Oct 8, 2015

Ending Extreme Poverty and current count of the poor

Globally, only about 10 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty; in Africa the number is down to 35 percent. "Technology has absolutely had a leading role," Economist Sachs said. "Nothing has been as important as the mobile phone."

The World Bank uses an updated international poverty line of US $1.90 a day, which incorporates new information on differences in the cost of living across countries (the PPP exchange rates). The new line preserves the real purchasing power of the previous line (of $1.25 a day in 2005 prices) in the world's poorest countries. Using this new line (as well as new country-level data on living standards), the World Bank projects that global poverty will have fallen from 902 million people or 12.8 per cent of the global population in 2012 to 702 million people, or 9.6 per cent of the global population, this year.

Actual poverty data from low income countries come with a considerable lag but the organization, which released the information on the eve of its Annual Meetings in Lima, Peru, based its current projections on the latest available data.





Read more »// Next Big Future