Aid

The head of the Boat and Yacht Exporters Association (GY?B) has said the regional uncertainties in Turkey's neighbors have negatively affected the country's boat and yacht exports, adding that a further decline is expected in figures this year. 

GY?B President Ba?aran Bayrak noted that Turkey's exports in this field decreased 19 percent in 2015 compared to the previous year. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Feb. 18 cut its 2016 economic growth forecast to 3 percent from 3.3 percent owing to disappointing data, sluggish demand, weak investment and a high risk of financial instability.

The European Commission has called on countries on the Balkans migration route "to do more to provide shelter for people fleeing conflict or poverty."

In a report published on Wednesday, the EC also told these countries they "now need to urgently speed up the provision of reception capacities."

There are 500,000 paper collectors in this country who hit the road every day, rain or shine, pulling their handcarts to make a living. They have all had tough lives, and continue to do so.

These people have escaped war, oppression, poverty and moved to the big city, collecting waste paper on the streets to survive. These people earn 30 kuru? per one kilogram of paper. 

The Sur district of Diyarbak?r province continues to be kept under military curfew. 

Security forces are trying to remove barricades, which are often "manned" by mere teenagers, from the streets. As important as it is to resolve the security problem, our questions cannot stop there. 

The European Commission is set to increase in 2016 its humanitarian funding for education in emergencies to 4% of the EU’s overall humanitarian budget. The commitment was championed earlier this year by EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides, and has now found strong support from the European Parliament and EU Member States.

Turkey has the second highest child income poverty rate in the OECD countries following Israel, according to the OECD's latest "How's Life?" 2015 report.

* Angus Deaton, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics. He is the author of The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality.

What does a state do? 

The Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜ?K) issued the results of the 2014 Income and Living Conditions Survey. The outcome of the survey must be open to interpretation because media organs publishing them reflected the results differently.