Template:Did you know nominations/Poverty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:36, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Poverty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

 * ... that the $24-trillion mineral reserves of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have actually contributed to its high poverty rate by fueling violence and corruption? Source: "The billions of pounds those minerals have generated have brought nothing but misery and death to the very people who live on top of them, while enriching a microscopic elite in the Congo and their foreign backers, and underpinning our technological revolution in the developed world. "; for $48 trillion,
 * ALT1:... that the endemic conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has displaced 4.1 million people and contributed to the country's high poverty rate?
 * ALT2:... that, although the Democratic Republic of the Congo contains $24 trillion in mineral reserves, 77% of residents live in extreme poverty? For $48 trillion, see above. For extreme poverty,
 * Reviewed: This is my fourth DYK nom.
 * Comment: I approved the article 5 August via AfC.

Created by Dr Jones Jr (talk). Nominated by Catrìona (talk) at 03:26, 6 August 2018 (UTC).


 * The article meets DYK criteria for Newness (submitted originally within 7 days of creating), length, & policy. And both the subject & the proposed hooks are of both interest & importance to the wider audience. (FWIW, I did face the problem of determining which country with "Congo" in its name this article referred to.) Stating all that, however, I found some issues in the hooks & sources themselves. These are:
 * The proposed primary hook is based on the opinion of a journalist & a web essay. The journalist lacks sufficient authority for himself, or in his article, to support this statement. While the Congo has suffered much destruction of its infrastructure due to warfare, corruption, & other malignant events, the journalist failed to provide a clear example of how this destruction effected the impoverishment of this resource-rich country. (I suspect there are better sources that would bring out these facts, though.) He fails to provide a clear example of how the Congo The ThinkProgress article is better for it provides some useful facts about sharp dealing with Congolese authorities in how they are pillaging the country's resources. However, it is not cited in the article to support this point, but to support the assertion of how civil war has harmed the country.
 * The first alternative hook is the least satisfying of the three. Yes, there are a lot of displaced people (aka refugees) in the DRC, yet it's not made clear either in the source or the article how these effect the economy. Or if the presence of these refugees is at all related to the economy. (For example, there are a lot of refugees in Ethiopia from the Sudanese civil war, yet they are housed for the most part near the border & except for the Gambela Region do not interact in a significant way with the economy of the rest of that country.)
 * The second alternative hook appears to be based on falsifiable statements (i.e., facts that can be proven true or false), but draws on a CNN article whose primary concern is with poverty in Nigeria, which has a similar economic problem. Statistics on demography are difficult to come by in Africa, due to problems of infrastructure & trained personnel; however, some countries manage the heroic effort required to collect these numbers & publish them. (I state this having worked with similar statistics for Ethiopia.) So I was immediately suspicious of the figure of "77% live in extreme poverty" -- especially as the Congo lacked the necessary requirements to conduct a census of its people, which would be the gold standard for any such statement -- & looked for verification in other reliable sources. (I'm assuming the latter have the resources to produce estimates of reasonable reliability.) The Worldbank offers different numbers for the percentage of people living in poverty alone, which has declined from an extremely appalling 69.3% in 2004 to a merely appalling 63.9% in 2012. (The percentage may be greater or less today.) Another study on the OECD website offers another set of numbers: "In 2006 GDP per capita was US$120 and over 75% of the population are believed to live on less than $1 a day." (This paper also offers the quotation: "DRC has rich natural resources but these have in the past proved a curse more than a blessing for ordinary people." A third study by the IMF provides this information: "Poverty incidence, measured by the share of the population living below the national poverty line fell from 71.4 percent in 2005 to 63.4 percent in 2012. Based on the standard measure of $1.25 a day, it also decreased, but only marginally (5 percentage points)." (NB: Although the IMF paper states there is a cost to access it, I was able to read that PDF for free.) The last two sources I quoted at length due to definition of "extreme poverty" -- I assume it is the same as in the Wikipedia article of making less than US$ 1.25 a day -- is not always clear in those sources. But if you were to cite one of these sources with which year the statistic belongs to, this would be better than the "77%" figure with no clear source in the CNN article.


 * Looking back, if you were to make more use of these three institutional publications I could approve either the primary or the secondary alternative hook. As I stated above, this is an important subject, & deserves the additional attention I'm asking for. -- llywrch (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for this very thorough review. I will work on improving the article and adding the sources that you recommended. Catrìona (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Striking the original because, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, there is no direct relationship between minerals and conflict. According to this report pg. 67. A nationwide survey in 2005 found 71.3% live in poverty as defined by the DRC. The UNECA was still using it as an estimate in September 2015, when they published their report, without mentioning later estimates. What's odd in the IMF report that you cite, which places extreme poverty over 80% for both 2005 and 2012, is it actually states that the worldwide criterion of $1.25 is stricter than the national poverty measure, putting more Congolese in extreme poverty than just poverty! The Wikipedia article on extreme poverty meanwhile defines it as less than $1.90 a day ($1 in 1996 dollars), so that should not be an issue for the way I have phrased it below. Thanks again for your consideration. Catrìona (talk) 03:59, 8 September 2018 (UTC)


 * ALT4:... that, despite the Democratic Republic of the Congo's $24 trillion mineral reserves, more than 80% of residents live in extreme poverty? Symbol confirmed.svg
 * This works: it's brief & clearly shows the contrast. However, no where in this article does it provide a figure X where X >= 80%. In the opening paragraph, if the last sentence used the material from the footnote to produce a passage along the lines of "The number of Congolese who live in extreme poverty (per the generally accepted definition as proposed by the World Bank) is 82%" that would fix the problem. You could still keep the footnote by noting the DRC defintion of "extreme poverty" is different from the World Bank's -- which is an important detail. Doing this is a simple fix, & would conclude this matter. -- llywrch (talk) 00:10, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I fixed it. Let me know if you are happy with the changes. Catrìona (talk) 01:15, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I gave it a tweek. If you are happy with that, we can call this closed. -- llywrch (talk) 02:47, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Looks good to me. Catrìona (talk) 03:42, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

I guess that means all that is left is to approve ALT4 hook & closing this. -- llywrch (talk) 05:00, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The last symbol here is a tick so I am promoting this. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:36, 13 September 2018 (UTC)