Decline in World Poverty Not Reaching the Extreme Poor

The good news is that world poverty is declining. the bad news is that the decline is concentrated in a few countries and is not benefiting the poorest of the poor:

The world’s poorest people are not seeing the benefits of a global decline in the poverty rate driven by Asia’s economic growth in the past 20 years, a report said today.

The report by the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Washington, said that the world is on track to reach a U.N. target of halving poverty and hunger by 2015. Yet, those living on less than 50 cents a day have benefited the least from poverty-reduction efforts, it said.

It estimated that 162 million people fall into the poorest category in 2004 while some 838 million lived on between 50 cents and $1. Three-quarters of the world’s poorest live in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said


Read it here. A great deal of information about the report itself, including fact sheets, the full report, and even a podcast can be found here.

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