17 A recent European Commission report concluded that almost one in four people in the EU (119.6 million people) was at risk of poverty and social deprivation in 2011—those either with household income below the poverty threshold, or severely materially deprived, or living in a household with low work intensity.<sup>48</sup> The highest shares of people at the risk of poverty and social exclusion were recorded in Bulgaria (49 percent), Romania and Latvia (40 percent), Lithuania (33 percent), and Greece and Hungary (31 percent), while the lowest rates were found in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Austria (around 16 percent). A 2011 independent expert assessment concluded that during 2011, the financial and economic crisis and the associated austerity measures led to a rise in poverty and social exclusion in more than half of the member states.<sup>49</sup> Contributing to the deterioration were old age, low wages, rising unemployment, persistence of already high levels of unemployment, or jobs with temporary contracts and limited benefits. Children, immigrants and people from a migrant background, ethnic minorities, and disabled were identified as groups most at risk, as well as homeless, the old, and women in some countries.

Beyond extreme poverty, the ongoing crisis also poses significant challenges to attaining the other development goals, including reducing malnutrition and maternal and under-5 mortality rates, and improving gender equality in education and access to clean water and sanitation. While most developing countries have made progress in reducing the incidence of undernourishment and mortality rates and in improving the share of populations with access to primary education and improved water and sanitation, there has been a visible reduction in the pace of progress toward achieving these goals by 2015, particularly reducing malnutrition, in most regions and income groups (figure 7, second panel, and figure 9).

The slowdown (or reversal) in progress has been more evident within the middle income country group (figure 9). Some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa observed deterioration in the progress toward reducing undernourishment, compared to the pre-crisis period (figure 10), reflecting the combined effect of the food crisis in 2008 and weak growth following the global crisis.<sup>50</sup> Brinkman and others (2010) suggest that based on survey evidence in Europe and Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, coming up on top of the food and fuel crises, the global economic and financial crisis has been associated with a rising cost of the food, forcing large numbers of vulnerable households to reduce the quantity and quality of food consumed at the risk of increased malnutrition. Deterioration in the progress toward improving maternal mortality rates and gender parity in education was also more evident in Europe and Central Asia and Latin America. In many developing countries, especially fragile and conflict-affected-states, achieving the MDGs by 2015 remains a distant hope (figure 11).

The ongoing crisis has jeopardized the well-being of people even in the developed world. Recent reports by UNICEF, for example, point to a significant deterioration in child well-being in a number of advanced countries, based on measures of material well-being, health and safety, education, behaviors and risks, and housing and environment. The deterioration is most evident in Spain, where more than 2.2 million children are estimated to live below the poverty line in

> 48 Eurostat 2012 based on EU-SILC survey; htpp://ec.europa.eu/eurostat.

> 49 Frazer and Marlier 2012. The Report is the summary findings of national reports prepared by members of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion assessing policy developments in their countries during 2011. 50 Tiwari and Zaman (2010).