UN report warns poverty goals likely to be missed The infant death rate for African Americans in Washington DC is higher than that in the cities of the Indian state of Kerala, the United Nations has warned as part of a damning review of poverty and inequality around the world.
Published ahead of next week''s summit in New York to review progress in meeting goals to halve extreme poverty by 2015, the UN''s human development report says: US health indicators are far below those that might be expected on the basis of national wealth.
The report, published by the United Nations Development Programme （UNDP）, says the outcome is due partly to persistent and extreme disparities between people from different social and ethnic groups, as shown by recent images of poor black people stranded in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
The findings reflect a new focus by the UN upon differences within countries as well as between countries, as policymakers try to think of new ways to achieve the millennium development goals （MDGs）, agreed in 2000.
India and China, which have both enjoyed sustained economic growth, face worrying challenges. There are worrying indications that social progress is starting to lag behind economic performance, with the slowdown in the rate of reduction in child deaths a special concern.
The UN notes that China spends 5 per cent of its GDP on health, but public spending now amounts to less than 2 per cent of GDP.
The erosion of public funding, it says, has resulted in a mismatch between need and provision, with per capita spending in urban areas 3.5 times that in rural areas.
Between 70 and 80 per cent of the rural population have no health insurance. Children living in the poorest parts of rural China face far greater health risks, and the gap is widening. The mortality rate for under-five-year-olds ranges from 8 per 1,000 in Beijing （comparable to the US）, to 60 in the poorest parts of Gui zhou （comparable to Namibia）.
一、參考譯文
聯(lián)合國警告說，美國首都華盛頓特區(qū)非裔美國人的嬰兒死亡率高于印度喀拉拉邦各城市。該警告是聯(lián)合國評估世界各地貧窮和不平等現(xiàn)象報告的一部分，聯(lián)合國對這些現(xiàn)象表示強烈不滿。
這份報告指出：“美國的健康指標遠遠低于根據(jù)國家富裕程度所預期的水平�！贝饲奥�(lián)合國曾制定目標，希望到2015年將極端貧困人口減半。下周聯(lián)合國將在紐約召開峰會，回顧實現(xiàn)這一目標的進展。在峰會前，聯(lián)合國發(fā)表了這份人類發(fā)展報告。
聯(lián)合國開發(fā)計劃署（UNDP）發(fā)布的這份報告表示，這種結果部分是由于不同的社會群體和族裔群體之間存在著“持久的”和“極端的”不平等。最近美國新奧爾良的貧窮黑人因颶風卡特里娜受困的景象就表明了這一點。
