This supplement to World DevelopmentIndicators 2008 provides estimates of global poverty thatare the first re-evaluation of the World Bank's"$1 a day" poverty line since 1999. Theinternational poverty line has been recalibrated at $1.25 aday, using new data on purchasing power parities (PPPs),compiled by the International Comparison Program, and anexpanded set of household income and expenditure surveys.New measurements of the extent and depth of poverty arepresented here for 115 developing countries, along withpoverty measurements based on their national poverty lines.The new data change our view of poverty in the world. Thereare more poor people, extremely poor people, and theincidence of poverty reaches farther into middle-incomecountries. Previous rounds of the International ComparisonProgram underestimated average price levels in developingcountries (perhaps by not fully adjusting for qualitydifferences) and thus overestimated standards of living. Bythe new measurements 1.4 billion people are living inextreme poverty, more than one-quarter of the population ofdeveloping countries. But countries and regions that havereduced their poverty rates are no less successful by thenew measurements. In 1990, at the beginning of the periodtracked by the Millennium Development Goals, 42 percent ofthe people in developing countries lived on less than $1.25a day. Over 15 years global poverty fell by an average of 1percentage point a year. At that rate the target set by theMillennium Development Goals will be surpassed at the globallevel and in East Asia, where poverty rates have fallenfastest, by 2015. But large differences remain betweenregions, across countries in the same region, and evenwithin countries. The data presented here allow us to seewhere some of those differences occur and point the waytoward a world free from the most extreme poverty.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
