The coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout could push as many as 100 million people into poverty this year, diminishing prospects for ending extreme poverty by 2030, dpa quoted the United Nations as saying on Friday. Even with accelerated economic growth and reductions in inequality, "complete eradication of extreme poverty looks highly unlikely even under the most optimistic assumptions," according to a new policy brief by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). World leaders agreed in 2015 on the goal of eliminating extreme poverty, which currently affects around 680 million people, by 2030. But with the pandemic spreading across developing countries, the prospect "seems nearly utopian," UNDESA said. In the most pessimistic scenario, UNDESA estimates that more than 1.1 billion people - or 13 per cent of the world population - could end up extremely poor by the end of the decade. The most optimistic scenario, with unprecedented growth, envisages nearly 3 per cent of the world population would remain in poverty. The brief also found that stagnation in economic growth and a rise in inequality could easily push the least-developed nations even further behind.
