Tag - poverty

 
 

POVERTY

Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 26, 2024
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
By prefecture, the figure for Osaka was highest, at 856, followed by Tokyo, with 624, and Kanagawa, at 420.
Delegates meet for the Development Committee Plenary during the World Bank and IMF 2024 Spring Meetings in Washington on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2024
Negotiating a bigger, better World Bank
Recent changes at the global lender are important steps toward making the World Bank’s financial model fit for “ending poverty on a livable planet.”
Protesters outside the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments in a legal fight over homelessness and a bid by Grants Pass, Oregon, to enforce local laws against people camping on public property
WORLD / Politics
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court scrutinizes laws used against the homeless
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case about whether a city in Oregon banning camping outside on public streets and parks violates the Constitution.
Finding capital needed to start a business can be challenging. But for many women in the Global South, it’s not just difficult — it’s often impossible.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2024
Women entrepreneurs could make the world $6 trillion richer
When a woman walks through the door with a good idea, a smart business plan and a dream to improve her future, lenders too often see only risk.
The problem many developing countries have in repaying their debts might be even bigger than the world realizes, as many sovereign debts are hidden.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2024
Tackling the world’s hidden debt problem
Low-income countries are struggling to repay their debts. Better transparency and accounting systems could help them tackle this challenge.
Over 75% of financially struggling parents with children newly entering school said they have difficulty preparing money buy uniforms, according to a survey.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 15, 2024
Struggling parents cut living costs for kids' new school life
Over 75% of parents said uniforms were the most challenging expense
Recent research suggests that within developed countries, the old positive relationship between status and fertility is re-emerging.
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2024
The wealthy are starting to have more babies than the poor again
After a century during which higher income and status meant fewer children, the current trend is potentially a momentous change.
Inmates in a cell at the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Centre mega-prison southeast of San Salvador on Aug. 21, 2023.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 28, 2024
El Salvador's two-year push has crushed street gangs but at a high price
Deployment of the military and police dealt a heavy blow to the structures of the gangs but at the cost of human rights, and poverty remains a major issue.
A view of apartment buildings with writing on a wall that reads "Here we build (ourselves)," in the Franc-Moisin neighborhood of Saint-Denis, a northern Paris suburb, on March 13. The Seine-Saint-Denis department north of Paris will host a number of events for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, with venues including the Stade de France and Aquatics Centre, as well as the Olympic Village.
WORLD / Society
Mar 26, 2024
Amid Olympic redevelopment, have troubled Paris suburbs won gold?
The Paris Olympics will take place mostly on the other side of a ring road that divides the capital from some of its poorest and most notorious suburbs.
A lack of comprehensive consumption — and inflation — data makes it impossible to get an accurate picture of India's poverty.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2024
India’s poor will not be wished away
Poverty remains deeply entrenched in India and appears to have increased significantly.
Giant cut-outs of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other party leaders are positioned beside a road in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on Feb. 25.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 21, 2024
Hardships and broken promises no hindrance for Modi in India's rural north
If India's prime minister earns a third term in office, it will be in spite of the state of the rural and farming economy — not because of it.
Nigerian naira being counted in Lagos, Nigeria. Cash transfers offer a transformative solution to multidimensional poverty.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2024
A global cash transfer fund could end extreme poverty
Cash transfers offer a transformative solution to multidimensional poverty, and are aided by improvements in internet and phone coverage.
Women and babies at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan, in January.
WORLD / Society
Mar 9, 2024
Millions of Sudanese go hungry as war disrupts food supply
The number of Sudanese facing emergency levels of hunger — one stage before famine — has more than tripled in a year to almost 5 million.
The world needs to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that go with providing debt relief and should craft sustainable solutions for financially distressed nations. 
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2024
Developing countries’ never-ending debt crisis
Creditors have a role in resolving debt crises. This means all eyes are on China, which is the single most important creditor for debt distress.
Attendees listen as Fernando Haddad, Brazil's finance minister, speaks virtually during the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Sao Paulo on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 29, 2024
Brazil urges 'new globalization' at G20 meet overshadowed by Ukraine
The meeting will lay the economic policy groundwork for the annual G20 leaders' summit to be held in November.
Palestinians walk past destroyed homes near the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday.
WORLD
Feb 25, 2024
Dead horses, scraps, leaves: Gaza's hungry get desperate
Contaminated water, power cuts, overcrowding and poverty plague a refugee camp as the bombardment continues.
The rural economy has been hurt by a drop in the output of some key crops, such as wheat, in the past three years due to a rise in temperatures, patchy monsoon rains and falling reservoir levels.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 1, 2024
World-beating growth? Not for India's rural majority
For many in rural India, which is home to 60% of its 1.4 billion people, the country's so-called spectacular economic growth is nowhere in sight.
A girl walks among bags and mattresses as Eastern European migrants wait to temporarily settle in a locale in Decines, France, in 2015. Some of the world's richest countries saw a sharp rise in child poverty from 2014 to 2021, according to a UNICEF report.
WORLD / Society
Dec 6, 2023
1 in 5 children in rich countries lives in poverty, UNICEF says
Report shows that the biggest setbacks since 2012 were in some of the wealthier nations, including Britain and France where rates increased.
A new study challenges conventional wisdom on income inequality and questions if the top 1% are really pulling away.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2023
America’s top 1% don’t make as much as you might think
A new study challenges conventional wisdom on income inequality and questions if the top 1% are really pulling away.
A road is flooded in Mehar, Pakistan, in August 2022.
WORLD
Nov 5, 2023
Climate negotiators reach framework to aid vulnerable countries
Delegates meeting in Abu Dhabi agreed late Saturday that the World Bank will host a new Loss and Damage Fund on an interim basis for four years.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores