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To: SOROS who wrote (137)	9/9/1998 9:29:00 AM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1151

Associated Press - 09/09/98 THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Consumption of goods and services has skyrocketed globally, but lurking beneath the affluence is a widening gap between the world's rich and poor, a new U.N. report warns. Highlighting ''gross inequalities,'' the Human Development Report released today detailed the plight of more than 1 billion people it said suffer ''human deprivation and stunted lives marked by illiteracy, inadequate income and exclusion from the social mainstream.'' ''Abundance of consumption is no crime,'' said United Nations Development Program administrator James Gustave Speth. ''But it is scandalous that the poor are unable to consume enough to meet even their most basic needs.'' Runaway growth in consumption, which topped $24 trillion globally this year, is also wreaking havoc on the environment and the poor are bearing the brunt of environmental damage, the agency warned. ''All over the world, poor people generally live nearest to dirty factories, busy roads and waste dumps,'' it said. The report called for ''more sustainable'' patterns of consumption to spread the wealth and put the brakes on environmental damage. ''Though the rich create most of the damage, the poorest in the world suffer most of the consequences,'' Richard Jolly of Britain, the report's chief author, told reporters today. Although developing countries have experienced high growth rates in consumption in recent years, they are still trailing the world's richest nations, the report said. Illustrating the yawning gap between rich and poor, it said the 20 percent of people living in high-income countries consume 86 percent of the world's goods and services. The poorest 20 percent, by contrast, consume just 1.3 percent. But the report offered this glimmer of hope: Despite alarming setbacks in some countries, every region of the world has made at least some gains in human development over the past 30 years. Since 1960, infant mortality rates in developing nations have decreased by more than half, child malnutrition has declined by 25 percent and school enrollment has more than doubled, it said. Even so, poverty is making steady inroads even among the wealthiest nations, said researchers who described the number of those barely getting by in industrialized countries as ''shockingly high.'' The world's richest nations are home to more than 100 million people who live below the poverty line, according to the report. At least 37 million are unemployed, 100 million are homeless and nearly 200 million have a life expectancy of less than 60 years. The 228-page report examined industrialized nations in a new ''human poverty index'' measuring the extent to which the poor have been left behind. Sweden ranked the best, with less than 7 percent of citizens living in poverty. Nearly 16.5 percent of Americans live in poverty despite the country's immense material wealth and generally high per-capita income. This year's report again included the UNDP's ''human development index'' ranking 174 countries according to their progress in improving life expectancy, education and income. ''Poverty is not just a matter of not having enough income, but also of being robbed of opportunities to participate and contribute to the life of a community,'' said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a UNDP official. For the fifth consecutive year, Canada topped the human development index for enabling the ''average person'' to enjoy a decent standard of living, followed by France, Norway, the United States and Iceland. Five African countries -- Burundi, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone -- rounded off the bottom of that list.