An aerial view of a homeless encampment south of Buenos Aires in late August.
RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
By Helen Branswell
A new report paints a bleak picture of the far-ranging impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a major backsliding in the percentage of children around the world getting essential vaccinations, food insecurity on the rise, and a sharp increase in the number of people living in extreme poverty.
The first six months of the pandemic saw the number of people living in extreme poverty around the globe rise by 7%, after declining year after year for the past two decades.
“That one is super worrying,” billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said of the extreme poverty trend, one of more than a dozen metrics for global development assessed in the 2020 issue of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers report. Read more >>