Poverty rate on decline, says World Bank

World Bank

• 100m out of extreme poverty

Global extreme poverty has continued to fall rapidly, the World bank has said.

According to the inaugural edition of its Poverty and Shared Prosperity—a new series that will report on the latest and most accurate estimates and trends in global poverty and shared prosperity annually—nearly 800 million people lived on less than $ 1.90 a day in 2013. That is around 100 million fewer extremely poor people than in 2012.

According to the study on poverty and shared prosperity: “Around 100 million people moved out of extreme poverty from 2012 to 2013, and since 1990, nearly 1.1 billion people have escaped extreme poverty. The global poor are predominantly rural, young, poorly educated, are mostly employed in the agricultural sector, and live in larger households with more children.”

In 2013, the bank said in a statement that 767 million people, or 10.7 per cent of the population, were estimated to be living below the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day.


The study said that extreme poverty worldwide continues to fall despite the lethargic state of the global economy. But it warned that given projected growth trends, reducing high inequality may be a necessary component to reaching the world’s goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.

The bank said extreme poverty remains unacceptably high, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

It said: “The region now has the largest number of extreme poor in the world, 389 million, which accounts for half of the total number of extreme poor in the world, and more than all the other regions combined. The decline in extreme poverty was largely fueled by the rapid advances in East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia.

Half of the world’s extreme poor now live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and another third live in South Asia.