VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The global financial crisis is likely to dramatically impact the world’s poor in coming months, depriving children of essential services in education and health care, a Vatican official said. The negative consequences of the economic crisis “exert a more dramatic impact on the developing world and on the most vulnerable groups in all societies,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to U.N. organizations in Geneva.

He spoke at the 10th Special Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva Feb. 20. His speech, released by the Vatican, focused on the deeper causes of the economic crisis and its effect on people in developing countries.

Archbishop Tomasi cited predictions that in 2009 the current crisis could push more than 50 million people below the threshold of $2 per day, in addition to the 130 million people pushed into poverty in 2008 by rising food and energy costs.

The archbishop said low-income countries heavily depend on two methods of cash flow, foreign aid and remittance pay from citizens working abroad. Both are expected to decline in coming months, he said.