200 million fewer people in extreme poverty by the end of 2015 (Farah Warsameh / AP / SEE)
The number of people living in extreme poverty in the world will decrease by the end of 2015 to 702 million, compared to the 902 million of 2012. This means that for the first time will have fallen to 10% of the population, said on Sunday the Bank World in your new projections.
The last three years, 200 million people have escaped extreme poverty and total percentage compared to the world population will have increased from 12.8% in 2012 to 9.6% at the end of this year.
"These projections show that we are the first generation in human history that can put an end to extreme poverty," said Jim Yong Kim, World Bank president, at a news conference to present the data.
Kim was accompanied by World Bank Chief Economist, Kaushik Basu, and both explained that the reduction of extreme poverty in these three years took place around the globe: in East Asia and the Pacific rose from 7.2% to 4.1% ; in Latin America, from 6.2% to 5.6%; in South Asia, 18.8% to 13.5%;and sub-Saharan Africa from 42.6% to 32.5%.
"Much of this overall reduction is due to the growth registered by India," Basu said, by pointing out that the Indian economy is one that continues to record high growth rates.
The institution pointed out as the concentration of global poverty over the past two decades has moved from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa: in 1990 half the population was in Asia and about 15% in Africa.
On the other hand, new forecasts this year are located half the world's population below the poverty line in Africa and only 15% in Asia.
Despite the low generalized trend, the World Bank warned that poverty is doing "more profound and rooted in countries affected by armed conflicts or excessively dependent on exports of raw materials."
Sub-Saharan Africa was particularly affected by the "fast" population growth, since it is a "key factor to stop progress."
However, the president of the World Bank stated that these developments are now "threatened" by the cooling period of growth and financial volatility in emerging markets.
Kim stressed that "emerging are facing a very difficult situation to access the capital", before rising financing costs associated with the impending high interest rates in the United States.
The WB also announced that updated the extreme poverty line, which until now was $ 1.25 a day to US $ 1.90 a day to incorporate "new information about the differences in cost of living between countries" .
Finally, Kim asked inclusive growth across the notion of "trickle down economics" which, in his opinion, only serves to strengthen the inequality; and insisted on strengthening a fairer tax collection in developing countries to prevent the evasion by the rich.
Between 6 and 11 October, the body held in Lima their joint annual meeting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - the return of the institutions created at Bretton Woods to Latin America, after almost 50 years.
(With EFE)
