Another interesting article, so true.... I didn't know the true extent of the issues. Hope everyone is well and happy!!:
AUSTRALIANS are ignorant of the extent of child poverty in our
region, even though Papua New Guinea and East Timor are as poor as
Sudan and Haiti, a new survey shows.
Almost 40 per cent of Australians nominate Ethiopia as the
world's poorest country but many countries where children are
equally or much worse off fail to register in the public's
consciousness.
The survey by ChildFund Australia, an international aid and
development agency, reveals the gaps in Australians' knowledge
about children in the developing world and shows Australians are
unduly pessimistic about progress in improving conditions in many
countries.
The study, based on more than 1056 respondents, finds 87 per
cent of Australians correctly believe children in Africa face the
greatest poverty. Within Africa, Ethiopia is singled out as the
poorest country, followed by Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe and
Somalia.
But countries such as Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Niger and the
Democratic Republic of Congo, ranked by the United Nations as
having worse records on child deaths and on broad development
measures, remain outside the consciousness of most Australians.
Australians also appear unaware that since the 1985 Live Aid
campaign that brought Ethiopia's disastrous famine to world
attention, child mortality there has fallen by 40 per cent.
"Aid agencies face a challenge to better communicate a range of
complex information to the public and the media," said Nigel
Spence, chief executive officer of ChildFund Australia. "A small
number of countries dominate people's thinking."
In the Asia-Pacific region, most Australians nominate India,
Cambodia, Indonesia, China and Vietnam as having the worst child
poverty.
But Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste suffer deprivation similar
to that found in Zimbabwe, Sudan, Haiti and Cameroon. China and
Indonesia do not feature on the UN's rankings of 50 poorest
countries, or the 50 with the worst record of child deaths.
Most Australians erroneously believe the plight of children in
the developing world has worsened or remained unchanged in the past
decade. | 
