
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503080026
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK                                LENGTH: Short

TALLY OF WORLD'S POOR NEWBORNS BECOMES MEETING'S TOP ATTRACTION

Clicking almost once a second, a large digital scoreboard keeps track of a global time bomb: the number of babies born in poverty.

In the minute it takes to read this article, 47 poor babies will have been born. On Saturday, the morning after it was switched on, the ticker already said 43,000.

``There's so much criticism that these U.N. meetings are just words. This will show in concrete terms what is happening,'' said Anneli Dahlbom of the U.N. Development Program, sponsor of the Poverty Clock.

The clock seems to be doing its job.

Standing at one end of a huge convention hall, it draws people past an array of gadgets, posters and colorful booths set up for the nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, meeting in tandem with the official U.N. summit.

Delegates step up to be photographed in front of it. Visitors silently read its explanation printed in a half-dozen languages. Conference workers keep busy talking of the ideas, problems and calculations behind the clock.

Out of roughly 5.66 billion people in the world last year, 1.3 billion - more than one in four - live in poverty. Nearly all of them live on $1 or less per day, the U.N. says.

``They will most likely be undernourished, uneducated and undervalued by the societies in which they live,'' the explanation says.

Throughout the week, the Poverty Clock will keep ticking, building graphic proof of the problem up to the final day March 12.

``People need this to wake up to the problem,'' said Anne-Sophie Olesen, another U.N. worker. ``It's becoming a tourist attraction.''

by CNB