Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The number of people living in extreme poverty in the South Asia Region is likely to have fallen to 13.5 percent of the region’s population in 2015, according to new World Bank forecasts, giving fresh evidence that South Asia has been an important contributor to the quarter-century-long sustained global reduction in poverty.

Despite the expected slowdown in Turkey in the second half of the year, the faster GDP growth in the second quarter leads to revising up growth forecast to 3.2 percent for 2015 according to the World Bank’s Turkey Regular Economic Brief (October) - issued Wednesday in Ankara on October 14.

Improvements in health, access to basic services and housing have contributed most to raising standards of living of Mexicans over the past 15 years but further advances are needed to bring well-being indicators closer to the average of OECD countries, according to a new report.

The budgets committee on Tuesday demanded more funds to handle the migration and refugee crisis, help young people into jobs, and fully offset the cuts to the EU's research and transport networks programs, in a political resolution on the 2016 budget. The committee had earlier reversed all the Council's cuts to the Commission's initial proposal.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will visit Ghana on Friday, October 16, to participate in high-level talks, launch a report on poverty in Africa, highlight Ghana’s progress toward ending extreme poverty, and commemorate End Poverty Day. The president’s visit to Accra will be part of several activities this week focusing on ending extreme poverty by 2030.

One third of the world’s 1.8 billion young people are currently neither in employment, education or training. Of the one billion more youth that will enter the job market in the next decade, only 40 percent are expected to be able to get jobs that currently exist. The global economy will need to create 600 million jobs over the next 10 years – five million jobs each month -- simply to keep pace with projected youth employment rates. Reversing the youth employment crisis is a pressing global priority and the socio-economic cost of inaction is high, says a new report.

A mother carries her eight-month old son towards the village of Sikaminea in Lesbos after arriving on the shores of the island in an inflatable boat from Turkey.

OECD Harmonised Unemployment Rates, s.a.

The global recovery continues, but growth remains modest and uneven overall. Uncertainty and financial market volatility have increased, and medium-term growth prospects have weakened. In advanced economies, the recovery is expected to pick up modestly, supported by lower commodity prices, continued accommodative monetary policies, and improved financial stability, but underlying productivity growth remains weak and inflation remains generally below central bank objectives.