Impressive advances have been made in human development over the past 25 years on many fronts, but ethnic minorities, refugees, migrants and women are being left behind, a United Nations report said on Tuesday.

“People now live longer, more children are in school and more people have access to basic social services,” said the report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), released in Stockholm. “Yet human development has been uneven,” the report said.

Even though the global population increased by two billion from 1990 to 2015, the report found that more than one billion people had escaped extreme poverty, 2.1 billion gained access to improved sanitation and more than 2.6 billion had access to an improved source of drinking water. But still, in 2016, one person in three were malnourished and one in nine left hungry, according to the report.

About 18,000 people die every day because of air pollution, and every minute an average of 24 people are displaced from their homes. Among the groups where such basic deprivations are common were women and girls, ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and migrants. “Many migrants, especially the world’s 65 million forcibly displaced people, face extreme conditions—lacking jobs, income and access to health care and social services beyond emergency humanitarian assistance,” the report found. “They often face harassment, animosity and violence in host countries.”

Striking a positive chord, the UNDP noted that gender equality and women’s empowerment were now mainstream aspects of any development discourse. But women are still discriminated against in terms of both rights and opportunities. “Only 10 to 20 percent of landowners in developing countries are women,” it said, even though women in these countries often work in agriculture.

Meanwhile, ethnic minorities often face discrimination and exclusion from education, employment and administrative and political positions, resulting in poverty and “higher vulnerability” to crime, including human trafficking. “By eliminating deep, persistent, discriminatory social norms and laws, and addressing the unequal access to political participation, which have hindered progress for so many, poverty can be eradicated and a peaceful, just, and sustainable development can be achieved for all,” UNDP administrator Helen Clark said at the launch of the report in Stockholm.

Income inequality remains a problem as well. Just one percent of the global population holds 46 percent of the world’s wealth, the report said. Inequalities in income influence inequalities in other dimensions of well-being, and vice versa.
 

Bleak picture

-     In 2016, one person in three were malnourished and one in nine left hungry
-     About 18,000 people die every day because of air pollution
-     Every minute an average of 24 people are displaced from their homes
-     Many migrants, especially the world’s 65 million forcibly displaced people, face extreme conditions-lacking jobs, income and access to health care and social 
services 
-     Only 10 to 20 percent of landowners in developing countries are women

Published on: 22 March 2017 | The Kathmandu Post