162 Million People Still Live Under US 50 Cents

Despite much progress in reducing poverty worldwide, a significant number of the world’s poorest people are being left behind, according to the report entitled, The World’s Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger, released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The report pointed out that 162 million of the World’s poorest survive on no less than 50 US cents a day. If they are to be concentrated in a single country, the World’s most deprived will comprise the seventh most populous country. Most of those that belong to the “ultra poor” are from socially excluded groups, those that live in rural areas and have no access to roads, market, education and health services.

“The dismally slow progress in reaching people living in ultra poverty clearly shows that ‘business as usual’ is not good enough,” said Ruth Vargas Hill, IFPRI researcher and co-author of the study. “Reaching the poorest people within an acceptable timeframe requires all members of the international community, from policymakers to civil society, to take action.”

The report is the first to use household poverty data from 1990 to 2004 to look below the dollar-a-day poverty line and examine who the poorest people are, where they live, and how they have fared over time.

Read the report at http://www.ifpri.org/2020/dp/vp43/vp43ch05.pdf idnews=619