Fall out from terrorist attacks will affect world's poor

A World Bank report warned last week that as a result of the terrorist attack on the United States, the global downturn in the economy would have disproportionate knock-on effects in the developing world.

The bank estimated that an additional 40 000 children aged under 5 years would die and 10 million people would be kept below the poverty line of $1 (66p) a day. The charity Save the Children found the report “deeply worrying” and called for a redoubling of “efforts being made to deal with the wider root causes of poverty.”

James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, said: “We have seen the human toll of the recent attacks wrought in the US, with citizens from 80 nations perishing in New York. But there is another human toll that is largely unseen and one that will be felt in all parts of the developing world, especially Africa.”

Even before the events of 11 September, growth estimates in …