World Bank: Extreme poverty to fall below 10%
Extreme poverty around the globe is set to fall to below 10 percent of the global population, this year according to the World Bank.
The US-based World Bank released its new figures in a report on Sunday.
About 702 million people, or 9.6 percent of the world population, will live below the poverty line this year, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the report said.
That number stood at 902 million, or about 13 percent of the world population in 2012 and at 29 percent in 1999.
"This is the best story in the world today -- these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty," Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank told AFP.
"This new forecast of poverty falling into the single digits should give us new momentum and help us focus even more clearly on the most effective strategies to end extreme poverty," he added.
The continuing decline in extreme poverty is the result of dynamic economic growth in developing nations and investment in health and education, as well as social safety nets that prevented millions of people from falling back into poverty, according to Kim.
People living on $1.90 a day are considered as living in extreme poverty whereas the same figure stood at $1.25 or less a day.
The World Bank nevertheless urged caution in its report, saying "major hurdles remain" in the goal to end poverty by 2030.
"The growing concentration of global poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is of great concern," the report added.
"While some African countries have seen significant successes in reducing poverty, the region as a whole lags the rest of the world in the pace of lessening poverty," the report said.
The report cautioned that reliable current data was not available in part of the Middle East and North Africa because of ongoing political conflict.
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