Finns' conception of the world's poverty is gloomier than reality
Finns’ conception of the world’s poverty is much gloomier than reality, a survey commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs reveals. Nearly eight out of ten Finns (76%) believe that poverty has increased in the world since the year 1990. This information was disclosed in a survey ordered by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and 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.
Responsibility and credit rest with developing countries
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 states.
Finland has promoted the spread of school attendance for example through bilateral development cooperation in many developing countries and as the chair of the United Nations children’s organization UNICEF in 2013. Finland has promoted maternal health, among others, as one of the biggest donors of the United Nations Population Programme 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 error margin of the survey is 2.5 percentage points in either direction, with a 95 per cent level of confidence.
Background and more precise results of the survey
The questions of the survey conducted by Taloustutkimus are linked to the Millennium Development Goals agreed in the UN. Agreement on the Millennium Development Goals was reached in 2000 and they are in force until the end of the present year. Negotiations on new development goals pertaining to all countries are being held this year.
Taloustutkimus has interpreted the main results of the survey in the appended presentation.
Citizens’ knowledge of development cooperation issues (pdf)
Tables of the survey results (pdf)
Additional information: Juha Peltonen, Press Attaché to Development Minister Sirpa Paatero, mobile tel. +358 50 554 6426 ; Pekka Puustinen, Director General of the Department for Development Policy, tel. +358 295 350 560 ; and Communications Coordinator Pasi Nokelainen, mobile tel. +358 50 339 5860