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By Dennis Sadowski
Reduced access to food, increased discrimination against women and increased restrictions on religious freedom have contributed to high levels of poverty around the world, according to a new report released by a Fordham University program.
According to Fordham Francis Global Poverty Estimates, 26.2% of the world’s population lives in poverty.
The score is based on seven dimensions of human well-being – four relating to material needs and three to spiritual needs – identified by Pope Francis in a 2015 address to the United Nations.
The Pope described the material needs of the time – water, food, shelter and employment – and the spiritual needs – education, religious freedom and civil rights.
According to Henry Schwalbenberg, director of the university’s graduate program in international political economy and development, the findings show that the extreme poverty score, measured by seven criteria, is the highest since it was developed in 2015.
The program released the report on Nov. 11 at a United Nations school event for the World Day of the Poor, which Pope Francis has designated as the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. This year, this day falls on November 13.
The report says the score is an average of data collected from more than 80 countries, with none from the developed world. It uses the latest available data from various UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, some of which date back to 2019, to make the assessment.
Schwalbenberg and graduate student Maria Hincapie told a private audience at the university and viewers watching online that discrimination against women will increase in 2021, according to data collected from the World Economic Forum. An estimated 51.2% of women in the countries surveyed experienced discrimination, the report said.
Meanwhile, in 2019, 58.9% of people – about 4.5 billion people – lived in countries with “severe restrictions on religious freedom”, the report said.
When asked why gender inequality and religious freedom were included in the global poverty measure, Schwalbenberg explained that it had to do with a “philosophical decision” about what to include and wanted the program to be consistent with the pope’s description of factors affecting human well-being. .
While access to clean water improved in 2020, the number of undernourished people increased in 2019, the report said. Likewise, the number of people without adequate housing increased in 2020.
The report also states:
— In 2020, 10.1% of the population, about 787 million people, did not have access to clean water.
— In 2019, 9.2% of people, about 710 million people, were malnourished.
— In 2020, 17.2% of the population, about 1.3 billion, lived in substandard housing.
— In 2020, 13.3% of the adult population, about 776 million, were illiterate.
— 23.2% of the world’s workforce, about 804 million people, were unemployed or working for less than $3.20 a day in 2021.
Opening the program, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the UN, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, said that Pope Francis established the World Day of the Poor to encourage people to come out from the margins of society.
According to the archbishop, the pope is calling on people to stop being “lazy” in responding to the needs of people struggling to meet their basic needs.
“Unfortunately, what is globalized in the current globalization world is indifference,” he said.
Second, the Pope is calling people to solidarity – that is sharing – with others, explained Archbishop Caccia. Sharing can take many forms, he said, but it requires reaching the fringes of society.
The third step, which the archbishop described as the most demanding, is “constantly looking at Jesus, who does not stop doing this.”
“Jesus is the example. He was like God. Hungry, thirsty, unjustly accused, persecuted and killed, he decided to become a man. “If we don’t get into this mentality, if we don’t look at it, we will soon get discouraged and give up after a while,” he said.
Reinforcing the report’s findings on worsening poverty, Bill O’Keefe, executive vice president for mission, mobilization and advocacy at Catholic Relief Services, told attendees that climate change is driving a new cycle of worsening poverty around the world.
Reiterating this point, O’Keefe explained how CRS developed a campaign to create a greater Catholic response to climate change, raise greater awareness of how climate change affects vulnerable communities, and address the root causes of global warming.
CRS is the overseas relief and development agency of the US bishops.
“We can’t just talk about the environment and poverty. We should discuss all of them together,” he said.
O’Keefe shared stories about the effects of climate change on people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and how CRS is helping communities integrate new agricultural practices, conserve water, and address food and water insecurity.
Even with such practices, the campaign advocates for the United States to take a greater role in helping poor communities adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, he said.
“It’s up to us,” O’Keefe said. “We need to care for creation and we need to care for the poor and we need to make sure that these two concerns feed into our politics and our economy. Countries most responsible for climate change have a responsibility to support countries least responsible for it.”
CRS and Caritas Internationalis also sponsored the program.
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