In the FT today, Harvey Morris quotes GEG Senior Visiting Fellow Kevin Watkins on the grave humanitarian crisis facing the world’s most vulnerable people, resulting from the global economic downturn.
As Kevin has written previously, the global financial crisis is already draining development aid. The effect on the world’s poor is emphasised again in Morris’s article:
“Mr Watkins said the consequences of aid shortfalls were potentially devastating. ‘With the slowdown in growth in 2009, we estimate that the average income of the 391m Africans living on less that $1.25 a day will take a 20 per cent hit. When you convert economic growth effects into human costs that picture looks even grimmer. Best estimates point to an increase in infant mortality of somewhere between 200,000 – 400,000 [a year].’”
Read the full article on FT.com here.
