The World Bank announced Sunday that it predicts that “extreme poverty” around the world will fall below 10 percent for the very first time this year.
Using updated measurements that reflect up-to-date differences in the cost of living between countries, the international financial institution predicts that the number of people around the world living in poverty will drop to 702 million people in 2015, or 9.6 percent of the global population. That would be a significant decrease from 902 million counted in 2012, which was 12.8 percent of the population.
The projected drop below the 10 percent line is due in part to an updated poverty line of $1.90 a day, which reflects up-to-date information in purchasing parity power. The World Bank defines that as “the number of units of a country’s currency required to buy the same amount of goods and services in the domestic market as a U.S. dollar would buy in the United States.” The previous poverty line was $1.25 a day in 2005 prices.
An official final count of those living in poverty in 2015 is not yet available, as the World Bank explains that “actual poverty data from low income countries come with a considerable lag.”
Global poverty is predicted to fall in East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, South America and Sub-Saharan Africa, though a large portion of the impoverished still remain concentrated in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Figures for the Middle East and North Africa are not “reliable” due to the proliferation of conflicts in the region, such as the civil war in Syria and the large numbers of displaced people.
“This is the best story in the world today,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “These projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty.”
Kim warns that reaching an end to global poverty will prove difficult, given continuing conflicts in fragile states, slowing economic growth and the extent of remaining poverty in the world.
“It will be extraordinarily hard, especially in a period of slower global growth, volatile financial markets, conflicts, high youth unemployment and the growing impact of climate change,” said Kim. “But it remains within our grasp, as long as our high aspirations are matched by country-led plans that help the still millions of people living in extreme poverty.”
Established in 1944 as a financial assistance hub for developing countries around the world, the World Bank set in 2013 two goals for the world to achieve by 2030. The first goal is to end global poverty, and the second is to promote global prosperty by “fostering the income growth of the bottom 40 percent for every country.”
