UN: Egypt 2015 poverty rate to reduce

A new report issued by the United Nations yesterday showed that Egypt and six other African nations could reduce their poverty rates in 2015, Anadolu reported.

The UN’s economic committee for Africa said that only seven African countries out of 54 could reduce the poverty rate in 2015, including two other African Arab countries, Egypt and Tunisia.

Anadolu said that the committee did not clarify the criteria it adopted when it measured the reduction of poverty rate, noting that there are several economic reports that showed increasing rates of poverty and unemployment in some of the countries mentioned in the UN report.

The report also said that 12 African countries were close to achieving the Millennium Development Goals during the same period. Africa has the highest poverty rate in the world, with the number of people below the poverty line increasing by 110 million between 1990 and 2016.

The youth unemployment rate in central Africa is 8.2 per cent, while it is 10.7 per cent in the east, 13.9 per cent in the north and 18 per cent in the south.

The UN report said that the reason for African states’ failure to decrease the poverty rate is as a result of some countries developing aspects of their economies whilst neglecting others, thereby increasing the unemployment rate in neglected areas.