World Bank predicts global poverty rate to drop by 3.2 percent this year

WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (KUNA) -- The World Bank on Sunday issued a statement proclaiming that the number of people living in "extreme poverty" around the world is expected to fall to under 10 percent of the global population this year.
"The World Bank projects that global poverty will have fallen from 902 million people or 12.8 per cent of the global population in 2012 to 702 million people, or 9.6 per cent of the global population" by the end of 2015, the statement said.
The "international poverty line" is set at USD 1.90 per day, the Bank affirmed.
The new projections provide "fresh evidence that a quarter-century-long sustained reduction in poverty is moving the world closer to the historic goal of ending poverty by 2030," the statement said.
President Jim Yong Kim attributed the progress to "strong growth rates in developing countries in recent years, investments in people's education, health, and social safety nets that helped keep people from falling back into poverty," the statement noted.
"Further reductions in poverty rates would come from evidence-based approaches, including: broad-based growth that generates sufficient income-earning opportunities; investing in people's development prospects through improving the coverage and quality of education, health, sanitation, and protecting the poor and vulnerable against sudden risks of unemployment, hunger, illness, drought and other calamities." East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa continue to account for about 95 percent of global poverty, the statement showed. (end) ys.ibi