Reading:
In 1990, the World Bank published a report showing that there were over a billion people in the world with an income of just one dollar a day. At the start of this century, the United Nations promised to halve this figure by 2015. It has been working hard to keep this promise ever since. A series of short movies was made to show what you can buy in different countries with this tiny amount. In a market in Nepal, for example, they could only buy four bananas and a loaf of bread. It was impossible to buy meat or any protein.
Other people have been horrified to learn how enormous the problem is and have taken action in different ways. A U.K. charity called 1 Dollar a Day has been raising money to invest in projects to improve health, clean water, education, etc. They have also given people loans to help them set up a business as it is difficult to borrow money if you have no bank account.
In the U.S., two school teachers decided to try spending only one dollar each day on food for a month and have now written a book about their experience. They say they were often starving, and got bored with eating the same food. And they couldn’t afford to buy healthy foods such as fish, fresh fruit and vegetables. The book describes how much rich countries waste, and how they try to save money by buying cheap food from other countries.
The World Bank has recently published another report on how the situation has changed since 1990. One dollar is worth less now, and food and fuel cost more, so it is difficult to work out exactly how much progress there has been. However, there have clearly been some amazing changes. Between 1990 and 2008, the number of people who earned salaries below the poverty line went down from 43% of the developing world to 22%, so the U.N. has already made a big difference. Of course there is still a huge amount to do to improve the lives of millions of people throughout the world.
- Read the text and answer the questions.
- The U.N. promised to cut the poverty figures by half by _____.
