VOA标准英语2008年-Report: Number of People Living on Brink of Pov

According to an international aid agency, the number of people living on the edge of poverty has nearly doubled during the past two years. A new report by CARE International says the surging price of food is the main reason behind the alarming jump. For VOA, Tom Rivers in London has been speaking to the report's author.

Those said to be living on the edge of emergency - that is, people on the brink¹ of not being able to feed themselves and thus requiring outside assistance - has nearly doubled to 220 million worldwide during the past two years.
　
Vanessa Rubin

CARE International report author Vanessa Rubin says the steep increase is truly alarming.

"Some of the communities I spoke² with in our projects in Kenya for example, spend about 80 percent of their income in food," she said. "Now if the price of food goes up, three or four times as it has in some parts of Africa, you can imagine what impact that has on people's ability to feed themselves."

While rising food prices are seen as having the largest impact, Rubin says other factors are also putting millions more on the edge of poverty.

"There are also more ingrained issues like climate change that is really squeezing the natural resources - the land and the water - on which so many people's livelihoods³ depend, whether it is agriculture or whether it is animals," she said. "And also, we are seeing populations growing and so that is really squeezing people's livelihoods."

The CARE report underlines that the international community has failed to learn the lessons of countless⁴ emergencies going back decades.

"The point that we are making in the 'Living on the Edge' report is that it is also the responses to that vulnerability that have been inadequate," Rubin said. "There has been a real tendency to fire fight emergencies at the peak of a crisis, but not enough focus on the reasons why people are vulnerable to them in the first place."

Rubin says while funds must continue to be channeled to short-term emergencies, money also must go to long-term development commitments that strengthen the resolve of local populations.

Next week, a U.N. summit will be held to discuss the organization's so-called Millennium⁵ Development Goals. Rubin says the U.N. meeting simply cannot ignore the current poverty trend.

"The way we see it, the time is now that the world leaders are going to meet in New York next week," she said. "They do not have any choice but to address that."

The top priority of the Millennium Development Goals is to cut in half the number of people whose income is less that $1 a day by 2015.

Bridging the gap between the talk of getting there and actually arriving is to be a major point of discussion.

 

1 brink   

n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿

参考例句：

• The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
• The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。

4 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

5 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。