Extreme Poverty Is Not a Given for This World

The eight Millennium Development Goals were adopted by world leaders in 2000 to provide specific benchmarks and a framework for the international community to tackle all aspects of extreme poverty and cut in half the number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 a day) by 2015.

One of the first targets, reducing by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, was reached three years ago … and went unnoticed.

Read “With Little Notice, Globalization Reduced Poverty” at YaleGlobal Online.

“Official estimates of global poverty are compiled by the World Bank and stretch back 30 years. For most of that period, the trend has been one of slow, gradual reduction. By 2005, the year of the most recent official global poverty estimate, the number of people living under the international poverty line of $1.25 a day stood at 1.37 billion — an improvement of half a billion compared to the early 1980s, but a long way from the dream of a world free of poverty. …

“By combining the most recent country survey data of household consumption with the latest figures on private consumption growth, we generated global poverty estimates from 2005 up to the present day. Poverty reduction accelerated in the early 2000s at a rate that has been sustained throughout the decade, even during the dark recesses of the financial crisis. Today, we estimate that there are approximately 820 million people living on less than $1.25 a day. This means that the prime target of the Millennium Development Goals — to halve the rate of global poverty by 2015 from its 1990 level — was probably achieved around three years ago. Whereas it took 25 years to reduce poverty by half a billion people up to 2005, the same feat was likely achieved in the six years between then and now. Never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time.”