Finns’ Conception of World Poverty is Gloomier than Reality

By an IPS Correspondent Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 2015 (IPS) - A survey commissioned by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reveals the Finns’ conception of world poverty is much gloomier than reality.

Nearly eight out of ten Finns (76%) believe that poverty has increased in the world since the year 1990. The survey was carried out by the research company Taloustutkimus.

In reality, the share of the poor among the world’s population has declined by one-half, and the number has dropped by 700 million in the last 25 years. Similarly, only 11 per cent of Finns know that the infant mortality rate has fallen by one-half during roughly the same period.

Finns are the gloomiest when asked to estimate what share of children in developing countries go to school, how well equality between boys and girls is implemented in basic education, and how comprehensively women are able to use effective methods of contraception should they wish to do so.

According to the survey, more than eight out of ten Finns believe that less than half of children in developing countries attend school. In reality, more than 90 per cent of children in developing countries can now start primary school. School attendance has increased the most in Africa: almost 20 percentage points since 2000.

Only two per cent of Finns are able to estimate correctly that for one hundred boys in first grade, there are 95 girls sitting on school benches, which means that gender equality in education has made significant progress. Just as few people (2%) know that more than 90 per cent of the world’s women either use or have the opportunity to use effective methods of contraception.

“The credit and the responsibility for development lie first and foremost with developing countries themselves. Finland, for its part, has supported progress,” Development Minister Sirpa Paatero was quoted as saying.

Finland has promoted the spread of school attendance through bilateral development cooperation in many developing countries and as the chair of the executive board of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in 2013. Finland has promoted maternal health, among others, as one of the biggest donors of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Finns are best aware of the world’s water situation: 55 percent of Finns were able to estimate correctly that access to clean drinking water has improved since 1990.

“In the water sector, too, development cooperation is the most effective when people themselves get the chance to improve their well-being. Just recently, on a work trip to Ethiopia, I saw for myself how the operating approach developed by Finland decentralizes responsibility for water points to local communities themselves, and how the model has been copied in the country’s national water programme. Already, a total of about three million people have cost-effective access to clean water thanks to Finland’s development assistance,” Paatero explains.

For the survey, one thousand Finns were interviewed between 16 and 29 December 2014. The margin of error in the survey is 2.5 percentage points in either direction, with a 95 per cent level of confidence.