POVERTY'S -DEVELOPING WORLD- PANDEMIC

BETWEEN 1980 and 2016, the average income of the bottom 50 percent of earners nearly doubled, as the group posted 12 percent of growth in global GDP.

The number of those living on less than $1.90 a day, the World Bank's threshold for extreme poverty, dropped by more than half since the 1990 from nearly 2 billion people to around 700 million.

Never before in human history have so many people been lifted out of poverty so quickly. However, the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything for the worse.

Up to 250 million jobs are likely to be lost globally besides pushing between 40 million to 60 million people into extreme poverty.

The charity group Oxfam has warned that a recession caused by Covid-19 could push half a billion people into poverty unless urgent action is taken.

CONDUCTED by King's College London and Australian National University, the research gauged the short-term impacts of containing the coronavirus on global monetary poverty based on World Bank poverty lines of $1.90, $3.20 and $5.50 a day.

NOW casting global poverty is not an easy task.

It requires assumption about how to forecast growth and how such growth will impact the poor, along with other complications such as how to calculate poverty for countries with outdated data or without or without data altogether.

All of this goes to show that estimating how much global poverty will increase because of Covid-19 is challenging and comes with a lot of uncertainty.

GLOBAL POVERTY levels would increase under three scenarios for the first time since 1990 according to the analysis with up to decade of progress lost globally.

The impact is set to be even worse in some parts of the world such as North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East where up to 30 years of progress could be wiped.

''THE DEVASTATING economic fallout of the pandemic is already being felt across the globe.

However, poor people in the poorest countries are already struggling to survive as there are no safety nets to stop them falling into abject poverty.

This is the time G20 countries, the IMF and the World Bank gave developing countries cash injections to help the poor and vulnerable communities.

They must cancel all debt-payments for 2020 for these countries and and encourage other creditors to do the same, besides issuing at least $1 trillion of ''Special Drawing Rights'' to keep those societies afloat.

The World Students Society thanks author, Syed Tahir Rashidi.

Headline, May 21 2019/ ''' '' LEADERSHIP STUDENTS LITERATURE '' '''

''' '' LEADERSHIP 

STUDENTS LITERATURE '' '''

MARY SHELLEY ONE MASTER GENIUS and the author of :
''The Last Man'' just so predicted the political causes of and collective solutions for ''global plague''. As far back as 1826.

THE WORLD teeters in collective anxiety in the midst of a pandemic. A novel and lethal plague spreads its tentacles around the earth. It ravages human populations and simultaneously undermines their interconnected economic and political systems.

An entire group of political leaders gathers to ask, What should be done in the face of worldwide public health crisis.

This story line should sound familiar. But I am not summarizing the news headlines about Covid-19.  I am recalling the plot of a great work of literature. It is Mary Shelly's futuristic novel about a global plague, ''The Last Man'' [1826].

Shelley saw that a disaster of a pandemic would be driven by politics. This politics would be deeply personal yet international in scope.

The spiraling health crisis would be caused by what people and their leaders had done and failed to do on the international stage - in trade, war and the interpersonal bargains, pacts and conflicts that precede them. 

As we heed scientists warning that we are entering ''the age of pandemics,'' we can benefit from reading ''The Last Man'' as the first major post-apocalyptic novel.

In her second great work of science fiction after ''Frankenstein'' [1818], Shelley - the child of two philosophers - gave her readers an existential mindset for collectively dealing with the threat of a global man-made disaster.

''The Last Man'' is set in the year 2100. The novels driving conflict is a highly contagious disease. Like the coronavirus, the novel's plague spreads by a combination of airborne particles and contact with carriers.

In both cases, it has been incubated, exacerbated and left unchecked by destructive human behavior.

 ''The Last Man'' has been so influential that you are already familiar with its basic plot even if you have not read it yet. It presents the history of the ostensible sole survivor of a global plague.

Much like ''Frankenstein,'' ''The Last Man'' has repeatedly been remade in the science fiction and horror genres - from the works of Edgar Allan Poe to countless zombie apocalypse movies inspired by the 1964 film ''The Last Man on Earth''.

The later starred none other than the king of horror, Vincent Price. He played the last human left alive on the globe after a virulent contagion turned other people into vampires.

In Shelley's novel, it is a man named Lionel Verney who finds himself in this extreme and precarious position.

In her allegorical networking of  biblical narrative of the fall and rebirth of humankind, Verney is a  humble shepherd boy who marries into the royal family at Windsor Castle.

He quickly ascends to the top of the leadership ranks. He serves as a trusted adviser to lords, ministers and legislature as the plague breaks out in Constantinople and then creeps toward London.

After Verney leads a failed expedition of plague survivors from the crumbled republic of England to the vacant coast of Italy, he is left-alone in Rome to contemplate the future.

He climbs to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica and carves the year - 2100 - in the stone.

From that sublime vantage, he surveys the remains of human civilization.

The Honor and Serving of the past Global Literature on World and Crises, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Eileen Hunt Botting.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See Ya all prepare and register for  Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter-!E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:

''' Operas - Opinion '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

ETHIOPIA : ' KARMA'S FATHER'S KITCHEN '

Our Father's Kitchen, is a ''child-feeding programme'' in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia founded by Yasser and Manal Bagersh, who also own several restaurants.

Three community kitchens have been established and over 200 needy children/students are fed lunch daily to help them live a healthier life.

How did the idea for the Father's kitchen come about?

I run several successful restaurants in Addis Ababa. I feed people who have money daily.........and I eat good food daily. And while this is happening, I realised that thousands of children/students have no access to a single meal.

And how much does it cost? Less than 8 birr [about US 40 cents]. That just seems a bit too easy for that little money. I can actually save the life of a child.
That was a light-bulb moment.

One morning I work up and said, ''I will feed children, starting today. I can't wait another day.''
 And the journey began.

Tell us about your visits to local homes to assess if kids will be fit for the programme.

I am lucky not to to have to make that decision. If I did, i would select every child I see. Fortunately, we have volunteer social workers who visit children in the neighbourhoods of the different kitchen we run.

Priority is given to children who are suffering from different and difficult challenges such as losing a parent or both parents, living with a terminal illness, or those who have experienced abuse in some way.

So lunchtime rolls around - what is the scene like at the OFK locations?

I sit in the waiting area waiting impatiently for the children to arrive. I hear giggles, and my heart beats faster. The children arrive, wash their hands, and stand in line for their loving prepared hot meal.

You hear laughter and joy during this special time. I typically go twice a month usually taking friends with me for the visit the kids. Manal comes sporadically, but she usually prefers to visit the homes so she can have a deeper understanding of what their lives are like.

When you go home at the end of the day, what do you feel you have accomplished in both of your ventures?

Accomplishment, not quiet. I go home and ask myself how I could this day have been better, more fruitful, more meaningful. It's an ongoing process; the journey is continuously evolving and growing.

 What are your future plans for Our Father's Kitchen and your restaurants?

I would like to serve a better meal. I would like to change someone's life. I don't see much difference between the customers at my restaurants and the children of Our Father's Kitchen.

I want to feed more and more.........and make more people happier. It's that simple.

The World Students Society thanks Qatar Airways.