Source:
Manila BulletinThe share of the population of developing regions whose people live in extreme poverty is expected to fall to 15 percent by 2015, down from 46 percent in 1990, according to the United Nations. The gains stem largely from robust economic growth in countries such as China and India, the world’s two most populous countries.
As leaders will hear next week at a U.N. summit in New York, the overall success in cutting extreme poverty is patchy from region to region. According to the World Bank,
much of Asia already has met or is on its way to meeting the goal, and Latin America is on track to more than halve its rate from 11 percent in 1990 to 5 percent in 2015; sub-Saharan Africa is likely to fall short at a projected 38 percent. It was 58 percent in 1990.In China, whose economy this year officially surpassed Japan's as the world's second largest, the number living below the international poverty line fell from 60.2 percent in 1990 to 15.9 percent in 2005. By 2015, it is forecast to be 5 percent.
India has not been as successful, but the United Nations says it is nonetheless on track to cut its poverty rate from 51 percent in 1990 to 24 percent in 2015. India’s economy grew 8.8 percent in the second quarter of this year.
Read more:
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/277648/world-poverty-seen-falling-sharply-but-only-patchily
The Millennium Development Goals report is at:
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf