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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Children are more than twice as likely as adults to live in extreme poverty, the World Bank Group and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a press release here Tuesday.
The joint report -- "Ending Extreme Poverty: A Focus on Children" -- found that in 2013, 19.5 percent of children in developing countries were living in households that survived on an average of 1.90 U.S. dollars a day or less per person, compared to just 9.2 percent of adults.
Globally, almost 385 million children were living in extreme poverty, said the report jointly produced by the World Bank and UNICEF.
Children are disproportionately affected, as they make up around a third of the population studied, but half of the extreme poor. The youngest children are the most at risk -- with more than one-fifth of children under the age of five in the developing world living in extremely poor households.
"Children are not only more likely to be living in extreme poverty; the effects of poverty are most damaging to children," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "They are the worst off of the worst off - and the youngest children are the worst off of all, because the deprivations they suffer affect the development of their bodies and their minds."
"It is shocking that half of all children in sub-Saharan Africa and one in five children in developing countries are growing up in extreme poverty," Lake said. "This not only limits their futures, it drags down their societies."
The new joint analysis came on the heels of the release of the World Bank Group's new flagship study, entitled "Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on Inequality," which found that some 767 million people globally were living on less than 1.90 dollars per day in 2013, half of them under the age of 18.
"The sheer number of children in extreme poverty points to a real need to invest specifically in the early years-in services such as pre-natal care for pregnant mothers, early childhood development programs, quality schooling, clean water, good sanitation, and universal health care," said Ana Revenga, senior director of poverty and equity at the World Bank Group.
"Improving these services, and ensuring that today's children can access quality job opportunities when the time comes, is the only way to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty that is so widespread today," Revenga said.
The global estimate of extreme child poverty is based on data from 89 countries, representing 83 percent of the developing world's population, the report said.
Sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest rates of children living in extreme poverty at just under 50 percent, and the largest share of the world's extremely poor children, at just over 50 percent, it said.
South Asia has the second highest share at nearly 36 percent with more than 30 percent of extremely poor children living in India alone. More than four out of five children in extreme poverty live in rural areas, said the report.
In addition, the report revealed that even at higher thresholds, poverty also affects children disproportionately. About 45 percent of children are living in households subsisting on less than 3.10 dollars a day per person, compared with nearly 27 percent of adults.
