“Extreme poverty has been halved in thirty years”, notes Esther Duflo, Nobel Prize in Economics 2019

“Extreme poverty has been halved in thirty years”, notes Tuesday, June 20 on France Inter Esther Duflo, Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019 and holder of the chair “Poverty and public policies” of the College de France, who will organize Thursday June 22 and Friday June 23 a symposium on this theme. The economist also highlights a drop in the “maternal and child mortality”greeting a “extremely positive review”. For Esther Duflo, this reduction in extreme poverty is the result of a certain number “of actions taken in poor countries and by poor countries”.

>> France is experimenting with the method of Nobel Prize in Economics Esther Duflo in the fight against poverty in Africa

Esther Duflo, however, warns of the appearance of several difficulties since the health crisis, pushing “maybe millions of people” in poverty. “Since 2019, we have witnessed a globalization of the problems facing the poorest in the world”launches the professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

A crisis in Europe “is now turning into a crisis in Africa”

Esther Duflo mentions in particular the “immediate effects of the war in Ukraine on Africa, with for example the increase in food prices”. According to Esther Duflo, “Inflation in Europe and the United States led to an increase in interest rates which created enormous difficulties in servicing the debt, and which therefore created a debt crisis”making “impossible to refund”. The expert therefore notes that a “crisis in our country is now turning into a crisis in Africa”because of this globalization.

Since the Covid-19 crisis, poverty-related indicators seem to be “a great leap backwards”. If this decline is difficult to “cipher” in an exact way, the economist affirms that it can all the same be measured “both on poverty itself, that is to say the number of people who live on less than two dollars a day and per person, and also on practical indicators”. It thus highlights the fact that “the rate of vaccinated children dropped enormously during the Covid and has not risen since”. “Malaria which had been very well controlled goes back up because the mosquito net distribution programs have stopped”she adds.

The economist recalls that during the health crisis, “rich countries have spent 27% of their GDP on measures to support their populations”which contributed, according to her, to the fact that there “no increase in poverty either in France or in the United States”. But Esther Duflo notices that “poor countries have managed to spend 2% of their GDP, which is much lower, on their population”. This comparison makes it possible to understand, in part, why at the end of the crisis linked to the coronavirus, “rich countries have managed to recover quickly”unlike poor countries. “We probably have years in which the macroeconomic situation will be very tense for poor countries”she laments.