represented in other areas of the digital transformation. Since access to the digital world is an increasingly critical requirement for economic and social participation, there is a significant risk of the gender gap continuing to widen.
This edition of Development in Brief focuses on the causes of the current digital gender divide and how international development cooperation can help both genders benefit equally from the digital transformation.
Promoting gender equality by closing the digital gender divide
Poverty is a phenomenon that comes in many forms. A growing challenge for international development cooperation is urban poverty. More and more people around the world live in precarious living conditions in cities, a growing number of them in informal settlements and so called slums.
The current issue of Development in Brief discusses the distinctive characteristics of urban poverty and outlines several areas of activity for development cooperation that aim to reduce urban poverty.
What do transport systems in developing countries have to do with gender equality? Plenty! Contrary to widespread opinion, gender-specific travel needs and sociocultural restrictions on mobility play an especially important role in the design of transport systems.
This edition of Development in Brief analyses the gender relevance of transport systems. We demonstrate how improvements in transport services' accessibility and quality for women and girls can have impacts far beyond the transport sector on improving gender equality in partner countries.
Transport Systems: Gender Matters! (PDF, 101 KB, non-accessible)
