YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. 2.2 billion people are poor or near-poor, warns 2014 Human Development Report on vulnerability and resilience, reports “Armenpress”, according to the 2014 Human Development Report “Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerability and Building Resilience”, launched in Tokyo, on July  24, 2014.

The 2014 Human Development Report - Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience provides a fresh perspective on vulnerability and proposes ways to strengthen resilience.

According to income-based measures of poverty, 1.2 billion people live with $1.25 or less a day. However, according to the UNDP Multidimensional Poverty Index, almost 1.5 billion people in 91 developing countries are living in poverty with overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards. And although poverty is declining overall, almost 800 million people are at risk of falling back into poverty if setbacks occur. Many people face either structural or life-cycle vulnerabilities.  Levels in human development continue to rise - yet the pace has slowed for all regions and progress has been highly uneven. It notes that threats such as financial crises, fluctuations in food prices, natural disasters and violent conflict significantly impede progress.

The Report explores structural vulnerabilities – those that have persisted and compounded over time as a result of discrimination and institutional failings, hurting groups such as the poor, women, migrants, people living with disabilities, indigenous groups and older people. For instance, 80 percent of the world’s elderly lack social protection, with large numbers of older people also poor and disabled.

The Report advocates for the universal provision of basic social services to enhance resilience, refuting the notion that only wealthy countries can afford to do this. It presents a comparative analysis of countries of differing income levels and systems of government that have either started to implement or have fully implemented such policies.
 Those countries include not only the usual suspects such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but also fast-growing economies such as Republic of Korea and developing countries such as Costa Rica.