voa慢速英语 African Economic Growth Slow

本文来自： From VOA Learning English this is As It Is. Welcome back. I’m Caty Weer. Today we report on inventors, innovators and craftspeople -- both amateur and professional -- who gather to share, learn, build and n广告ork. But first, we bring you details from a new survey that shows growing African economies don’t always help people living in those countries. Survey: Economies Grow, But Poverty Remains Africa has some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. But a new public opinion study suggests this growth is doing little to reduce poverty. The Afrobarometer survey shows the majority of Africans still lack basic needs like clean water, food, cooking fuel and medicine. Afrobarometer says it is “an independent, nonpartisan research project that measures the social, political, and economic atmosphere in Africa.” Jim Bertel tells us more about the findings. Afrobarometer says poverty levels he improved very little over the past 10 years. Yet economies grew by an erage of five percent during the same period. The latest survey took place in 34 African countries b广告een October 2011 and June 2013. More than 50,000 people answered the survey questions. Three out of four of them reported that they had gone without cash income at least once in the past year. Almost half of the poor people who answered the questions said they had gone without food or clean water once or several times in the past year. One out of every two said they struggled to get medical care. Researchers presented the survey findings in Johannesburg last week. The problems are deepest in East and West Africa, but they said even countries with strong economies are affected. Robert Mattes is a professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He says the findings should be a wake-up call to governments that poverty levels he actually increased in South Africa and Botswana. “Based on that, one might say, with all the levels of growth that he been reported across the continent, with all the other kind of interventions that donors he made to try and bring down poverty, that there has not been much to speak of in the areas of success.” The survey showed people in Togo, Burundi, Guinea, Niger and Senegal experience the highest levels of poverty. People in Mauritius and Algeria reported the lowest levels. Most of the Africans in the survey criticized their government’s economic policies. Sixty-nine percent said they were dissatisfied with job creation. Seventy-six percent said they were not happy with efforts to reduce income gaps b广告een the rich and the poor. Afrobarometer says this survey suggests that either growth rates are not matching what is being reported or economic growth is not helping those at lower levels of the economy. The researchers say the only way to reduce poverty levels is to increase investment in basic infrastructure, like water pipes, electricity, education and health services. Three-dimensional “printed jewelry” on display at the Maker Faire in New York City.Three-dimensional “printed jewelry” on display at the Maker Faire in New York City. Maker Faire If you like to make things -- especially things that involve science -- then you might like to attend a Maker Faire. Maker Faires are held every year in different cities around the world. The recent one in New York City had hectares of colorful demonstration tables, science-based games, performance stages and “play islands.” Eleven-year-old Genevieve Beatty, her 13-year-old sister, Camille, and their father Robert stood proudly next to a robot. It was a model of a Mars lander, about a meter and a half high. Genevieve says they built it themselves. “Most of the ones that we built roll, like they he wheels, and some crawl