VOA慢速英语2014 贫困不仅仅是缺钱

 

AS IT IS 2014-06-23 Poverty Is More Than Just Lack of Money 贫困不仅仅是缺钱

Poverty is not just about money. Oxford¹ University in Britain says poverty also means not having enough food, education, healthcare and shelter.

Earlier this month, Oxford University released its latest measure of poverty. It is called the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI. Researchers gathered information from 108 countries, where 78 percent of the world’s population lives. Oxford says about 1.6 billion of those people are what it calls “multi-dimensionally poor.” It says most live in rural areas.

Sabina Alkire is the head of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. She describes multidimensional poverty. 

“I mean a person who has different things going wrong at the same time. They might not have many assets and they might have malnutrition². And they might not have more than five years of schooling³. So, several things are going wrong in their life at the same time. That’s what it means to be multi-dimensionally poor.  It’s not just one.”

The MPI found that in nearly 50 developing countries, half of the poor people should be called “destitute⁴” -- in other words, having an extreme lack of basic living standards.

About 420 million people are considered destitute. Most of them live in South Asia. About 343 million live in India. The MPI found there are 200 million destitute people in 24 African countries.  Niger has the highest percentage of its population listed as destitute -- almost 69 percent.

An individual’s earnings⁵ is the most common measure of poverty.  But Dr. Alkire says more information is needed to tell the whole story.

“It needs a measure that looks at the other aspects of people’s life -- like bad health, bad education, no water and sanitation⁶, or poor housing -- and sees how they’re doing in those. Because actually it’s not the same people who are poor in both. And so both measures together give a more-balanced picture of how people are living.”

She says that in some places, many people have a poor diet, but are not considered poor.

“For example, in Bhutan, according to their national poverty measure, 12 percent of people are income poor and 12.7 are multi-dimensionally poor, but only a quarter of those -- 3.2 percent -- are poor in both.”

But she believes that policies aimed at reducing poverty are working.

“We studied changes over time for 34 countries this year, housing 2.5 billion people. And 30 of those countries had significant reductions of poverty. And the really good news we find is that it’s low-income countries and least-developed countries that actually reduced poverty the fastest.”

1 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

2 malnutrition   

n.营养不良

参考例句：

• In Africa, there are a lot of children suffering from severe malnutrition.在非洲有大批严重营养不良的孩子。
• It is a classic case of malnutrition. 这是营养不良的典型病例。

3 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

4 destitute   

adj.缺乏的；穷困的

参考例句：

• They were destitute of necessaries of life.他们缺少生活必需品。
• They are destitute of common sense.他们缺乏常识。

5 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

6 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看，这个地段非常糟糕。
• Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。