The World Bank has said that for the first time less than 10 percent of the world’s population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015.
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Kim will lobby members to boost capital for the global Bank for Reconstruction and Development during an annual meeting to be held in Peru this week, said the FT.
“We are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty”, said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. About 200 million people have moved above the worldwide extreme poverty line since 2012, the organization said.
The World Bank predicts the number of people earning less than $1.90 a day will fall to 702 million people this year, or 9.6% of the global population – down from 902 million people, or 12.8%, in 2012.
The forecast used a new global poverty line of $1.9 a day, an upgrade from the previous line of $1.25 a day, which was set in 2005, reports Xinhua.
According to the Bank, around half of those living in extreme poverty by 2020 will hail from hard-to-reach fragile and conflict-affected states.
As per the earlier estimate, about one in five persons in developing regions lived on less than $1.25 per day.
So far, poverty has still remained concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
“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”, he said.
According to the President, the new figures should give a new impetus following the adoption last week by the United Nations of new sustainable development goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty.
The findings were announced in a report released Sunday by the World Bank.
In contrast, the report noted a marked decline in extreme poverty in Asia-particularly India-and in South America.
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.
However, Kaushik Basu, chief economist at the World Bank, sounded an alarm over a slowdown in emerging markets worldwide – with Latin America an emblem of the sputter.
“There is a few turbulence ahead”, Basu warned.
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Ms. Revenga said the World Bank Group would continue to work with its country clients and partners to improve how it measures and tracks poverty, to build country statistical capacity and fill persistent data gaps, and to integrate solid data and analysis into its development work to better reach people and their families who live in entrenched poverty.
